Up at 4:00...the idea is to get ahead of the rush at the next army checkpoint. The beds were horrible, full of bed bugs biting us all night long. We had chai, then off we went. We got stopped a few minutes later in a big lineup...trucks in front of us for as far as the eye can see. Another checkpoint, not opened yet. We had to wait 2.5 hours, until 7:30, before we finally started moving. We stopped for breakfast at a different town. Remember the restaurant owner and our guides getting into a big argument because the restaurant dude claimed we ate 20 buscuits, when we only had three.
It was a long drive, and we got to Dharan about 2:00 and picked up Shawn and Steph. They thought we forgot about them!
After Dharan, the road heads back into the foothills, up a big hill, and we had lunch at the top at a restaurant. Tons of locals milling around the town, because of the Nepal New Year, which is today.
The drive up through the foothills is quite spectacular. Unfortunatly, there's a haze in the air, you can't see too far.
We got to Hile about 5:30, a town on the top of a mountain, where the road ends, and it's time for offroading. The "road" past Hile shouldn't be attemtped by anything short of a Hummer...but here we were in our bus, pitch black, being thrown around the bus, as it offroads over the mountain tops. It inches along the edges of cliffs, speeds not exceeding 20 kph, probably less than 10 most of the time. Not only our bus, the regular local bus service runs along here too, as well as the goods carriers. Insane.
It took us about 2.5 hours to get to Bhasantapur, where the bus trip ended and we start trekking tomorrow.
We had supper at the lodge there, and were put to bed in nice, comfy beds, with extra thick comforters (cool mountain air!)
Words Shaun lives by:
Always drink when you can drink,
Always eat when you can eat,
Always piss when you can piss,
Always sleep when you can sleep.
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