Nepal: Land of the Bus
Shudder, clank, and rattle, swaying from side to side the fully overloaded bus makes its way up and along the mountain road, potholes and ruts are avoided when possible. The drop is something like 3000 ft from the narrow unguarded edge to the trees and river far far below. We slow to almost a stop and creep towards the edge as another bus coming towards us squeezes past. A blast of the air horns and we slowly gather some speed.
This is the land of the bus where every day tens of thousands of people are moved around and over the country. In a land with only a slip of a railway system tucked away in a few miles of track near to the Indian border, this is the only way to travel for the vast numbers of the population for whom airfares are out of reach, and car ownership only for the very rich. Produce has to be got to market, people to the district hospital, workers off for a day or weeks work, children to school, all beyond the reach of a motorbike or ox cart.
They say that you know a Nepali bus because there is always room for one more. With sitting boards placed between the aisles of seats, and three people already sitting on each of the two seats down the aisles, and the full length roof rack already fully loaded with the brave usually youth, you just cannot contain your surprise as the driver slows and stops beside yet another little group on the roadside who have “stuck their arm out”. Somehow we fit them in.
All of life happens on a Nepali bus. A woman breast feeds her child, a man clings to his platted cage of day old chicks, a little boy is sick into a plastic bag and his father drops it out the window, and at the last count 5 goats had been hauled up the back onto the roof to join the people and piles of bananas up there. In the city where roof travel is banned at least in theory, goats regularly travel inside the bus, but granted not on a seat.
At each small village the conductor hangs out the open door shouting the destination urging people on board, then thumping the side of the coachwork, that’s the signal for the driver to move off. But wait, more thumping on the paintwork, someone is shouting, we stop and yet another person is somehow squeezed in.
Driver and conductor work as a finely tuned team, conductor hanging out the open door he will whistle or thump the side when its possible to move in after overtaking, or he will use the specially developed Nepali bus hand signal to tell the overtaken driver to slow down as they have to move in because of an on-coming vehicle. After a couple of hours sitting near the front you soon learn this “bus language”. The team’s aim is to pack in as many passengers as possible and get them to their destination as safely and as quickly as Nepal’s roads will allow. Timetables and schedules are non-existent; waiting around until the bus is full is the norm.
Riding on a Nepali bus is certainly a challenge for westerners who are used to their private space. Getting on an already full bus or better still, getting off, stepping over those boards, squeezing around people, all the time the bus is moving and swaying is an unforgettable experience. People smile especially at the foreigner; they know this is a unique Nepal experience. Sometimes an orange or banana is offered for refreshment or even the few inches on the end of an already well-packed seat.
Sometimes the driver will reach up to a little box above his head where a radio is housed, then the happy receptive sounds of Nepali music will dampen the creaking of the old bus as it labours up a winding section of road. Gears will gradually be lowered each one proceeded by a belch of black smoke from an engine that would be banned in all western countries. We move out to pass a bus where conductor and driver are changing a punctured wheel, a blast of air horn before the next blind corner is a reminder never to sleep near a bus depot or stopping point. The tone and volume of those horns will somehow convey just how important this bus is, fine but at 4.30am??.
Occasionally the driver will take a mobile phone call from a colleague several miles up ahead, warning of a political roadblock in Nepal called a chukka-jam. Since there are no side roads to avoid this we pull into a small café service area. Driver and conductor disappear for their complementary refreshment the rest of us file off and stock up for what might be a 3 or 4 hour wait.
Finally we are coming to our destination it’s been a long day, we pass a religious shrine, and the driver touches his forehead in a Hindu sign of recognition of the gods during the journey. A reminder for me to thank God for another eventful, very late but safe journey.
It’s said that up 50% of the worlds population get their water, mainly snowmelt from the Himalayas. Of course either side of the world’s highest mountain range is China and India whose growing populations demand more and more of this seemingly diminishing resource. 
Nepal is almost totally reliant on water not only for the usual needs of its population but also for the electricity it produces. But the demand outstrips supply and during all months of the year but especially during the cold dry winter, electricity is cut to the large population centres on a rotational basis around the country, sometimes up to 40 hours per week.
This of course has little or no impact on the vast numbers of the population who live in small “powerless” villages whose supply of water is the village tap or river from where it must be carried every day. These taps are often the social meeting centres as well as work area.
As in so many countries of Asia, farmers, often woman are experts at managing water for their terrace fields where the slight angle of the terrace and a carefully placed stone ensure the supply channelled in from a higher river supplies each field in turn without washing out the precious soil.
