Next Stop... Kathmandu

Toward the end of the Karmapa's teaching in Tilokpur, Jane had been trying to convince me to come to Nepal with her, or to meet her there. Two days later I was packed up and in New Delhi. I gave up my apartment and let the owners know that I would be gone for a few months. Two days after arriving in Delhi, I was on a two-day bus to Kathmandu.

I was traveling with a monk friend of Jane's. We thought we were going to ride on the comfortable bus to Kathmandu, the ABC bus. We walked up to the ABC bus and presented our tickets to the ticket collector. He pointed out the name of the bus company printed on our tickets and directed us to the neighboring bus parked nearby. I looked back at the roomy, comfortable looking seats on the ABC bus as we made our way to the other one. I'm not sure what happened, but the travel agent for some reason put us on a different bus even though we specifically said we wanted ABC.

Our bus was not so comfortable. The seats were quite hard, but luckily I was able to sleep. The bus ride was a straight thirty-six hour drive with meal stops two times a day and bathroom stops. I'm not talking literal bathrooms, either. I'm talking find a good bush and squat on the side of the road. Hand sanitizer has been my best friend on this trip so far.

The drive through Nepal was so charming. We would pass rice terraces and fields of flowers with thatched roof adobe houses. Scene after scene was like this and such a joy to take in. There were also curvy mountain passes that would lead back into fields and rice terraces with the charming houses. As we came within the final hours of arriving in Kathmandu, I looked forward to what my stay in Nepal had in store for me and to giving my ass a break from the rock hard seat.