Some trucks passed by.
My work was now more important to me and I hurried to get the engine running, since I wanted to drive away before it got dark. It was already dark, as we finally could continue on our journey. Some of my passengers had slept on the roof of the bus in the previous nights because they had been afraid of snakes and scorpions. The others had slept in the bus, although it had still been very hot at night.
Only the very brave had dared to sleep overnight in the open and were thrilled by the stars.
The fearful ones, to which the two Italians also belonged, even had made a bet that I would not come back any more.
But the majority was convinced that I would come back and would not leave them alone in the desert.
The Italians would now most probably sue me for compensation for loss of "enjoyment of holidays" for compensation! I would then turn the tables and demand for then for "special benefits" and the premium not paid for the “adventure holidays”.
The best argument were the things that I had brought in the pick-up truck. Everyone were in a good mood again despite the breakdown and this continued during the whole trip up to Kathmandu.
The first time I drove the route towards Kathmandu I thought that this adventurous mountain drive would never stop. But I would also drive where the Indian Tata trucks were driven!
For some curves, I had to reverse and come back, but I drove around the corners, without rupturing the sides of the bus. Some views were uncomfortable in one or the other valley, where we saw trucks lying in the gorge, which had the size of a matchbox vehicle from the distance. Whoever crashed from up here, did not have a chance! When going uphill
I always had the benefit, since I could drive completely on the left till the end of the road, since my steering wheel was on this side. It was the same during the drive downhill – there I could drive very close to the cliffs. I could not even think of overtaking anyway. The problem I had was on the open road.
Where there was left-hand traffic, I had to drive up to the half on the route, before I track before I could view the street and could overtake. But since my bus is significantly faster than a Pakistani and Indian bus or truck, I let more distance to the vehicles driving ahead, to look past the vehicle. Then I stepped on the gas properly and I drove pass in no time.
Some passenger car drivers back home also have not learnt how to overtake. Now and then, they need a very long period till they drive past a truck.
But if the bus cannot run anymore and the engine simply stalls, even if the tank is still half full, you will have a big crisis first of all.
Only a small Nepalese driver drew my attention to something, that I had to pour some kerosene in the tank, otherwise the fuel would gelatinize and if I now gelling and if I only refueled the normal Diesel, there would be too much water in the Diesel, and the injection would then no longer function. You should not forget the height. I do not know exactly whether it was to do with the oxygen, the coldness or the bad Diesel, that my bus did not want to move forward anymore at a certain height.
Driving in Kathmandu was not my specialty and so I avoided it, when I did not have many passengers wanting to go there.
Once you are there, you do not want to leave any more and I was very often in Kathmandu, but I avoided driving there in a big bus.
Once again I was on the westward journey and had my bus parked at Connaught Place. Posters were put up on the windows; I had informed the Student Travel, that there were still ten seats to sell.
Since I came from Nepal, I had some of these tired would-be travelers who wanted to exit the country, who had not managed it and now wanted to travel home with the cheapest variant, the bus.
They had plenty of time, no more money for a flight ticket, only money for the bus and a total of ten dollars for the food for three weeks.
Some of them had already presented themselves at the Embassy, had become money and flight ticket to fly home, but the tickets - how could it be otherwise – sold off.
They couldn’t go to the Embassy once again but the bus was still an option.
I had quite a number of such people but this time they had booked till Salzburg. A young girl asked me for the third time, how many free seats were still available. I told her that there were still ten more but she should hurry up, otherwise the seats could fill up quickly and I would be driving away in two days.
She said that was bad luck for her ad disappeared again.
But on the day before the tour, she came again and did not ask how much seats were still free but asked straightaway whether there was a chance that she could travel without money. I mentioned to her about the Embassy but she had been in the Embassy already in Nepal, had received money and a ticket but the money was now over. She had sold the ticket to another person, because she had heard of my bus, which was much cheaper and she had something money remaining. I asked why she could not buy a cheap bus ticket and what her problem was. Though it was obviously embarrassing, she told me her history.
Sabrina and her history
I heard a story that I had already often heard, that was the same or similar: She had travelled with her boyfriend in a VW bus to Kathmandu from Bayreuth. Everything was going on fine till her boyfriend found another girlfriend and had simply told her that she should get lost. She did not want to not give up so easily and fought for her position. But her ex-boyfriend had just thrown her and her stuff out of the bus in which they had lived together and had driven off with the common travel fund.
She did not know where he was, but she assumed that he was in South India with his new girlfriend, which had originally been their destination as well.
She had got money and the ticket from the Embassy but she had heard that one could travel to Europe by bus for $100.
So she had sold the ticket from the Embassy and had over $200 remaining. With that she wanted to stay a little longer in India.
Sabrina wanted to save some more money and had therefore travelled in a Nepalese bus up to the Indian border and had continued from there with an Indian bus.
Shortly after the border, the Indian bus had a breakdown due to the axes and the passengers had to continue on their own.
A truck-driver had offered to take Sabrina up to the next city, which had been very convenient for her.
He stopped halfway on the road at a tea house and he had friends with whom he prepared some chicken pieces on a grill and then ate them together; they had also given her something to eat and drink. As it was dark and the driver was a little drunk, he did not want to continue on the journey. She had the feeling that everything around her was turning and rocking back and forth.
Then she also noticed that one of his buddies pulled her out of the truck and threw her on a plank bed and raped her. But that was not all, the others too fell on top of her, she didn’t know any more how many of them had been there, since they had given her something in her tea. There was no point in shouting and fighting because then she was beaten.
As evidence, she pushed her sarong she was wearing a bit high and I saw the blue-violet bruises still very clearly. With embarrassment, she also lifted her blouse. There were the same marks of brutal violence, with which she had been simply kept.
I did not want to see the rest; that was enough for me already.
Can men, people, be so brutal to a woman? What kind of beasts were they?
These Indians who are always so nice and polite - were they capable of doing something like that?
However here it was the Indians; and in another country, it was the locals there.
I offered to go with her to the police to make a complaint or to the Embassy.
But she waved that aside; she could not go to the Embassy because of the money and due to the hawked ticket.
She had also been to the police in that particular city the next day but they had only told her that she had encouraged the driver to such an act. Probably she had been stoned.
Meanwhile she also knew that not all Indian
drivers were so, since another driver had seen her early in the morning on the roadside in her torn clothes, had taken her along and had bought her the sarong and the blouse in the next town. After that, he had taken her up to Old Delhi and had also given her a few rupees for the rickshaw.
She had slept the last two days in a small boarding house along with a girl. This girl had met her in front of the boarding house when she was talking to others regarding a place to sleep, without any success.
Now the question came up again, whether it would be possible to travel along without money. She said that if the bus was not full anyway, she could have one of the empty seats without any losses to me. The blatant logic of a girl who had nothing more to lose. Of course it was clear to me that the Indians had not left her any money. She could be glad that she was still alive and had her passport. The bandits had put in her passport in her empty backpack, after they had taken out all the things they needed. An Indian truck driver with a German backpack, this would have been noticed and perhaps that is what the police would have done. But of course they did not want to have anything to do with the matter.
I summed up her situation: she was really stuck in shit.
She was a wreck, had her body covered with scratches, she was trembling, had no money, her soul was broken, she didn’t have any friends and had not had anything to eat or drink for the past three weeks because she did not have any money.
But she wanted to come along in this bus to Bayreuth. I suggested that she goes to the Embassy once again or get some money sent through her parents or relatives. But she didn’t have a father and her mother could not send her anything since she herself did not have anything had nothing. Also her mother had been against this trip, she had not liked her ex-boyfriend not at all and had always said that he was up to no good. Her mother had said that he was unprincipled and he had proved that. She also did not have any relatives.
I could not torment this picture of misery any longer and told her that she had a seat in this bus was driven.
But as for her needs for food, she had to take care that herself, she had to beg the "brothers and sisters" and leave me out of it.
That would be my condition.
But I didn’t tell her yet what I intended to do with her: that was the writing of the passenger list, in exchange there would be food and drink.
We arranged for the following day at 7 a.m. and I jokingly told her that she should not forget her backpack. But she didn’t find that funny at all.
My new office employee Sabrina was a very nice girl, who had to experience so much shit in her young life, for whatever reason.
She made much effort that it was not too noticeable what she had experienced in the last few days.
Since I knew her story, I also saw how tortured and unhappy she was.
There was no psychoanalyst or psychotherapist here, who could help her. She was alone here. But she was brave, didn’t complain and did not get on anyone’s nerves.
All spoke of "Flower Power" and all wanted to be "brothers and sisters". They even addressed me as "brother" but these were only empty phrases. Again and again I observed that they were just exactly the same characters that they did not like: the “Straights”, the “accurate ones” and the “bourgeois”.
Even hippies had their weak points and that came to light, especially when it had to do with the “mine” and “yours” - according to the motto: "What is yours, is also mine, but it is none of your business what belongs to me”. This is just as the Arabs claim that they are all brothers and sisters. According to their motto:
"All Arabs are brothers and if you don’t want to be my brother, then I will blow your brains out".
My passengers had sayings on this like: "If you have hashish in your pockets, you have always something to nibble."
Or, the really wrecked ones:
"If you have "H" in your bloodstream, you can fly like a turkey" or " A joint a day keeps your worries away."
People in Lebanon were still so innocent; there you saw this written on huge plaques on the roadside: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away".
But here in our bus we had very hardened passengers, who lived only for themselves. On the second day, it became too stupid for me and I had to say something.
This "brother and sister"- gibberish got on my nerves.
It was in Amritsar at our stop for breakfast at a small "Chaikahna", that’s how the Indians called these truck stops. Although I had called Sabrina to their attention while leaving Delhi the previous day, and had told them that she would be happy to get a cup of tea or a Chapatti since she absolutely did not have any money, it did not occur to any of them to offer her even a cup of tea. Already 24 hours had passed now, we had taken some breaks for peeing and for having tea. But so far she had not got any tea. I was so annoyed that I drove up to Amritsar and parked the bus in front of the hotel, took Sabrina with me for breakfast in the hotel after announcing that I did not know exactly when I continue with the journey. I told them that that would depend on how much time Sabrina needed for breakfast and that no one should get off the bus, because when I returned, I would drive off without checking whether all were there.
After Sabrina had gotten her breakfast, we continued. No one was missing, but there was a dead silence in the bus up to the border.
I requested Sabrina to help me with the passenger lists, which she enjoyed doing.
From then on, Sabrina was my guest and I did not need to bother about the lists any more.
Since I was solo and also wanted to remain so, I shared the room with her, but not the bed. What she had undergone must have inevitably had the result that she hated everything that had to do with sex and men.
She had experienced enough and needed distance from such things. She needed a boyfriend but most definitely not sex. That was also the reason why I restrained myself.
We got along very good, probably because I understood her so well.
When we stopped in front of teahouses, she emptied the ashtray and made the interior of the bus clean. She also lighted a cigarette for me now and then without being asked and pushed it into my mouth. I was pleased to see how she got her joy of living back again; she had stopped staring in front of her apathetically meanwhile and took part in discussions. She also put on my favorite music cassettes and I enjoyed my Neil Diamond, Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan. Which annoyed my hippies because they wanted to hear the guitar howling of Santana or the sitar sounds of Ravi Shankar.
From day to day Sabrina became more self-confident and I also noticed that she became prettier. I adored her but I did not urge her, she liked that and made her happy.
Some got out of the bus in Kabul and some came with us up to Istanbul.
In Istanbul I announced once again that from now on there would be an absolute ban on hashish. Whoever got caught with a joint or ‘shit’, would be thrown out and there would be no money back.
It became very cold in Yugoslavia and I had to switch on the heating. The bus had two different heating systems: one was hot water from the engine and then again separately the Webasto fan rotor running with diesel. These heaters rumbled quite a lot if the fans were on.
I had a boy in the bus, who had already spaced out a lot. Perhaps he had got a too much of the "good" stuff a few times and therefore the overdose had dented his brain box slightly.
I had got the boy from a female official at the Embassy, who had paid the ticket and had told me to take care of him slightly better, since he was a bit ill. I had understood it.
For two days, the boy was getting on my nerves, sometimes he screamed in bus, that I should stop immediately since we would lose a tire. The first time I stopped and checked my tires but everything was in order. Later I ignored him and his screaming and the passengers had also noticed that he was not ticking right any more.
It was bitterly cold in the field, at the Austrian border but we all had to get out of the bus and the bus underwent a major inspection.
My bus was i
nspected by four officials in my presence. They demanded that I should dismount the heater. Why this unusual harassment, I asked, and the response that I got was that a passenger had told them that something was wrong with the heater. It was not heating. As a result they had the suspicion that something could possibly be hidden in the system.
What could I say? But I asked who could have been that and promptly I got the reply that it was the boy, who looked so sickly.
I could convince the customs officials that he was really sick and was only talking rot. So the heating was not removed. But a new Job’s message came:
The customs had found 2 kilograms of hashish in the possession of a Ceylonese man and his German girlfriend.
Now this was real shit.
A customs officer had observed the young man how he had taken a ‘plate’ from his backpack and had thrown it under the stairs of the customs building.
Now I did not have to do anything anymore, since a special team came and took the bus apart. After a period of 8 hours, I could take get back the bus.
The perverse thing with the Ceylonese man was that I had taken him along from Delhi free of cost. He had allegedly been attacked and his money had been stolen. But he did have money to buy ‘shit’!!! And now as a show of gratitude, he was responsible for so much of trouble for me! No drugs were found in and on the bus but I could drive on, only after I had assembled two new front tires.
How was all of this possible?
Meanwhile it was 10 pm and where could I get the tires at this time?
So a night at the border was announced. My people were not enthusiastic, because it was -20°C and it was not possible to sleep in the bus. The guest house at the border was well heated and we went to the snug and warm guest rooms.
Some only drank something and others ordered food, which included my small list writer and me. But around midnight, the landlady wanted to close the doors. That meant that it was impossible for us to go out in the cold. I was able to negotiate with the landlady and we came to an agreement that I take the last three rooms and the rest of them could sleep in the common room.
My Dream to Be Free Page 28