by Frank Kusy
The climb up to these heights is a complicated one. On a good day, one can expect to make it in four hours. On a bad day, with all sorts of false trails cropping up along the route, you don’t make it at all. This felt like a bad day. The heat was overpowering, the air was enervatingly close, and my innate poor sense of direction concerned me. I studied the map again and again, and then decided to trust in whatever gods were looking after me and set off up the road.
I needn’t have worried. The local people of Bhaktapur gave me perfect directions for getting out of the city, and I reached my first landmark, the Army Barracks, with no problem. Feeling optimistic, I decided to attempt a series of short cuts across country, rather than taking the dull route up the winding main road. To my relief, just as I struck off into the great unknown, a young Nepali boy turned up. He knew the shortest routes possible to Nagarkot. Carrying two boxes of shoes he’d just bought in Bhaktapur, and whistling for all he was worth, he led me a fierce military pace down a quiet, lonely trail which ran parallel to the city’s water pipe, and which led into beautiful country and farmland scenery. We passed down winding lanes, through a gauntlet of blooming red-rose bushes full of tiny, twittering birds with white-tipped wings. Then we came over a small rickety wooden bridge, below which ran a babbling brook, and soon reached the end of the valley. Here there was a large dam and my young guide took me off the level plain and up a sheer hillside, through thick forests of pine trees. Breathlessly emerging at the top, I found that we had reconnected with the main road again, having shaved a whole hour off my scheduled arrival at this point. A short way up the road, my diminutive helper came to his house and bid me farewell. His house was right next door to an ancient Buddhist stupa.
A few minutes later, just as walking on asphalt was becoming tedious, another young lad popped up to show me another short cut route. He pointed to a high stile on the side of the road, and told me that if I crossed it I should save myself another half-hour on my journey. He was right. I reach the foot of Nagarkot having walked a total of just two and a half hours. Which was much better than four hours, and a good deal better than not getting there at all!
Near the summit, yet another mysterious helper appeared to direct me to a good lodge. This was the Sunray, on the crest of the mountain viewpoint. The dormitory room I booked at this pleasant hostel had just one other occupant – a quiet, dry-humoured Australian girl called Jenny. She was also travelling solo. Over our dal bhat supper, seated round a bare table lit by a single flickering candle, we exchanged experiences of India and admonished the acquisitive Nepali landlord for funding his regular flights to London and Melbourne by charging prohibitive food prices to poor tourists like ourselves. He gave us a simple choice: pay up or shut up. But he did it with a smile.
April 8th
Rising at 5am, we crossed up to the top of Nagarkot ridge expecting a glorious view of the Himalayan peaks, including Everest. But it didn’t happen. The heavy heat-haze rising from the plains below still hung like a shroud over the horizon. Last night’s light rainfall had been insufficient to disperse it. There was, however, one compensation: an awesomely beautiful sunrise. As Jenny and I peered into the lightening gloom, the sun emerged like a ghostly red will o’ the wisp from the dank marsh of fog lying over the mountains. Its dim lantern-light illuminated them for a brief space, and then the clouds rolled back again and all was lost to view. For these few minutes, however, the sight had been one of rare beauty.
The small minibus returning to Bhaktapur at 8am had twenty-seven people on the roof. We knew that, because Jenny and I were up there too, and we counted them. It scarcely seemed possible. And it certainly wasn’t safe. But the journey proceeded without incident, and the view on the way down – overlooking picture-book hamlets, villages and countryside – helped us forget our discomfort. Back in Bahaktapur, the cool, clean mountain air was instantly replaced by the cloying heat, dust and smells of humanity and decay. We took a brief look at the town’s famous ‘Peacock Window’ (one of the finest wood carvings in all Nepal) and then immediately set back to Kathmandu. The heat was overpowering, and both of us needed a nice cool shower.
I was, however, to be disappointed. Arriving back at the New Diamond Lodge – tired, hot and sticky – I learnt that my shower was ‘not possible’, because ‘water is off.’ Displeased, I demanded to know when it would be ‘on’ again. I informed them that I had now spent a total of six days in this lodge, and had not yet managed a single shower. The manager, yet another young Michael Jackson clone, was not used to being admonished. He just stared into his lap, looking sulky and bored.
April 9th
I don’t know why I decided to return to Delhi by bus. Long, uncomfortable bus journeys in India should have convinced me by now that Asian buses and I just didn’t get on. But for some reason – probably because I was now so keen to return to Delhi for my post, and because this was the quickest way of getting there – I managed to book myself onto a gruelling 36-hour bus trip from Kathmandu to New Delhi. It was sheer folly.
To its credit, the vehicle standing in Kathmandu bus-station this cool morning was the nearest thing to a ‘luxury’ bus I had seen in the East. It had padded seats, sufficient leg-room and windows that didn’t rattle. Further, I had supportive English fellow-passenger in front and behind who kept me in food and cups of tea when (very shortly) my Nepalese money ran out. All looked set for a calm, pleasant journey.
We left Kathmandu at 7.30am. It was still refreshingly cool. A couple of hours later, it was quite a different story. Descending from the high valley into the hot, blasted plains below, the atmosphere became uncomfortably muggy and close. Soon all aboard were wheezing and gasping for air out of the windows. By noon, the interior of the bus was like an oven. My nose, throat and mouth were dry as sandpaper, and I began to feel feverish with the heat. A raging headache seized me, and my brain felt like it was cooking inside my skull. I was reminded of one of those unfortunate funeral-pyre corpses at Varanasi, sizzling away to a charred heap of melted remains.
But it was when we reached Sonauli again, at 4.30pm, that my troubles really started. At the border, customs officials boarded the bus and began searching passengers. This search took three long hours, and all this time we were confined to our seats, baking to a crisp in a bus that had reached the temperature of an overheated sauna. The cause of the customs officers’ extended interest was a grinning Nepali they had found wearing a bright-blue tracksuit. They had gravitated to him immediately. Nobody in their right senses would wear a thick woollen tracksuit in this heat. He evidently had something to hide. And yes, he did have something to hide. Under his bright-blue tracksuit, he was wearing five more bright-blue tracksuits. And twelve pairs of luxury underpants. And seven pairs of socks. And a dozen silk handkerchiefs. One wondered how he had survived wearing this little lot, when all the rest of us were passing out in the pre-storm heat dressed in light cottons. The customs men didn’t seem surprised, though. They grinned at the overdressed smuggler, and he grinned back, as though this was the most natural occurrence in the world. Still grinning, the customs officials proceeded to go up on the roof and sift through all his bags and belongings. Searching for more contraband. One of them stayed below, and occupied himself by interrogating two harmless Buddhist monks seated within – looking in between the seams of their sandals for flattened strips of hashish. After two hours of this, the Nepali got fed up of grinning away in the sweltering heat, dressed in all his tracksuits, and summoned the customs men down from the roof. He grinned at them, and they grinned at him, and then he gave them the ‘baksheesh’ they had been waiting for all along. We were free to cross the border.
On the other side, I fell off the bus – steaming like a radiator – and downed a whole pot of tea. Then I staggered back, climbed up onto the roof, and lay there panting like an old man. The bus driver began jumping up and down in wrath below, ordering me to get back inside. I told him not likely, and would he care to send up a wreath, since I di
dn’t expect to reach Delhi alive. Three other dying people crept up onto the roof, and lay down beside me. The bus roared off into the night, and we closed our eyes and wondered if and when this nightmare would ever come to an end.
Finally, the storm broke. The sky crackled, the thunder rolled, and the rain came down in a solid sheet. On the roof, our cracked and dry mouths opened to receive the moisture, and we gave a concerted feeble cheer. Best of all, a strong breeze had blown up and this, together with the rain, soon drove the smothering mugginess from the air, leaving it fit to breathe again. We returned back to our seats within the bus, sure that now the worst was over.
But it wasn’t. In the middle of what was to be a long, long night, I came down with chronic diarrhoea again. It came very suddenly, and it struck very hard. Every stop we made, I would be clambering over sleeping bodies and vaulting out of the bus into dark trenches and ditches, moaning in agony as yet again the bottom fell out of my world.
This went on right through the night. But at least I wasn’t alone this time. After a while, the quiet, friendly German chap sitting next to me also got struck down. Every toilet-dash I made after that, he would be padding companionably along behind me. It felt a lot less lonely, the two of us groaning away together in the dark roadside ditches. Fortunately he was the only person on the bus who had a toilet roll to share.
Even so, the ordeal was a miserable one. My idea of the ultimate purgatory was no longer forty-one hours in the coffin of the ‘Express’ train from Delhi to Madras. For sheer sustained awfulness, thirty-six hours in the jolting, heaving oven of the Kathmandu to Delhi bus – travelling through drought, tempests and customs points with no food, no water, no money, no toilet roll and chronic dysentery – really took some beating. Able to sleep only in fits and starts, I spent the rest of the night in a trance of dejection, composing imaginary epitaphs for myself.
Halfway to Delhi, the bus hit a gigantic pothole in the road and leapt into the air. When it came down again, it did so with such force that I was catapulted out of my seat and had my nose smashed into the luggage rack above my head. All in all, I thought, this had been just about the worst day of my life. But then, I didn’t know about the day to come.
April 10th
Things went from bad to worse. Purgatory no longer sufficed to describe what I was going through. This was Hell, and nothing less. Other passengers suggested I eat lots of curd at each stop, for this would set like concrete and steady my stomach. But it didn’t work...It went on and on, until I simply abandoned myself to my fate. By now I felt like I had made the acquaintance of every roadside ditch and slit-trench in India. The attacks were soon coming so fierce and fast that I couldn’t even get to a ditch, but simply fell off the bus with my trousers down, ready to go where and when I dropped.
But all good things must come to an end. The bus rolled into Delhi at last, and I managed to keep my trousers up long enough to stumble off with a semblance of dignity. My mind, body and spirit were however in a state of complete turmoil. The last few hours of that journey had been the worst kind of medieval torture. I simply couldn’t believe it was over. It was like being plucked, only mildly protesting, from a living grave.
I caught a rickshaw back to the Hotel Chanakya, and asked for a room with an attached toilet. They didn’t have one. They offered me a room with an outside toilet instead. I told them to forget about the room, and to just rent me the outside toilet. They didn’t seem to think I was serious.
It was 9pm when I arrived at the Chanakya. It was a long hour later that I finally emerged from the outside toilet. There was a long line of Indians standing outside with toothbrushes, looking impatient. I told them to complain to the manager, and crawled over the road to find a chemist. The chemist listened to the account of my illness with increasing alarm, and prescribed me his strongest medicine. It didn’t work.
Five more attacks during the night left me totally destroyed. And convinced me that the Kathmandu to Delhi bus was fit only for lemmings or for people seeking a really painful way to die. If I ever did it again (and this would only be under extreme compulsion) I would take a rucksack full of toilet paper and would take care to write out my will first.
April 11th
I moved all my essential belongings over to the outside toilet this morning, and barricaded myself in. A storm of angry protests from hotel staff and guests failed to dislodge me. Through the toilet door, I gave the Chanakya manager a non-negotiable ultimatum – either he gave me a room with a loo in it, or I would stay where I was. In my condition, I was prepared to stay there all day if necessary. The manager gave in, and promised me a new room.
The new room had a loo in it. It didn’t however have any windows. Small, dark and enclosed, it reminded me of that awful, claustrophobic bus. I skulked around in here for a while, then felt the walls closing in and went up to the manager and demanded yet another room. He sighed patiently and gave me the last room he had. This had windows in it, and a loo. It also had a team of workmen hacking bits of wood about right outside my door. My nerves on edge I went back in search of the manger. But he had fled, and left a deaf receptionist to deal with me instead. This fellow was so absorbed in his paperwork that he didn’t even look up when I lodged my complaint. So I took away the paperwork, and repeated it. His sharp beak of a nose finally crept off the desk, and he surveyed me with puzzlement. He didn’t look like he’d ever received a complaint before. He didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, he told me that the offending workmen would be finished soon, and would be out of my way. They were just making a new toilet door.
Passing down Main Bazar Road, I found far more suitable lodgings at the Queen’s Hotel. Not only was it cheap (Rs35), but I had a loo, windows, two beds, a balcony leading onto the roof, and no workmen making noise outside. It was a real find.
Today, in the park opposite the Poste Restante, I saw a bullock mowing the lawn. It was hitched up to a rotary mower, and ambled erratically over the grass under the indifferent supervision of two half-naked herdsmen. Both had little cane whips, which they listlessly flicked over the bullock from time to time, probably to keep the flies out of its eyes.
A short time later, returning to my hotel by rickshaw, I passed a giant spade-bearded Sikh standing on the kerb. He wore a manic grin and his wild eyes gleamed with ferocious joy. He seemed to be some sort of popular magician. A large, curious crowd had gathered to watch him give a dazzling display of flashing sabres at the very edge of the passing traffic. Nearby, I saw a cycle-rickshaw rider sitting in the gutter rubbing his head. It was bleeding. The look he was casting at the performing Sikh suggested that he had just driven too close to the flashing blades and had had his hair parted for his carelessness!
April 12th
My chanting seemed to have a pleasant, soporific effect on the Indians staying in my lodge. They all assembled companionably on the roof to listen in as I began my prayers, then drifted over to go to sleep or recite Indian sutras to each other under my window. I was most touched.
I visited the Plaza cinema this morning, to see a Hindi comedy called Jewel Thief. It was really rather good. In fact, it was so good that I managed (for the first time with an Indian film) to sit the whole way through it. Even when it ran over three hours, and even though I had not yet had breakfast. My interest was held by the male lead, who was a dead ringer (though a few shades darker) for Cary Grant.
The plot of this picture, like so many Indian movies, moved at a very rapid pace. So did Cary Grant. He was continually running away from grossly overweight Indian ladies trumpeting love songs at him. He hardly had any time to be a jewel thief. And he was so tired from side-stepping buxom songstresses that when he managed to land a weary punch on some villain, his heavy heroine had to scrape him off the pavement and drive him home to recover.
The golden rule in Indian films of this sort is that the woman who sings best (and loudest) gets the hero. It doesn’t matter if other women have the faces of angels or the fi
gures of Titian goddesses. If they can’t sing, they don’t get a look-in. The hero won’t even acknowledge their interest. In this film, the heroine (i.e. the woman who sang best) resembled a gargantuan, doom-laden Cassandra. The only time she wasn’t prophesying disaster or feeling certain of impending tragedy was when she was singing. Which was a pity for ‘Cary’, because he would have been far better suited to the nubile, petite secretary who kept trying to drag him off to bed. The only trouble with her was that she couldn’t sing. So he had to pretend to be bored every time he saw her. The man was so perfectly under control, that he could appear bored and indifferent even when surrounded by the state guard, a posse of trained snipes and three elephantine women who couldn’t sing. The only time he didn’t look cool was when the script required him to sing a love song on a mountain top dressed in lederhosen, a little red waistcoat, a limp brown tweed jacket, a huge bearskin hat and a pair of brilliant-black pointy shoes. Nobody could look unconcerned in that outfit.
The film came to an end very suddenly. There was no warning, no fade-out, no credits, no closing curtains, nothing. Just a bare, empty screen.
April 13th
As I lit up the first Panama cigarette of the day, I reflected that the more I saw of India, the more I liked it. Wandering through the streets, and observing the many herds of sacred cows, for instance, I could now view them as amiable, benevolent spirits rather than unnecessary public nuisances. Previously, I had been irked to hear that there were twice as many cows in India than human beings, and that this explained a lot of the prevailing food shortage. Now, however, I could see some of their value. Not only did their endless patience and calm stoicism impart some sense of order and tranquillity to busy Indian streets, but they also managed to keep the accumulations of waste and rubbish on the road down by eating a remarkable amount of it.