And so the India-Nepal travel day saga continues… if you’re just now tuning in, please check out Part 1 before going any further…
Soon after dinner, as I was JUST about asleep — you know the time when you’re not completely asleep, but you are — our bus came to a SCREECHING halt. I sat up. Within seconds, we were rear-ended by a huge truck. The impact threw my body forward and the side of my head hit the seat in front of me. The back end was smashed and the rear-window was shattered [yes. shattered]. Praise the Lord nobody was hurt. Some people had glass all over them, but no major injuries occurred. PTL.
While we were stopped, our men did an excellent job of taking care of the sitch while a few of us women found a sketchy trail to walk down and relieve ourselves. [World Race chh chh].
By this time, we’re all tired. HOWEVER. Since we’ve been doing this for 8 months, we’re all still in good spirits. Love my Q fam.
Boarded bus again. Prepared for the long night. PTL I was able to sleep most of the time. Woke up around 5am. Realized the bus was stopped for some reason. Thought little of it.
Fell back asleep. Woke up around 7. Bus was still stopped — in the same place we were at 5. Decided it was completely worth finagling my way through the crowd of aisle sleepers/legs sprawled over the armrests to use the bathroom. Turns out. No bathroom at this stop. I crossed the road and found a tree in the middle of a dust field — filled with Indian children. No shame. [World Race chh chh].
Got back on the bus. This time around, we were told we were about 20 minutes away from the border.
Nope. Not even close. We ended up stopping at another relatively shady place for lunch around 2pm. Since we had only budgeted to be in India until the night of the 29th, we had limited Indian Rupees — pooled ALL of the leftover money together to feed the 33 of us.
Then we had another 2ish hours to the border.
FINALLY reached the border. Our MOG unloaded our packs onto rikshaws to take across the border for us. We crossed. Received Nepal visas. Used a western toilet. PTL.
Boarded our new bus. Which was small. And did not have a/c. That’s okay.
Drove for a few minutes. Went to ATM [that’s what I do now that I’m in charge of team finances]. Ate dinner at a nice-ish restaurant next to the ATM. Had a cold soda & some chicken/fried rice.
THEN we boarded for our final leg.
….nope. not done yet. stay tuned for more…
