The next day was our last day in Kathmandu. The transportation was back on to bid us farewell so we bussed to the bus station and bought tickets for seven o’clock that night. We decided to kill some time buying souvenirs in the narrow streets of the market. Neha bought some clothing and jewellery for her family and I bought a kukri – a small Nepali knife. And don’t worry it wasn’t actually sharp, but more of a display piece.
After shopping we went to the Bahai Centre, packed, said our farewells and then went to the bus station.
The second bus was far nicer than the first and even played a Nepali movie for part of the trip. The driver was a speed demon and sent us ripping down the narrow winding mountain paths. It’s a strange and exhilarating site to see your bus looming towards the edge of road, when nothing but a black void is beyond it. We passed through the same magnificent mountain scenery but this time it lay shrouded in darkness, pierced here and there by the lights of houses. It looked a bit like a second night sky, though mankind’s stars can’t compare with God’s.
It’s a fascinating site to see little outposts of light in the darkness, a little brick porch lit by a single yellow bulb, go zooming by into the night. A freeze frame of someone’s life. Each of those tiny lights is a home, peopled and important to those people, but nothing more than a pinprick to me. They looked incredibly tiny, insignificant and forlorn. I began to feel a sense of the expansiveness of the earth. And I was grateful, thinking that it was better to be this streak of light, better to be in this zooming bus, than in one of those tiny houses. How many times have I looked at planes soaring through the sky and wished I were going wherever they were going?
The rest of the trip was uneventful and similar to the ride up. I made it back safe and sound with sixth months of India to look forward too.
3 comments:
We will miss you for 6 months. Is there lots of security on the border between India and Nepal?
Wow, Lua. So, now that you've traveled to Nepal you have some more life experience under your belt. >:3 Both good times and slightly tough situations (I don't even want to know how much my feet would of ached if I had walked with you, with my flat feet n' all).
...
Should I expect a tan next time I see you? >;3 ...I want sushi now.
Anyways, you can be sure your lovely cousin Tala will be reading your blog now that I've found it. ;P
Hey Tala, it's good to hear from you! I got a bit of a tan, buts its nothing extreme.
The security on the border between India and Nepal was fairly lax. There were soldiers about in blue camo, but they didn't even check our luggage.
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