Flinx: What Happened Afterwards

As the bike was handed back to its rightful owner – in perfect condition, mind you (although there has been a short pit stop along one hilly road, where the bike underwent a small session of acquiring a footrest that had miraculously gone missing) – I had to resort to old ways of travelling: by bus. And it would be the first night bus I’d be riding in. I had reasoned that a night bus would offer the fuggy comfort of a bed in which you can snuggle boundlessly because Nepalese sleeping hours stretch from somewhere around 9PM to almost 7AM.

But, as is often the case these days, I was wrong. The endless hours waiting for the night bus to come culminated in a rainy instant when my luggage was mercilessly shoved in a trunk that was already too full and wouldn’t possibly contain it, and me being gently jostled into a grubby compact seat where my knees and the seat in front instantly merged into one bruise-inflicting body. At least I had the presence of mind to coax the ticket seller into giving me a window seat for the times when my head would fall off the back rest and wobble softly onto the cold, hard metal frame of the window (as opposed to nestling lightly on the shoulders of the person next to me – like I’ve seen it done so many times. And the good-natured Nepali would never dream of pushing away a total stranger who’s serenely snoring like an enraged bumblebee on their shoulder).

And off we went into the night. I could tell this was a deluxe bus by the fact that we were offered water bottles (I lost mine somewhere under the seats) and, after a short musical intro, they turned the TV on and we were treated to the finest Nepali (or Hindi) action movie. The rocking and swaying was soothing at first but it promptly stopped as the bus also came to a deathly halt. Because the movie captured the attention of most passengers, people didn’t seem to mind much but as the hours dripped by, this protracted pee-break turned into a nerve-breaking over-nighter. But after only two hours, the bus started slowly ambling away and its continuous humdrum soon put me to sleep.

I awoke right before the dinner break, sometime around 2AM and, dreamily following the bevy, I started munching at the dal bhat placed in front of my face.

Dal bhat is an all-in-one all-you-can-eat traditional meal that usually consists of a small mountain of rice, dal (lentil) soup, vegetable curry, tomato chutney or some pickled vegetables, some unidentified boiled greens, one papad (a thin crisp lentil-flour pancake), a slice of cucumber and a slice of radish. And whenever any of the items listed above disappears from the plate, there will be someone replacing the missing item until you are either full or literally on the verge of bursting. I’ve only ever asked for seconds and even that with some reluctance, but there’s no saying as to how many servings there can be. The sure thing is that even a physically well-developed grown man can’t possibly have more than two servings of the thing.

After nibbling at it for a while (and not even thinking about seconds), I asked for the bill and was thankful that I was still sitting down when they told me the price: the equivalent of two and a half dollars was joyfully asked of me, which is what I call highway robbery (and, in fact, we were on a highway)! Even with this hearty amount of food, it would still be almost as much as I would pay for a room at night, but nevertheless, I handed the money in the hope that I was still dreaming and this never actually happened. I intended to have a nice smoke after this potentially ruinous meal but the staff didn’t have change and I had to wait around, my dream of a rewarding cigarette destroyed and my bus on its way onward without me. It took some time for the restaurant staff to:

stop the bus and get it turned around
find my change in the recesses of some dingy waistcloth
reverently escort me to the bus and, thus, away.

All in all, it only took 15 hours to get to Janakpur, where at 10 in the morning, fully bridled and equipped with a backpack that inexplicably becomes heavier and grittier I was sweating my way to town.

I’ll spare you the details of how it is indeed possible to sweat as much as a fountain without moving a single muscle; how it is possible to not be able to tell which drops covering your body are water from the refreshing shower you’ve just had seconds ago, and which are the treacherous drops of sweat already turning into a flowing torrent; how it’s possible to instantly have sticky, wet clothes that have been clean and dry moments before; how it’s possible that even the air you breathe has the consistency of boiled butter… I’ll spare you all that.

And just tell you about the latest biblical flood that erupted in Janakpur late in the afternoon. I had been walking through steady light rain for a while and stopped for a nice beer refill when the rain doubled its forces and turned into the wrath of gods, pouring water like there would be no tomorrow. And people felt that tomorrow would be out of the questions for them, as most Nepali can’t swim and the weather conditions implied that swimming would be required even for a short hop to the toilet. I watched as the whole restaurant filled with water and people started stacking important-looking boxes to the walls. A stray dog wandered in seeking refuge somewhere where it thought it would find a dry spot to quietly curl up. But the water had already claimed the entire floor so the only logical thing for a dog to do was to try and shake the water off its fur, thus splattering all the customers.

Owner and staff started putting the fridge on top of a table and handed out bricks for the customers to put their feet on. A small boy started shovelling water out of the bar with his flip-flop; bottles were minding their own business, floating peacefully among the tables, slaloming around a forgotten bike helmet; my new-found friend, a Nepali with whom I was sharing my beers (there were more than one now, as there was nowhere to go and nothing better to do) asked for a plastic bag and ceremoniously took off his posh leather boots and socks, stored them safely inside the plastic bag – which was thoroughly checked for any holes – rolled up his pants and proceeded to explain how, if the rain doesn’t subside, he will surely perish, either from his inability to swim or from the snakes that would surely welcome this forlorn weather and prepare for the hunt…

As we watched the apocalyptic deluge, the kids outside abandoned all worries and started dancing and squealing in the waist-high waters while the motorcycle drivers morosely pushed their water-filled engines around. Night was falling and the rainfall was not subsiding. Eventually, my Nepali friend and I decided to face death and defy the mighty forces. It was easy for me, as the hotel I was staying at was but a few dozen metres away. But my friend had to face a lots perils on his way home, clutching protectively at his boots in the plastic bag. I still don’t know if he made it home…

Bonus: really low-quality phone photos