El viaje en
el bus fue el mas largo y doloroso de todos los que hemos hecho durante los 9
meses de viaje… creo que nos acostumbramos a las comodidades de los trenes en
India. La verdad fueron 19 horas
de viaje (5 horas mas de lo que nos dijeron) y el bus no tenia nada de
turistas, era un bus local. El bus
paraba cada 5 minutos a recoger pasajeron y a descargar cuanto bulto, maleta o
bolsa habia. Hubo lugares donde la
gente no se queria subir porque el bus estaba muy lleno y no habia puestos,
entonces el chofer apagaba el bus y se bajaba a negociar con los posibles
pasajeros un precio justo para que se subieran… algunas de estas negociaciones
duraron hasta media hora.
Lo mas
aburridor del paseo fue la musica, pusieron un CD de musica tipica Nepali,
donde las mujeres cantan (o mejor dicho, gritan) en un tono super agudo. Para acabar de ajustar el CD estaba
como malo o habia un problema con el equipo de sonido y cada rato saltaba a la
primera cancion… la oimos como 30 veces.
Yo me empece a desesperar hasta el punto que me puse papel higienico en
los oidos pero no fue suficiente.
El sonido me estaba atormentando demasiado y el parlante estaba muy
cerca de nosotros. Marcela me dio
el Iphone de ella y puse musica y se mejoro un poco la cosa. Cuando ibamos a dormir comenzamos una
batalla con el ayudante del bus, pues la musica no dejaba dormir… nosotros le
bajabamos el volumen (el control del volumen estaba en el parlante) y el volvia
y lo subia. Asi no la pasamos
hasta que yo le baje el volumen del todo un par de veces y le dije que no mas
musica, el se hizo el guevon y le volvia a subir… cuando me ofusque del todo le
dije “ne, ne music” (quiere decir no en Hindu, ellos entienden Hindu) en un
tono bastante enfatico y muy duro… todo el bus oyo lo que le dije y hasta se
oyeron los comentarios de la gente en el bus. No me importa, pero lo mejor fue que no hubo mas musica por
el resto del recorrido!
Llegamos a
Kathmandu y cogimos y taxi que nos llego a Thamel, el area turistica de la
ciudad; alli conocimos un muchacho que nos ayudo a conseguir un hotel a muy
buen precio.
En la tarde
estuvimos en agencias de viaje cotizando las actividades que vamos a hacer aca
en Nepal. Decidimos que vamos a
hacer el vuelo sobre los Himalayas donde se ve el Everest, vamos a visitar unos
pueblos en el valle de Kathmandu y luego vamos a ir a hacer una caminada por 4
dias en los Himalayas.
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The bus
trip was the longest and most painful we have had in our 9 months journey… I
think we are used to the comfort of the Indian trains. It was 19 hours (5 hours more than what
they told us) and the bus was not a tourist bus, we were the only ones, it was
a local bus. It was stopping every
5 minutes to pick up passengers and unload every suitcase, sac or bag. There were places where people did not
want to get on because it was so full and there were no more seats, so the
driver will get off to negotiate with them, give them discounts and try to
convince people to get on the bus… some of this negotiations took around half
hour.
The most
annoying part of the trip was the music.
The bus attendant played a CD with typical Nepali music where women sing
(please read as scream) in a very high pitch. On top of everything the CD was broken or there was a
problem with the CD player because every time it was coming back to the
beginning of the first song… we listened to the same song (or portions of it)
around 30 times. I was loosing my
patience and plugged my ears with toilet paper, however it was not enough, I
could still hear the high pitch of the women singing. There was a speaker very close to us and the sound was
getting to me, I even considered to get off the bus and wait until the next day
for another one. Marcela gave me
her Iphone and this helped for a while.
After dinner it was time to sleep, however I was not going to sleep with
earbuds on me, so we started a battle with the bus attendant… we lowered the volume
(we had access to the volume control on the main speaker) and he was increasing
it again. We did this a couple of
times but it seemed not to get us anywhere. At some point I lowered the volume completely and told him
that we did not want more music because it was time to sleep… he acted like he
did not understand me and increased the volume again… I lost my patience with
him and I went to the volume control, lowered the volume completely and told
him “ne, ne music” in a very loud and strong tone voice… everybody in the bus
heard what I said and there were even comments about it (all in Nepali). I really did no care much, we wanted to
sleep and this was the end of the music for the whole trip.
We arrived
in Kathmandu and got a taxi that took us to Thamel, the touristic area of the
city; there we met a guy that helped us out getting a hotel at a very good
price.
In the
afternoon we went to several travel agencies getting quotes for the activities
that we are going to do here in Nepal.
We decided that we will do a flight over the Himalayas where we could
see the Everest; we are going to visit some towns in the Kathmandu valley and
then we will go for a 4 day trekking in the Himalayas.
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| En el camino desde Bardyia a Kathmandu, Nepal On the way from Bardyia to Kathmandu, Nepal |
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| En el camino desde Bardyia a Kathmandu, Nepal On the way from Bardyia to Kathmandu, Nepal |
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| En el camino desde Bardyia a Kathmandu, Nepal On the way from Bardyia to Kathmandu, Nepal |
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| En el camino desde Bardyia a Kathmandu, Nepal On the way from Bardyia to Kathmandu, Nepal |
I can imagine the discussion with the bus driver around the loud music. :)
ReplyDeleteQue viajes tan largos....ustedes son muy resistentes, pues yo ya no aguanto una serenata con polvora y estoy segura que un viaje así, me "fusila" y peor aun con una musiquita de esas que se te mete a la cabeza y te sopla el cerebro....muy bien hecho que Carlos hubiera "exigido" que apagaran esa música.....que cansancio!!
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