I admit, we have loads of stories to tell already, and we’re piling them up as we go. When everything is different in a new place, all the little things can take you for surprise.

     For example, the transportation system is a huge change for us. Our first time going into town, we were with a guide and he took us to the closest local bus stop. When the bus came, we let it go by and didn’t get on. I don’t even know if it would have been possible to get on, because it was packed floor-to-ceiling with people. I’m talking sardine-can, you can’t see an inch of space inside, people hanging on to the outside, how are they not suffocating already, packed.

     So we let it go by and then our guide traipses off in a whole other direction, bidding us to follow. As we scramble after him, dodging cars and motorcycles that zoom past us pedestrians within inches, we find ourselves winding up the steep streets of Kathmandu, getting winded just in the attempt to find another bus stop.

     At last we found the next stop, joined a group of young people who seemed to be waiting for a bus, and then watched as a small van came, picked up the group of young people, and left us behind. That’s when we found out that it was some sort of school or college bus, and that we must wait a little longer.

     Finally, what they call a micro-bus came to our stop (what we in the US call a 15-passenger van). We are pointed to the back of the bus with our guide to squeeze in with everyone else, to the three remaining unoccupied seats, and then we begin our first local bus journey. Every 15-30 seconds or so, the micro-bus pulls over to let some hurrying Nepalis jump on board, and meanwhile not a single person gets off the bus. So, as I’m sure you’re now picturing, our micro-bus starts to fill up like a sardine can too.

     People are standing over each other, squeezing in together, and body parts you wouldn’t want in your face do in fact end up in your face. They continue to stop for more people the further we go and somehow, although the seats were full when we got on, people continue to squeeze in. I was so thankful for the little window in the back, and if it weren’t for that, I would have likely been feeling quite claustrophobic. I don’t even know how it would be possible to breathe had it not been open.

    At any rate, we made it to town eventually, after a head-on argument with a big bus that was coming toward us. The highways are too small for two busses to pass in opposite directions, so they usually stop and yell and honk at each other until one of them concedes to back up and let the other pass by first.

     Somehow we made it all in one piece to town, but I admit we took the easy way out and took a taxi back home at the end of the night. The next week we decided to try taking the local bus into town on our own – without the guide – and see if we could succeed. And in fact we did, after a couple of “bumps in the road” (pun intended), but that’s a story for another day…