The bus ride from Pokhara to Chitwan was supposed to take 6 hours, so we set off with high hopes that it wouldn't be a really long travel day. Of course, as usual, that turned out not to be true. We were starting to drop out of the foothills through some spectacular river valleys and were about 40 kilometers from Chitwan when we got backed up in a long line of traffic. It was pretty obvious that it was either because of an accident or landslide. It turned out to be the latter. We spent hours backed up along with everyone else, since there are no other roads connecting the Terai with the foothills anywhere in the area. There wasn't much shade, so it was a good thing that it wasn't unbearably hot -- just enough to keep people off the bus. Every once in a while a bus or car would come thundering by the line of cars, for some reason thinking they could get through when no one else could. Invariably, they'd end up backing up the highway causing all sorts of traffic issues. We met a lot of nice people while stranded on the road -- one guy on our bus was actually from Tucson! Also on our bus were Vicki and David, a couple from Hong Kong who we ended up spending a lot of time with in the following days. At one point I Sarah and I also watched a shady character get up on top of our bus and try to get into people's bags. Luckily the bus driver saw him and yelled at him to get down. He actually had the nerve to try to make it seem as if he was just trying to get a better look up ahead!
After several hours of waiting, word trickled back that there were huge rocks in the way and that vehicular traffic might not make it through that day. That settled it for Sarah and I, so we got our bags off the roof of the bus and started walking for the blockage, hoping to get across it and catch another bus on the other side. It was a two kilometer walk in the rain to the landslide spot. As we approached the area, there started to be a lot of movement of people coming towards us. They had just opened the gap for people to hurry through, and people were trying to get by before they closed it again to continue working. We sped up and pushed our way through the oncoming people trying to get there quickly. We reached the landslide as the last of the people they were letting through straggled by The road workers were frantically trying to stop people as they kept an eye upslope for sliding debris. There were a couple bus sized rocks still in the road, along with hundreds of tons of dirt and rubble. It was obvious they weren't going to get even one lane open for traffic for several hours. We rushed across the debris (two of the last 5 people to do so) and into a big milling crowd of people already stopped from going the other direction. The feeling as we continued walking in the rain away from the danger zone was very refugee-like; people were carrying all of their belongings, all walking in the same direction. Further on, the truck drivers and bus people were all taking the delay in stride. Many of them were taking showers in the small waterfalls, shaving, doing their laundry, and cooking dinner under their trucks.
We ended up walking over 8km from our bus to another bus that could take us to Chitwan. We ended up getting our "trekking" experience in Nepal after all! The bus we got onto waited around for several more hours to pick up any more people that might have crossed through the gap, then headed out. We ended up arriving at our destination almost 9 hours late. Vicki and David, both of whom had decided to wait with the bus, arrived 3 hours later (at midnight). What a crazy day, but actually not a bad one. We met a lot of really great people, including 3 Irish college boys (one of whom kept talking about his childhood as when he was a "wee" boy -- how cute) and a young Nepali man. The scenery was pretty impressive, as well. High steep green cliffs with waterfalls cascading off them will brighten any one's mood.
Heading for the landslide
Across the gap!
Pushing through the stranded masses
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