Joy is found in adventure

Taking the local bus

By EVA BEDNAR
Posted 12/22/22

Mountains call to me. They have since I grew up running through them in Pike County, PA, and when I later lived in the slightly larger range of the Ossipee Mountains in New Hampshire.

When I was …

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Joy is found in adventure

Taking the local bus

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Mountains call to me. They have since I grew up running through them in Pike County, PA, and when I later lived in the slightly larger range of the Ossipee Mountains in New Hampshire.

When I was growing up, my family and I never traveled too far from our humble wooded hometown. When I graduated college and heard of volunteer programs abroad, I was able to take steps toward my next calling—the wider world outside our country. I wanted to go somewhere vastly different from the place I grew up, but also to a place with undulating elevations.  

The perfect location: Nepal, and a small school at which to volunteer in the village of Chandrawati.

I arrived at the Kathmandu airport alongside many other adventure-seekers—people who had come to trek in the towering Himalayan Mountains. It was a simple, close-quartered, brick building; no frills.  Outside, the roads buzzed with traffic–cars, motorbikes, buses and the occasional cow smack in the middle of the road, unfazed, with the traffic flowing around it.  

I spent an evening in my hostel, gazing from its rooftop access upon the many rooftops surrounding me. Nepali people hung clothes to dry on their rooftops or watered plants, and children played on the street below.

Then I began my morning hunt for the bus that would take me out of the city to the village I’d be volunteering in.

The large buses in Kathmandu are labeled very clearly—“TOURIST” is printed on the front top of the bus, in case you had any question about who was riding within.

I boarded with several other foreigners, some English-speaking, and our bus started out on its way through the winding cliff-facing dirt roads of Nepal.  

The dust billowed in through our windows as passengers discussed their impending treks. Many were headed for the town of Pokhara, a popular trekking gate at the base of the Annapurna Range.  

Our bus paused a couple of times for questionable engine function, and it was bandaged up with what was on hand.

I’d explained to our driver that I was getting off halfway between Kathmandu and Pokhara, in Dumre, to catch the local bus the rest of the way to Chandrawati.  A couple of hours later we arrived in the bustling town, and I was the only person to stand up and exit the bus.

Utterly lost in this new place, and no longer surrounded by easy access to my native language, I meandered the roads to find the local bus station.  My nerves began to rise as I thought of the reported dangers of driving in Nepal, of transportation not uncommonly going off the narrow roads and down the cliffside.  

When I found the local bus, it was a third the size of the Greyhound-like tourist bus I had just left behind. The local bus was more like a mixture of a large van and an off-roading vehicle, and it was already packed to the brim with people and cargo, with no room for me alone, let alone me and the ginormous blue backpacking bag I was carrying with all my belongings.

A kind local man saw me standing in my silent panic, and, with a mixture of English and gestures, showed me to a lone seat outside of a neighboring shop, and said I could sit there and wait for the next bus to come, if I did not want to ride the currently departing one.

So I sat, heavily debating whether I should call my host and say that I could not make it, to turn around and get back on the large bus that would take me to a more familiar, visitor-established place. I usually don’t have much hesitation in taking a step into a novel situation (heck, I had already navigated myself through two other foreign countries and gotten this far into Nepal), but the idea of that tiny vehicle taking me into the unknown somehow had me seriously second-guessing my choices.

As I sat in my state of debate, two giggling young boys came around the corner, eyeing me.  They crept a little closer, and as I looked up at them, piped out, “Hello!  Hello!” and dashed off.  Having worked with children for the past six years, and picturing the students I’d meet at the school in Chandrawati, I took this as a soothing sign.  A moment later two men approached me, one Nepali and one British, by his accent.  I hadn’t said a word about my nerves but it was as if they knew.

The Englishman introduced himself and his friend, and said, “I know it seems intimidating at first, but there are many friendly people here, and if you need anything during your stay, we are happy to help you as well.”  They wished me luck and were gone, as the next local bus arrived.

The divine intervention of all those friendly passers-by eased my doubts enough for me to wedge myself onto the next local bus.  There was already cargo under the seats and in the aisles—tanks of fuel, a cardboard box of chirping chicks. Local Nepalis boarded the vehicle behind me, and one elderly man held his ticket out to me, pointing to it, trying to communicate something–maybe I was in the wrong seat? Did I have the wrong ticket? With our language barrier, we didn’t come to a clear answer, but he settled into the seat next to me, eventually nodding off with his head drooping onto my shoulder halfway into the ride.

Our bus took off, and my senses were alive with the true Nepal.  Conversation in a language I didn’t speak, with melodic instrumental music enveloping the air out of the bus speakers, similar to Indian music I’d heard in films, and the cheeps of the chicks in the background. We sped past green fields, with the cliffside thankfully much further away than it was in the tourist bus on the way here.  

The local bus made stops in small villages, some passengers getting off to greet the concrete and wooden-doored buildings lining the road. It took me to Chandrawati, and there I was able to meet my host family, the couple who founded this English-teaching school for the children of the village, with their two small sons. They greeted me immediately with a lei of flowers, a dash of red powder smeared onto my forehead as a traditional welcome, and said how though I was a guest on the first day, by the next day I would be considered part of their family, a “sister,” as were many of the other volunteers before me.

Because I stepped out of a common tourist path and onto that local bus, I was able to see the world in a way I couldn’t possibly have done from my hometown; the incredible taste of simmered vegetables, lentils, and spices in my host family’s home kitchen; the joyous noise of children running in their uniforms across the suspension bridge that hung over the school, as they went to their classrooms; washing up in the adjoining river—much different from the shower I was accustomed to. I saw locals shepherding their goats along the riverbank and was pulled into a circle of elder women dancing at a village wedding.  

Going off the beaten path showed me what I had hoped for: a life completely different—and in many universal ways similar—to the one I knew back home. The people of Nepal and that small village changed my fear of the unknown into the warm radiant joy of connection and eye-opening learning.

Adventure brings unexpected joy. You take a step into something unknown or unusual, and it catches you and enriches you.

Adventure can take many forms. It can mean stretching yourself to be in a new position, to grow from navigating challenges—such as traveling solo and connecting with strangers who become strangers no longer.  

Other moments I picture of utmost joy are more home-based—scaling a mountain ridge with good friends, coated in sweat, digesting trail mix and conversation. Or the simple free-form of walking and skipping through the rain with someone you love.  

Joy is found in adventure, big or small, and adventure frees us to connect with our own humanity and the endless wavelengths that connect us to every part of the world.

This article is dedicated to my mother and her many gray hairs from my travel inclinations.

travel, joy, mountains, Nepal

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