Onward then to Hetauda. Up at 4:30am assurances that "there's always room in a Nepali vehicle" quickly evapourated as 10 of us crammed into the Jeep with luggage and all my Art, English and Mosaic materials destined for The South. The girls were excited at the prospect of going home, I was nervous seeing the universal lack of seatbelts. We eased onto the road at 6am and my confidence soon returned as I realised our most essential asset, "The Speed Horn" was working well, as was everyone else's. We began our hurtle down the hills with a stream of ghostly pedestrians, appearing for just a moment out of the dark, before fading away again as we drove on. Roughly a kilometre in, Myla The Driver stamped on the brakes. Seeing no obvious danger ahead, i'm not sure it was relief I felt when I realised he had merely spotted a small shrine by the roadside and was having a quick pray. Wisely, he kept this habit up for the duration of our 6hr journey. Without futher incident we made it up the Mahabharat Mountains and left Kathmandu behind, stopping only at a lonely checkpoint - "So they know how many were in the car in case we crash" I was told... The drive then quickly developed Alpine hairpins and steep ravines with the stoney green river cutting its path below. Our winding descent to the south was characterised by a precession of colourful trucks heading up hill at impossibly slow speeds and whilst not a problem in itself, each one was inevitably accompanied by a slightly less slow truck overtaking it. About 3hrs in then and Myla's constant prayers finally paid off as we hurtled around a corner to find another "two truck rolling blockade" almost on top of us. With wheels locked and nowhere to go I began to fret. I had my woolly hat on but had already surmised in my earlier safety checks that this would be insufficient protection in such a scenario. Somehow Myla found a gap that wasn't there and we came out the other side in one piece, if a little sideways. Although alive, the incident did unfortunately trigger the journey's primary vomiting session in the back. Without further ado then, we made it down onto the southern plains and celebrated our escape with a hearty breakfast served up on leaves. Our last leg took us on through the Terai - flat and fertile plains of mud huts, mango trees and monkeys. My home for the next month, it's a tough and hot land abound with Indian influences where it's hard to imagine the Himalayas are even in the same country. I've made it to Hetauda then, where the roads are at least flat.
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