Commuting

One would think that Kathmandu University (KU) would be in Kathmandu, but one would be mistaken. The land that the government had available at the time of the university's founding in 1991 was outside the small town of Dhulikhel about 18-20 miles east of central Kathmandu. The University runs several buses from Kathmandu to the campus in the morning which are supposed to arrive before the first classes begin at 9:00 am. The last class ends at 4:00 pm and the buses leave campus at 4:15 to take everyone back to the city. Anyway, that's the way it's supposed to work. And, from what I'm told, it actually worked that way in the past, taking about 40 minutes in each direction.

Then, about 5-10 years ago, the local banks began providing car and motor bike loans to average people. Everyone and their brother purchased some kind of vehicle and began clogging the streets, and most of these streets were not designed for high volume traffic. I'm not even sure that there are traffic laws. There seems to be a set of informal rules that drivers abide by; however, things begin to break down during rush hour and traffic jams, snarls, and gridlocks are common. A few poor traffic cops with face masks to filter out diesel fumes walk up and down the streets doing their best, but it's like trying to drain the ocean with a teaspoon.

I have a 10-15 minute walk in the morning to the bus stop on Dilli Bazaar road. The bus typically arrives at 7:50 am and then makes good progress through the city. The first slowdown comes when it heads east out of town just south of Tribhuvan Airport, but in the morning it usually isn't too bad. The worst morning commute I had was the very first day I went into KU for a faculty meeting. The bus threw a transmission in Bhaktapur, the main city between Kathmandu and Dhulikhel, so we had to stand by the side of the road for half and hour outside the National Tuberculosis Center waiting for the back up bus. That morning the commute was 1 hour and 20 minutes. Coming home, however, was nightmare. There was gridlock in Bhaktapur due to a combination of a truck breakdown, buses parked on the road, and drivers trying to pass and getting stuck in front of cars in the other lane. The evening commute that day was 2 hours and 20 minutes. And those commute times don't include the 15 minute walk to the bus stop in the morning or the 30 minutes of waiting before the bus leaves the KU campus (if you don't get to the bus that far ahead of time, you might not get a seat). My worst total roundtrip commute time so far is 5 hours. The fastest was 2 hours 15 minutes, but that was on a government holiday when traffic was much lighter. Average on-the-bus time is about 3 1/2 hours.

But that doesn't mean I'm sitting on the bus bored to death. There are so many things to look at along the way. Bhaktapur is a pretty gritty area, at least the part that the main road goes through. There are always people to look at and oncoming traffic to send chills up your spine because they never swerve out of the way until the last second. We came within inches of wiping out a fellow on a motor bike the other day. One of the bus drivers couldn't be more than 18 and he drives like Jeff Gordon, pedal to the metal. The other driver is more mature and a little more considerate of other drivers. Yesterday, coming down the long steep hill from Dhulikhel back into the Kathmandu Valley, I noticed that he gave a little Hindu prayer sign with his hand. I didn't know if this was a prayer to the new statue of Shiva's wife, Pravati, that is going up on a nearby hill or if he was asking the gods for the brakes not to fail.

I always breathe a sigh of relief when the bus leaves Bhaktapur and starts the ascent into the hills toward Dhulikhel. Things get much more pastoral, the traffic thins out considerably, and the air is cleaner. The advertising signs also get more entertaining. My favorites are Shakalaka Boom Noodles and one that advertises cheese balls by saying, "Go out and buy some balls!"

Yesterday was another bad commute day, but as I sat sweating in the exhaust fumes near the airport coming home, I glanced north out of the window to see a spectacular sight. For the first time since we had arrived, the glaze of humidity and cloud cover had receded just enough to show a few snow capped peaks of the Himalayan Range in the distance. It finally struck me that I'm really in Nepal.

P.S.- Getting ready to leave for my morning commute I received a call from the Chairman of my department. There had been a very bad accident on the road to Dhulikhel and no traffic will be able to get through for several hours. They've had to cancel classes today.