Checking

So I may have mentioned checking before. Checking is what happens at Nepal's many many road checkpoints. What is checking? I'm not really sure.

The first time the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere I wondered if this was a rare event, some specific security occasion. But no, its not. On a later stop I began to question what the police may actually be 'checking'. They just seemed to stand about for a while as the buses sat there before letting them go. I tried to make up theories, perhaps this was a clever scheme to force the buses to obey the unrealistic 20kph speed limit on the mountain roads. It would be easy to stamp a permit with the correct timings for future checkpoints and delay them accordingly.

But no, a local person informed me that it was in fact my worst suspicions about Nepali policing. They are 'checking' for criminals, not by checking the documents or even names of the passengers or anything foolish like that, but by just looking at them knowingly for a bit. Do they check the luggage? In the more serious checkpoints they may give the nearest bags the slightest poke, just to check the luggage doesn't consist entirely of something unpleasant to poke.

There is a serious side to checking, some permit or other document is presented by the bus drivers at each stop. It's just another of those uncorruptible interactions where how long the bus sits somewhere depends on the will of a few police officers, I see no problem there.

Note checking is entirely different to the revenue collection points, where each vehicle, as nobody is likely to be following a 20kph limit, is taxed in turn. Luckily if you turn up at one of these points with large notes the police are happy to provide change.

Too clean

And for my latest lodge finding antics, enter the newly completed tourist lodge. I reject a room telling the owner that in short the room is too clean. I'm not sure if he has had a room rejected for this reason before, but it really is freshly decorated, and I point to various bits of mud on my clothing as some degree of explanation. Perhaps there is something odd about me, I just can't feel at home in an immaculate room. I'd fear damaging it by my being, and it doesn't take me long to find a lodge where paint peels in just a homely way.

Dipayal

Perhaps I should add some concrete numbers to my assertions about alcohol shops in Nepal. Consider Diapayal (sometimes pronounced more like Tiphael). A relatively low altitude town 8 hours drive into the mountains. The town is large by Nepal standards, spread over several hills, each with their own cluster of shops. But the central part of town is only about 150 meters of shops along one road, not exactly a city.

In short I was wrong, it's not quite true that 50% of all businesses here sell alcohol, only 20% do. But can you guess the scale? ... lets not consider why I spend my time counting all the 170 shops.

If you class shops which sell alcohol as a single category, consisting both of alcohol shops and small restaurants, its 36. That's 36 places to drink in a short street. There are probably more but I didn't ask the shops without displayed alcohol because I'd likely end up trying to explain I didn't actually want to buy 15 different bottles of spirit. For scale consider that there are probably only about 30 people walking about the entire street who are not presently working in one of the shops.

The other shops are worth a mention considering my previous thoughts on the ever present and superfluous general stores
If you lump both general goods shops (23) and food shops (15) together this becomes the joint largest single category at 38 shops. As it is separating the two is difficult, and is largely based on whether they stock fresh and bulk foodstuffs, as everyone sells the same packaged goods.
If clothing (at 33 shops the largest distinct category) and jewellery (5 shops) are combined into a single category this also comes out at 38. Defined generally as 'shops which I avoid'.
Third is restaurants (generous), of which many feature in the list of alcohol shops. There are 31 'restaurants' in the town.
Hardware is the next largest at 22, and it goes on from there.

In the end there are only 15  'alcohol shops' in town, but the rows of bottles make these clearly visible. Any good deals? No, thanks to MRP they all charge the same price. Still, in a crisis situation each of the people milling about town could probably all get a drink in under 1 minute, should the need arise.

Ways I'd rather travel than Nepali bus

Walking, Cycling, Motorcycling, Crawling over cacti.

The root cause of my problem is that I don't fit. I'm taller than the average Nepali, or at least when they made the buses. My knees either press into the seat in front or refuse to fit at an angle in the narrow seat, resulting in what is after enough hours a stress position. Even short distances as the crow flies are threefold when wound around the mountains, and the hairpins keep the average speed down. To stop people going anywhere too quickly in Nepal, buses stop frequently, for long times, without any obvious reason. I'm used to lunch and dinner stops, but there are other stops where the bus "Oh just stops here for an hour". "Why". "Just stops here". The police help in this matter, holding the buses here and there. Usually the reason given is "checking", but only once on a comparatively short stop did that checking even involve a cursory look over the bus and its contents. Combined with a night sleeping stop, where the driver gets off the bus for 2 hours sleep leaving the bus in the middle of nowhere, this sort of thing can quickly turn a 9 hour journey into 14. Then there is the music, played loud, especially if you have the misfortune to be near the working speaker. It's normal here to play music all night long, the words DVD Video coach, cause a pang of terror in me. People clearly like to listen to music when they sleep, because during the 2 hour break, someone puts a Hindi/Nepali track on their phone: on repeat 1, and leaves it to play for an hour. I get off the bus and consider sleeping on the road for a bit. In the daytime I can see that the route really is amazing. If it wasn't the worst bus I have yet encountered I'd have slept more soundly not knowing the sheer drops beyond the edge of the road.

Keep India tidy

There is a sign in Rishikesh (Himalayas) written on the rocks: "If you love India, don't trash it"
The verdict is in, and, oh India, don't take it too hard. I still love you.

Silence is violence

The treatment of women depends on culture not law. Without a change in culture I doubt India can ever enforce its new laws protecting women. In Nepal I hear a story so very different to any I have heard recently: A small mountain community blocked the road to their village while they administer punishment on a local man for beating his wife. I'm not suggesting that mob justice amounts to progress, but that where the body of people has a different opinion on what is right, things happen.

Inconsiderate India

"We should not make that which is familiar right, and unfamiliar wrong". It often strikes me how Indian behaviour may be considered as truly rude or inconsiderate, by our cultural norms. In many situations there are multiple solutions, and it seems India has settled on a different one. Take the scene when I enter a dark train waiting room where a few people, including a family, are sleeping before the midnight train. A group of young men enter, turn on the lights and set their phones to play some irritating Hindi music as loud and distorted as they can. This is just what is normal here, people can sleep through bright lights, loud noises, and even people walking within inches of their heads. Here the unusual is the person who can only sleep in the quiet dark.

Oh father Jack, what should we stock the shop with

Nepal has quite a lot of drinking, and you could probably count 100s of bottles of spirits on display walking through the average town. On arriving at the lodge at 6.30AM I encounter a man drinking whiskey. It later turns out that this man is the medicated brother of the lodge owner and asks the same questions each day. But drinking is common, and it starts in the morning. It's just unfortunate that Nepal has such an unholy definition of morning, they actually get up at 5am.

It's grim up north

I encounter another in the series of jobs which rather resemble the fabled torments of hell. An old woman who is working alone outside the village, smashing rocks. She takes the large round rocks from one pile, and beats them with a hammer to produce small angular stones for use in road building. I didn't have the courage to ask her for a photo: just a woman, a hammer and two piles of rock. I'm not sure if this is the worst employment of human life I have seen so far, but Nepal takes the award for best pythonesque rural labour.

Behind the times

It's always a bit of a shock when you sleep in a bit and find out how late it is. I wake up and see the news, with its headline banner in English: Happy New Year 2070. The double take doesn't get any less when you travel around and see companies proudly stating they were established in 2065.

First impressions

The journey was an interesting one - not so many vehicles run over the border, the road is physically restricted to a one way bridge. In short the day consisted of: train, bus, bus, cycle rikshaw, jeep, horse cart, form filling, walking over the border, form filling, and then a shared tempo. As far as borders go it could be confused with the state borders elsewhere in India, not what I would imagine as secure.

So this is Nepal, perhaps a border town is not the most accurate representation. In short


People - as helpful as the best parts of rural India

Traffic - It's almost like people here take responsibility for their actions, sorry India. I've only witnessed a few people driving dangerously so far, most of the traffic is more cautious. Far more bicycles on the road

Vehicles - I witnessed a bus in such bad condition that after belching clouds of black smoke it gave up before it even managed to pull out of the bus station. Motorbikes mostly Indian brands. So unchanged

Police - Disturbingly numerous at night. Camo and fluorescent jackets, that's new (after India).

ATMs - not so kind to foreigners, and less reliable

Currency  - In a worse condition than Indian currency, if the pieces still form a rectangle its valid. ATM's don't want to give 100 NPR notes, so these are as bad as anything else. Everything seems expensive until you remember 1 INR (INdian Rupee) is 1.6 NPR (NePali Rupee)

Packaged milk - not available...

Bars - more common than general stores. Possibly the most common store here. Just in case you are more than 20m from the nearest bar, most restaurants and lodges also sell alcohol. Don't panic, alcohol shops are open by 7.30am, till late.

Small Industries

Sometimes I have just stopped to watch local people at work. For me their daily routine is an exhibit. What might be considered low work in India is a living history for a European. Maybe our parents saw a real (not craft) potter or a blacksmith in their youth? Some of these people in smaller towns are appreciative, as not many will show an interest in their craft. Others like a poor knife sharpener are beyond caring and resigned to be looked down upon. I sat for perhaps twenty minutes watching the blacksmiths forging blades, for a short curved knife used by farm labourers. Their hammers fall in turn in a well practiced routine, before a short pause to let the blades heat. I watch the various strokes which are used as the blade cools to form the shape. I barely noticed the fire at first, its an air fed pile of charcoal less than 10cm high, behind the fat one. I haven't fully considered the economics but unless they use recycled metal the value added in the blade must be tiny. The wood for the fire is probably sourced locally, but the air is electrically driven (subsidised in India).
In Nepal I caught sight of a family chasing a chicken and decided to watch. I'd correctly guessed that this was dinner, one of their stock of 4 chickens, a dozen chicks and a goat. After a few trips around the hut it made a twist and ducked inside, where the daughter caught it. The chicken is brought to the chopping block and is ended. The man holds onto the body which manages to give a good 20 seconds of struggle without instruction from the head. I must have seen a bird prepared before but I watch anyway as it is boiled, plucked, seared and gutted. Oh how eager the remaining chickens are to eat the scraps of their departed friend. I make my excuses when invited to stick around for dinner

Rishikesh

Rishikesh is too close to Delhi, it throbs with crowds at the weekends. The upside is that lodge owners know that foreign tourists are more likely to stay all week so will offer you a daily rate which is a fraction of that Indians pay. The tourist spot is outside the town, and split over both sides of the river. The narrow bridges which link the two sides are wonderful examples of Indian chaos; just 1.8m wide the carriageway accomodates a bidirectional meandering of people, motorbikes, cows and monkeys... I would liken the process of crossing the bridge to diffusion

A modest proposal for solving Indian traffic congestion

It is easy to spot, many towns and cities in India are hopelessly clogged with slow moving traffic. This is intolerable as the long journey times and unbreathable polluted air seriously detract from the otherwise ideal life. There have been many attempts to resolve this problem; through public transport systems, bypasses and road widening. Unfortunately none of the attempts has touched the real issue, the behaviour of Indian drivers and the volume of traffic. Something needs to be done to improve traffic flow and efficiency.
It strikes me that one of the fundamental limits to Indian traffic flow is the volume of horn of a vehicle. When faced with an obstacle or continuous queue of traffic, a driver simply uses the horn to accelerate the passage of vehicles ahead. It strikes me that if this is the case, a louder horn must produce a greater effect. Simply increasing the power of car horns is a great untapped potential. As current sound levels are far below that which is lethal to listeners at 1m distance it is only reasonable that the government should set minimum dB levels for new products.
There is also the issue of traffic management. Very busy roads are often patrolled by policemen, who can only whistle repeatedly and non-specifically at the traffic. This coded instruction to move faster against the impossible is however severely limited. A policeman after all has to breathe between blasts on the whistle. Instead I propose equipping these essential agents with an automatic whistle, allowing continuous sound production and improving traffic flow by anything up to 40%. This rich vein of improvements could extend still further, with multiple auto whistles used by a single highly trained officer.
In the end it must be accepted that certain obstructions are not road vehicles and do not belong in the road; such as cows, goats, dogs, pedestrians, sleeping people, street stands, hand carts and building material stores. This is primarily due to their lack of a horn, which is a shocking oversight. Fitting the cows with bells, at a small cost, could significantly reduce their impact on passing vehicles. At the same time street sellers wheeling their carts in the road should be compelled by law to yell "ahoy ahoy ahoy". Pedestrians walking in the road too could use this same tactic, but to avoid fatigue a megaphone may be a fashionable street accessory.
Some pedestrians may naturally be tempted to ignore this law, as unlike previous laws in India it is not certain that everyone will follow obediently. This can be solved by writing lots of signs telling pedestrians to "follow all road laws". These signs could conveniently be placed on the street stands which block the pavements, so as to be visible just at the right time. It's time the government of India recognised that every Indian is special, and laws are meant for other people and not them. When each driver is just blocking the road for a moment, for example to unload a dozen passengers with luggage or so, automatically engaging horns should be government issue.
With these small changes, India may just manage to avoid traffic jams in its future.