Incredible Bhojpur

Bhojpur is a hilly district about 30 mins far from Kathmandu on an airplane but around 2 days far by bus. I have made three trips to Bhojpur so far (one incomplete). 

 

Incomplete trip:

It was my second official trip from the office after Nepalgunj. The difference was that I was the only female candidate traveling this time. I had known a lot about Bhojpur from my boss who had recently been there. All I knew was that Bhojpur was not an easy ride. I had seen a few videos of Bhojpur which showed how muddy and slippery the road was. It also showed how the passengers (of the local bus) had to tie thick ropes on the bus and pull it when it got stuck in mud. I was already scared and was constantly wishing for the trip to get cancelled. But, all my wishes were in vain and we were traveling to Bhojpur. I had been to a couple of places in the Western region of Nepal, but, it was my first visit towards the East. 

Dhankuta was our destination for the first day. If we reached Dhankuta that day, we could easily reach Bhojpur the next day. So, that was our plan. Reach Dhankuta as soon as possible. Once we stepped Terai, the scorching heat already made me restless. I felt like the sun was sucking up my blood with an invisible tube. Finally, we reached Rautahat where we had our lunch. I called my mother and told her we were down for lunch and would call her once I reach Dhankuta. The lunch was not at all appealing. I could see huge/healthy wall lizards sticking all over the ceiling. Just to fill up my empty stomach, I ate as much as I could. I washed my hands and asked the lady in the kitchen where I could find the restroom. She took me with her and told me that there was no lock in the restroom. I thanked her for coming with me and requested her to wait for me outside. She said okay and I entered the restroom. When I came outside she was not there. That gave me a little heart attack. I had been to a toilet without a lock and there was no one looking for it from outside. 

After that, we headed forward to Dhankuta. We met a long traffic jam when we reached Saptari. It was around 40 degree centigrade outside which made it difficult for us to sit inside the vehicle. So, we decided to get some cold water from a nearby store. After a few interactions with the people outside, we came to know that there was some strike going on by some political party and they wouldn’t call it off until their demands were fulfilled. My head was beating along with my heart and I could hear it loud and clear. I was having a severe headache so I took a para-cetamol and swallowed it with some water. We had been inside the vehicle for about 8 hours which was making me nauseated. I just had to grab as much energy that I could so that we could pass the traffic and reach Dhankuta. Even after few hours of getting caught by the traffic we could not find a way to pass Saptari. My mom was already worried so she kept on calling me after every 10 minutes. I made her talk with my boss and told her not to worry. 

It was already 8 p.m and only thing I could hear was my stomach making unpleasant sound. So, we went to a hotel which was supposed to be the only good hotel in that area. But unfortunately, there were no room left in the hotel. We went in search of hotel room but our efforts were all useless. Finally, it was decided that I would go to sleep at a girl’s room who was apparently our ex-staff. I met her and exchanged greetings. I had my luggage bag with me so I got changed and left my trousers and T-shirt (soaked up in sweat) on a chair in the corner of the room. She told me how she was staying up with her aunt for her studies. She introduced me with her aunt who asked me to stay with her for some more days. Even though I wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible, I smiled and said that I would definitely come back sometime soon. We came inside our room (supposed to be a shared room) and had a little chat. We didn’t actually talk for long as I was dead tired and just wanted to sleep. But, it wasn’t an easy task to sleep in a hard mattress and pillow about a foot high. It was already 11:45p.m and I was still struggling to sleep. There was a small bulb in one corner of the room. At around 1:45 a.m, when I was just about to doze off, I heard some sound coming from one corner of the room. The sound was like somebody is hitting a hammer on the wall. I was so scared that I could not even open my eyes. I was in a girl’s room I had known for just few hours and some creepy sound took away my sleep. I assembled all of the courage inside me and placed my hand inside the pillow to take my phone. It was already 3 a.m. As I was feeling uncomfortable, I turned to the other side to sleep. Just when I turned, I saw a woman standing and staring at me. When I looked carefully, it was the same aunt my roommate had introduced me with. My heart beat accelerated and I could not even close my eyes. I just wanted the night to pass quickly. I even thought of quitting my job which had made me experience these things. After all the thoughts sunk deep into my brain, I forced my eyes to shut. Shut so that I could replace the face of standing woman with darkness. My phone rang when I was still struggling to get some sleep. When I opened my eyes it was already 5 a.m. I picked up the call which was from my boss asking me about my stay that night. My roommate got up and made me tea. I guess it was the only good thing about the stay at her place. I thanked her for letting me stay with her and told her that I was getting late. I got changed and just when I was about to tie my shoe lace, I found several holes in my pant. I figured out that there were rats biting my pants. Those were my new baggy pants which I had bought for the same trip. And that was what the creepy sound was all about. But, I still don’t know why that woman was staring at me whole night (mystery).

I met my office team and told them the weird story about my stay. They tried their best to scare me (I was scared indeed). We called our staffs in Bhojpur and they told us about the preparation they had done for the program. This made us difficult to cancel the program. So, we decided to take the other way to reach Bhojpur. We were traveling all the way under the crippled bridges and inside the crowded slum areas. After all the hard work, we reached Udaypur. We came to know that there was no way to cross the ‘strike area’ and finally we decided to stay there for that night. Luckily, we found a good hotel with air conditioning rooms. As soon as I entered my room, I dozed off. Thank God! I remembered to keep an alarm for 4 a.m. the next day. I woke up and took shower. We were returning back to Kathmandu and I was extremely happy. This was the first incomplete trip to Bhojpur and it had made quite an impression on me.

First successful trip:

Second trip to Bhojpur from the office but it was technically the first one for me. It was a much awaited trip indeed. This time I was not the only female and that made me really relieved. It was in September just before Dashain when we left for a fifteen day long trip to Bhojpur. Everything was same. We drove early in the morning and our destination was still the same, Dhankuta. We had our lunch at the same place. The hotel was still the same but with a little improvement. No, not in the food they served but their toilet had locks. After having our lunch we headed forward to reach Dhankuta. Just when we reached Dharan, it was getting darker. The driver had never been to this place so he took a wrong turn. For around an hour, we were just driving inside the Dharan city. Finally, one of our team member found out that we were heading in a wrong direction. So, we had to return. However, we could see the lights, the broad roads and the beautiful houses which we would not have seen if the driver hadn’t made a wrong turn. While driving uphill from Dharan to Dhankuta, our driver told us that there was some problem with the headlamp. We were already exhausted and wanted to reach Dhankuta and rest our backs. But, the problem with headlamp made it worse. We had to speed down and let every other vehicle over take us. We had to stop at Bhedetaar to fix up the headlamp. I saw amazing Dharan city from high above the hill. I still regret not taking pictures of the amazing sight that we had seen from there. At around 9 p.m we reached Dhankuta. The hotel was kind of okay but it had a weird bathroom attached to the room. 

We had to make another 12 hours drive to finally reach Bhojpur. It was also apparent that the vehicle we had taken would not be able to pick up to the muddy hill. Hence, we had to leave our vehicle and hire a local jeep that was famous as ‘one ten’. All this time I used to think that the jeep named ‘wanten’ was named so as it was made in China.  But to my surprise, it was named ‘one ten’ because of its engine number. Many times I thought walking for two days would be less dangerous than traveling on that one-ten. The seats were loosely seated which would bump along with our rear part while traveling. It was the most tiresome journey ever. We were all shouting at the driver to take it slow. But, the one driving the jeep was really young and he was not listening to us at all. Looking at the road, it seemed like it had rained heavily for weeks. The road was all muddy and our jeep slipped many times. There was a point when our jeep got stuck in the lake of mud which was around two feet deep. One side of the jeep was outside muddy water whereas the other side was completely drowned inside it. There was mud all over our wrecking jeep. That was the time when I thought we would definitely fall into that puddle of mud. Hats off to the driver who showed courage to start the inclined jeep again. He drove it a little backwards and then accelerated the jeep. We were finally out of the mud pond. 

The local people said it would take another hour to reach our destination, the Bhojpur bajar. We were all very tired, scared and nervous. We didn’t want more adventure to our journey. But, Bhojpur had it all on us again. There was some road construction going on which halted our one-ten. We waited for around half an hour. Our young driver had been insisting us to take the short way but as we didn’t want to risk our lives we had refused his offer. As it was already getting darker, we decided to take a short cut. We were now driving along a narrow passage. There were few points where I could see dead ends. The driver had to quickly make a U-turn to stick to the passage. He would ask us to get down and walk till he could pick up us again. My heart skipped a several beat during this journey. There were women grazing their cattle and I could read from their faces that they were shocked to see us. 

FINALLY! We reached Bhojpur bajar and off we went inside the Silichung hotel. The hotel had a common toilet and the rooms were separated with plywood. We could hear what people were talking in the other room. It was loud and clear. After listening to a few personal/professional talks from other rooms, we (my roommate and I) started to converse by whispering. I discovered a new sister during my trip. We talked (whispered) whole night about our studies, crushes, love life, family issues, official works and what not. We laughed for no reason, roamed around unnecessarily and ate a lot of Korean food. Korean delicacies were served to us in Bhojpur which seemed pretty hi-tech. We would never forget to appreciate the chef 
for providing us delicious meals throughout our stay.

One thing that I wished the hotel had, were attached toilets. We had to wake up early in the morning to be able to use the toilet without having to queue up. This was by far the best trip I had made to Bhojpur. We went for morning walks, afternoon walks and even evening walks with our Bhojpur team. I still remember the fresh and salty doughnuts that we ate with fresh milk. The hospitality of Bhojpurians is something to praise about. There were a lot of Newars and Rais in Bhojpur. Whenever I entered a shop owned by a Newar, they would instantly talk about my resemblance with their relatives. And the case was similar for the shops owned by Rais. Yes! My chinky eyes did all the work. Everybody seemed so nice. They were all very helpful and polite. This is not how Kathmanduites are. 

Two weeks passed in a blink and it was the day we had to return. We bought a lot of gifts (Khukuri, Kurtha, Ghee and Dalle khursani), hugged the hotel owner for being so nice, thanked our chef for some extra pounds that we gained during the stay and left Bhojpur. 

Not only was our journey to Bhojpur full of adventure, but, the return trip was equally memorable. We almost got stuck in the strike. Yes! AGAIN!!! We reached Itahari and decided to travel next morning. As we could get stuck on the strike, we chose to travel at 3 a.m the next day. All this traveling had done its job on me. I was sneezing, had a runny nose and a sore throat. I drugged myself with a D-cold tablet and slept without having any disturbances. 

Next day we travelled at 3 a.m. to pass the strike area as soon as possible. We reached Koshi Barrage just when the sun was ready to shine. I got spellbind by the enigmatic beauty our nature had possessed. We were set to cross Koshi before the sunrise and before the strike began for the day. So, we could not take pictures of yet another beauty of the nature. 

I reached home safe and sound with a lot of extra weight gain. This was all about my first and best trip to Bhojpur.

Last trip:

I had my exams going on so I had skipped a lot of trips to Banke, Makwanpur and Bhojpur. Once I was done with the tests, I had to travel to Bhojpur. Luckily, one of our team members got caught up in his work and he was traveling with me. We were all set to fly this time. I had heard a lot about the terrifying flight to Bhojpur. But, I was still happy to be able to experience that. 

It was mid-winter and the flights were getting cancelled because of foggy weather. As there was only one flight to Bhojpur a week, if the flight got cancelled that day, we had to opt for a local bus (which I definitely didn’t want to).  I was praying for the flight to not get delayed or cancelled. But, we were flying via NAC airlines and we would not know if we are flying or not until the airplane flew. 

We reached there an hour before the flight time, got our stuffs checked and waited in the terminal. Many of the flights were getting cancelled that day but there was no information about our flight to Bhojpur. There were information desks for every other airline but there was no one to give us information about NAC. Our flight was at 8 a.m but there was no clue if we were flying or not. It was already 8:30 when one of the staffs of NAC ran and called “Bhojpur, Bhojpur”. It felt like we were going on a local bus. We got seated in the bus as directed by that person and waited continuously for the driver to arrive. After another hour, we finally got the opportunity of entering the airplane. Everybody was in hurry. It seemed as if we were in a fish market. We were greeted by the airhostess who was not at all pleasing. She was almost shouting at an old lady who didn’t know how to put on the seat belt. When I tried to lock my seatbelt, it didn’t work. I didn’t want the airhostess to teach me with her high pitched voice so I tried again. I found out that the seat belt was broken. I didn’t give a damn and just left working on the seat belt. 

It had been more than an hour since we were seated in the airplane. But, it was not flying. I was still unsure if the flight would take off or not. Finally we got the clearance and the flight took off. In around 30 minutes, the airplane landed with bumps that nearly took my heart beat away. When getting down from the airplane, I saw that there were lots of bumps in the muddy runway. The runway looked like a bad cricket pitch. I sighed and thanked God for bringing me safe to Bhojpur.

The airplane would now fly off to Biratnagar. I heard someone screaming “Biratnagar! Biratnagar!” like the conductor does in the local bus. A bunch of people eating oranges in the side of the runway got up and rushed towards the airplane. I was surprised by the management system and was still thanking god that I was still alive. 

We had to hire the famous ‘one-ten’ to reach our destination from the airport. It was around 30 minutes drive from there. Finally we reached Bhojpur (still alive). 

There, we started our own way of communicating with rhymes. Some of the rhymes were really funny. It was like a competition and everybody was busy in their thoughts. Busy in showing their talent of rhyming. 

Bhojpur made me go on a party in my sleeping dress (night dress sounds a little over the top for the thing I was wearing). This is a funny story. We had a very charming colleague working with us in Bhojpur. She had two kids- two cute boys. They would call me aunty since our last meeting. I wanted to meet them so I asked their mom to take me with her. I was already half asleep when she woke me up to go to her place. I didn’t feel like changing as it was already dark. So, I just put on my slippers and I was ready to go. 

Before reaching her place, I saw a house all lighted up with the glittery dresses worn by women. We were just passing by that house when one of the women called the didi I was walking with. When the didi told her that she had a guest and would not be able to attend the party, that woman came downstairs, held my hand and asked me to join the party. I was surprised, shocked, nervous and half angry. I really didn’t want to attend a wedding party of people I didn’t even know and on my sleeping dress. However, she was able to convince me and that was my first party at Bhojpur (on my pajamas). 

After completing all of our programs, we returned on the jeep. The ride was quite fun. We were still thinking about interesting rhymes to communicate. The road was still the same (minus the mud) and the vehicle was also the same. We stopped at Dharan for dinner and stayed there for the night. We drove to Kathmandu from Dharan the next day. 

Bhojpur has been a great experience. I will definitely look forward to traveling to Bhojpur once again. 

Oh come on adventure!!! BRING IT ON!!!