Jeff and I completed the journey from Kathmandu to Nepalgunj in just a shade under 17 hours. We spent the first eight hours of the ride speeding around hairpin turns in the mountains as we made out way down through the mountains to the Terai with 28 companions in a bus built for 15.

The middle five hours was spent on foot, waiting for our bus to catch up with us. Causing this delay was a bridge that had suffered structural damage at the hands of the Maoists during the civil war, it has not yet been repaired. Upon reaching the bridge, all of the passengers alighted and walked across on foot, but the bus had to take a detour that was severely backed up with traffic as rain had turned the dirt road to mud. We hiked several miles up the road during the five hours with a new Nepali friend who was a nature enthusiast. He dutifully named every bird we saw on our trek for us, Jeff has promised to write more about this hike so I will defer to his blog for that particular piece of the story.

Our final four hours of the journey were spent shooting off through the night as the driver tried to make up for lost time by driving as recklessly as possible over a bumpy, poorly lit road. It was quite an adventure the conclusion of which found Jeff and I in a dirty, mosquito filled hotel room on the second floor of a hotel whose third floor was still under construction. More significant than the condition of the hotel was its location, Nepalgunj, my hometown for the summer.