The bus left at around 7.20 though it didn’t actually pass through Dhunche (the entry point to the region and the national park) till over two hours later as there were many, many stops – reversing to let another truck or bus pass on the narrow mountain road, or to take on or let off passengers or even to carry bags of cement a few hundred metres higher and spare the person who would otherwise take them by wheelbarrow.
Fortunately this was the deluxe bus so there were assigned seats and I was not squashed between or buried under other people’s children, bundles, livestock, etc. So it was quite a comfortable journey all told, with less squashing than in the jeep and even less bumpy, but certainly very long. All told it took nine hours to reach Kathmandu and by the end I was certainly drooping. We took a taxi from the side of the road where we were deposited to the travel offices, where no one was there. Eventually someone arrived and then they escorted me to the hotel. Here I found a spot of overbooking due to guests returning early with altitude sickness, so they put me up in thier sister hotel down the road.
it is as comfortably generic as I could have hoped. with clean starched sheets, plenty of towels, energetic shower, a large comfortable bed, bliss.
I went for dinner to the French Bakery, an oddly named restaurant but conveniently located next door to the hotel. It specialises in Vegemite, Marmite and what its calls the stupendous sandwich. This turned out to be a cylindrical roll – not cylindrical like a baguette but like a tall glass, stuffed with coleslaw, salad leaves, and strips of breaded chicken, with more coleslaw and a pile of very garlicy roast potatoes on the side. So well named. Needless to say, I didn’t finish it, but it was nice to have something different from the past days.
Back to the room and looking forward to a comfortable night’s sleep, though I have developed a crick in the neck, perhaps from all the downhill.