The Lion's Raw

India is bloody crazy sometimes.

Absolutely batshit crazy.

And in Bihar, India’s poorest state, and one of its most corrupt, the madness graduates to a new, sordid, and sometimes overtly desperate level. Over 33% of Biharis are living below the poverty line, a line which itself is already very low in this country. Caste-based discrimination and violence is rife here, and infrastructure investment and development in rural areas is minimal, despite the fact that the vast majority of the state’s population live in the countryside. 89% in fact.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to actually live in these overcrowded and economically reeling parts of the country, where, for so many people, much of life seems to revolve around the constant need to hustle, to find some creative way to make some rupees.

And when it comes to hustling, honesty really doesn’t come into it. Such notions are completely irrelevant. No one particularly likes to be dishonest, you can see it in their faces, but it’s an infinitely better option than having little or no money for your own and your family’s needs.

I’m in Raxaul, a town right on the Nepalese border. There’s loads of people just hanging around, seemingly doing nothing. And they’re all men. Unemployment in the state is the highest in India.

In fact, there’s hardly any women on the streets at all around here. It’s the complete opposite from the states of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, or Uttarakhand, for example.

No one has new clothes. Hardly anyone wears shoes, rather, they slap around in old thongs or cheap plastic sandals. There’s no footpaths, just dusty dirt or mud. The chai stalls and eating places are filthy. Actually, everything is pretty much filthy.

Noisy traffic belts past, every vehicle half falling apart, bits held up by string or wire or by some makeshift welding job, everything’s dirty, dusty, and looking like it’s hardly ever washed.

And then occasionally a new car will slide past, and a privileged family will float through the mess in their air conditioned bubble, seemingly oblivious to the hand-to-mouth concerns of the rabble outside.

People around me tell me all sorts of untruths to get some rupees out of me. Like I have to change money at this spot, as there’s nowhere else in town. They’ll try to confuse me with commission rates, very skilfully I might add, and then try to underpay me once a rate is finally agreed upon.

The rickshaw drivers tell me that my destination’s 4km away so they can charge me more, even though I know it’s actually only one. I mean, I’d happily walk, but I wanna provide them with at least some income.

Just watching the thong-clad cycle rickshaw riders desperately jostling for position as another bus rolls into the bus station, in the hope they’ll get a passenger or two, is another in-your-face example of exactly where everyone’s at.

Here, in the Republic of India, in the Lion’s Empire, life can be so brutally raw.

It’s really hard to watch, and it makes me supremely grateful for what I have.

Selfishly, it also reminds me that, around here, I’d better keep my wits about me.

The night bus from Kathmandu. Looks way more luxey than it was.

Walking across the border before sunrise.

On a cycle rickshaw, passing through the centre of Raxaul town.

Caramelised milk sweets, compliments of my friend Arjun, whom I met while waiting for the bus south to Patna and Bodhgaya. No money for packaging around here mate.

My hot cool un-airconditioned bus.

Funky interior

Fumey sunset, as we reach the outskirts of the Bihari capital, Patna, a crowded city of 2.5 million people.

Crossing the magnificent Ganga River. It’s very wide here, compared with Rishikesh, where I last saw it.

Stallside dinner. It was a little dodgy actually.

Bihar bus station, a perfect example of semi-functioning chaos. No one seems to know exactly where everything is. It’s just like a massive random bus parking zone.

Money Money Money

I was sitting in a cafe last night in Kathmandu, waiting for my night bus to depart, when Nepalese Sujan invited me to join him at his table for a Christmas drink and a conversation, as he was “all by himself, and lonesome.”

At the time I was also all by myself, but actually completely lonefull.

But I decided to be nice, and join him anyway.

These random meetings are always interesting, and sometimes completely insightful, and our conversation over the next couple of hours proved to be just that.

Sujan is rich. He owns real estate. An insurance company. A trading business. He just got back from Rio de Janeiro, after a brief 2-day stopover in Hamburg. But he didn’t see much of those cities as he was constantly in meetings. He did tell me however about his wild night of exploits in the Cidade Maravilhosa (the Marvellous City) which involved copious amounts of drinking, drugs and dripping.

After about five minutes of chatting (mainly him chatting), he invited me to come back to Kathmandu after my India trip, and stay with him for as long as I want, for free. I can stay in an apartment of his, he’ll provide me with food and drinks, everything I need, and show me all around the country. He even offered to take me to Everest Base Camp.

What a guy.

One drink became two, three, four. The hookah came out.

Not that kind of hookah, unfortunately.

(Oops, did I say that out loud)?

No, it was the pipey bongy hookah, the one with the scented and flavoured tobacco, smoked by sucking it through spiced mint and rose water. Yummmm. Cool and delicious.

Smoky huqqa and pre-dinner snacks

Then Sujan fed me. I told him I was veg, so he ordered a huge array of vegetarian food to share. He called his friend, who turned up soon after. We drank, smoked, and feasted.

Sujan spent a lot of time telling me how money isn’t important to him, and that friendships and family are what really matter in life.

Hear hear.

But the thing is, so many conversations with locals in these parts quickly turn into discussions about money, how much they (or you) earn, how much you do or don’t have, the price of this or that in your home country, wages, blah blah blah.

And this was no exception. Even though Sujan is rich, the conversation was still pretty much all about money. He told me many times what he owns, where he lives, where he goes, how he can afford to do this or that.

A huge proportion of young Nepalis, both men and women (but mainly men), go overseas to work, in Gulf countries like the UAE and Qatar, or, if their families can afford it, go to university in countries like Australia or the US, or Korea or Canada, and then get themselves settled in, and stay and work. They send their extended families money, and eventually, if they can, arrange for their relatives to migrate to their new countries as well.

It’s all about getting out.

It’s really interesting for me to see this happening, and imagine what it must be like having to put so much energy into actually leaving your native country for good.

It’s pretty much impossible to really get it, when you hail from a country as financially privileged as Australia.

But I completely understand why it happens.

Nepal is the poorest country in South Asia, which is saying something, and it's the 17th poorest in the world. About 25% of the population live below the poverty line, although this varies greatly by region, and by caste. Unemployment is high, so working overseas is one of very few options for the more than half of the country’s population aged under 35 years. An estimated 3,000 of them leave the country every day to work abroad.

Natural disasters and Covid have devastated the economy. The country’s riddled with debt, and is paying huge amounts of its revenue just to cover interest payments, meaning funds for desperately needed infrastructure are limited.

China has stepped in, and has funded major projects in the country, although Indian investment is still roughly double that of Chinese.

Tourism, one of the country’s main revenue earners, has bounced back to close to pre-Covid levels in some regions, a huge relief for many in the country, and one of the few recent pieces of good economic news for the country.

But generally people are doing it incredibly tough.

No wonder it's so often all about money.

It's Downhill From Here

A word of advice.

Don’t go on a drinking smoking eating binge just before catching a cramped overnight bus in Nepal or India.

As I stumbled out of the cafe and finally found my bus in the dark recesses of the bus station, I realised my belly wasn’t right.

Toilet.

Hmmm, this’ll be interesting.

I mean, I didn’t drink too much, I wasn’t totally pissed, but I was full, and tipsy. And I had a literal shitload of food and drinks and tobacco residue swirling around inside me. And they weren’t at all happy in there.

I made it to the toilet, and exploded.

And I knew there was more to come, but shit, my bus was leaving.

So, for the next couple of hours on the bus, until the next toilet stop, my butt was clamped shut, tighter than a giant clam under attack by a swordfish.

All of that oniony garlicky dahly gas from my dinner was forced to pressure cook inside my belly, with the valve shut.

I wasn’t taking any risks whatsoever. Been there done that. I knew that if I relented just a slight tiny little bit, just for an instant, my already painful bus trip would immediately become a complete shitshow.

So I grimaced and bore it. It was the opposite of fun.

But I survived till the next toilet stop, which mirrored the previous one.

But luckily, then my cramps eased, and I was actually pretty fine till the early morning, when it came on again for awhile. It’s all ok now.

So, rather than my overnight bus heading south from Kathmandu to the border, which would’ve taken about 5 hours, the driver decided to take us on a pitch black tour of central Nepal, taking a massive detour west to the city of Bharatpur, before heading south and then swinging way east again to the border.

That ridiculously convoluted route took us 10 torturous hours to negotiate.

I was cramped, with my pack between my legs, in a seat with nowhere near enough leg room.

And the thing is, I’m now on another bus, and I’ve been on it all day, exactly the same type of cramped local bus. Our young bus driver appears completely obsessed with leaving his hand pressed on the ridiculously loud air horn button, it’s just going off repeatedly, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and I’m just doing that so you get the idea that you really want it to fucking stop!

It’s so stupid! One fucking blast is enough you deaf imbecile! Drivers have fucking eyes! Your passengers have fucking ears! You don’t need to blow your air horn for the whole time that a car overtakes you from behind, with no other traffic whatsoever on the road!

OMFG save me!

And I’ve still got one more bus trip to go once this one gets me to Patna. My final destination is Bodhgaya, a place famous throughout the Buddhist world, because it’s the spot where Buddha actually became enlightened, sitting under a bodhi tree.

And the tree’s still there.

Well, a descendant of the original one anyway.

I don’t expect to arrive at my destination until well into the dark depths of tonight.

Oh to be Buddha.

So, in summary, if you find it difficult to manage severe discomfort for hours and hours on end, don’t be silly enough to do what I’m doing right now.

If you dislike getting severely bruised knees and elbows, broken sleep, getting your brain lasered by airhorns, getting whacked on the head randomly by passing luggage or arms or backs or shoulders, being squeezed into a too-small seat with your backpack so it’s virtually impossible to move your legs, then for Buddha’s sake just do what normal people would do.

Just fly from Kathmandu all the way down to Kerala, over a few hours, and sit in a comfy airline seat and sip tea, or whisky, have a quiet conversation with your wealthy Indian neighbour, and partake in whatever tidbits take your fancy.

And then spend those wasted travel days lying on the beach at Varkala, like normal people.

Oh, to be normal.

Instead, I’ve taken a principled stand to try and avoid flying as much as possible, except when absolutely necessary, as I’m trying to travel as lightly as I can these days.

So I’m a very very reluctant hero right now.

Packed buses and trains it’ll be for me.

And, despite my already many sentences of incessant whinging, it somehow still manages to be an adventure, because it’s never really hard for too long.

But at times like this, doing this sort of thing is a bit like smashing your own head against a wall.

It feels so great when you stop.

A Nepalling History

Nepal is a proudly independent country, a republic that has a medieval history littered with the waxing and waning of many separate kingdoms, of wars and peaceful times, and a modern history tainted with some appallingly brutal events.

In 1768 the unified Kingdom of Nepal was proclaimed, after a Prince from the kingdom of Gorkha joined forces with a number of neighbouring hill states, and then basically overran a number of other kingdoms down in the plains, many of which had previously been overseen by the Brits.

From 1788 the new Nepalese Kingdom expanded northwards, invading Tibet, and a war with their Chinese Qing dynasty neighbours, known as the Sino-Nepalese War, began. The two sides eventually did a deal, in order to cease hostilities.

Meanwhile, in the south, the Anglo-Nepalese War broke out, and the Brits won, because the Nepalese just didn’t have the firepower to match their superpower colonial neighbour. Nepal was forced to cede large swathes of southern Nepal to the Brits, which then became part of British India, although some of it was returned later, when they eventually kissed and made up.

All through the 1800s Nepalese dynasties jostled for power within the country, some pro, and some anti-British, but eventually a treaty was signed with the Brits in 1923 that saw the two powers begin to cooperate economically and strategically.

Whilst the Chinese made claims for sovereignty over Nepal, the Brits supported Nepalese independence. Obviously there was something in it for them, surprisingly they weren’t just being nice guys.

The Nepalese supported the Brits during World War II, fighting the Japanese in British-ruled Burma, and providing aid and supplies to Allied forces around the place.

In 1951 there was a major uprising against the then Rama dynasty rulers in Nepal, leading to the return of the Shah family to power, and a form of constitutional monarchy. Eventually elections happened in 1959, but the King didn’t like that much so he abolished parliament and decided to rule himself.

He then established more of a pyramid-shaped ruling structure, where the monarch basically had the final say on everything, but where local villages were organised to make their own local decisions, based on traditional decision making practices.

King Birendra was coronated in 1972, but in 1979 many anti-monarchy activities were organised, there were student protests, and the king decided to have a referendum to decide on the nature of Nepal’s government.

The country voted for a system based on local representation, which the king honoured, although he was still the king, and still got to be special and do kingly things and dress fancy and eat exquisite food, drink expensive French wines and cognacs, and jet around the world, staying in 6 star hotels etc.

You know, normal run-of-the-mill fair and equitable royal stuff.

But it turned out the villagers weren’t happy, and through agitation, forced the monarchy to adopt a multiparty democratic system. But things again went pear-shaped as that didn’t seem to help either. Economic struggles led to an armed revolt, and the police suppressed the protests by force. Promised land reforms didn’t eventuate.

Before long, the peasants were revolting.

In 1997, the Communist Party of Nepal (known as the Maoists), began to try and replace the parliamentary monarchy with a new “people’s republic,” which eventually led to the brutal Nepalese Civil War. The communists took control of various districts in the country by force, often with the support of the local people.

Soldiers having a fun time during the civil war

Village women soldiers, en route to fight government troops

In 2001 one of the Royal princes, Prince Dipendra, decided to embark on a mass shooting in the palace, reportedly because his parents wouldn’t allow him to marry a beautiful princess he had a major crush on. So he basically killed everyone, including his parents (king and queen), and seven other royals, and then reportedly shot himself, and went into a coma.

Gun-toting Prince Dipendra

Strangely, because everyone else was dead, the Prince himself ended up being next in line to the throne, so was proclaimed king whilst still comatose, until he eventually kicked the bejewelled bucket and his uncle became king, King Gyanendra.

Surprisingly, or should I say, unsurprisingly, there was never any forensic investigation of the shooting crime, and it was rather suspicious that the gun-toting Prince Dipendra would have shot himself in the left temple (because he was right-handed), and that the uncle wasn’t at the royal gathering where everyone else was, even though he’d been expected to be there.

And of course there were no witnesses either.

King Gyanendra on his coronation day in 2001.

Meanwhile, outside the palace the rebellion was going off, and the new king partly deposed parliament and grabbed the steering wheel himself. Large parts of the country were subsequently taken over by the Maoists.

Unsurprisingly they were largely supported by the masses, because they abolished the caste system, gave women equal inheritance rights, prohibited forced marriages, and provided free health care and literacy classes.

Not rocket science is it.

In 2005 King Gyanendra abolished parliament altogether and declared a state of emergency. But street protests and strikes forced him to back down, and parliament was restored.

The parliamentarians’ response to the King’s action was to get together and abolish the monarchy altogether. So there. And then, after the 2008 election, the Maoists were able to rule in their own right, without needing to form alliances with other parties.

During the brutal Civil War, between 1996 and 2006, an estimated 13,000 people were killed. 85% of civilian deaths were attributed to government actions.

In 2008 the deposed king left his palace, long golden robes tucked between his legs, and they turned his rather ostentatious house into a museum. He now lives in Nirmal Niwas, another palace, and supports Nepal’s transformation into a Hindu kingdom.

No prizes for guessing who he thinks should be its king.

These days all the major parties in Nepal seem to take turns winning and losing elections. And every single person I’ve asked, without fail, has told me that the government is corrupt and incompetent. No one seems to like them at all, no matter which party rules.

Sound familiar?

More Republicking

And so another country eats my dust.

Well, my bus’s dust.

I really love Nepal, I gotta say. Some parts of it more than others. I particularly love western Nepal, and I’m in love with the mountains all over the country, and the villagers and villages in them.

Kathmandu’s super interesting and historic, with some magnificent and unique temples and palaces, but it can also be hassley. It feels more like some parts of India, less cruisey, less chilled and laid back than Pokhara.

But don’t tell them I said that.

I’ve only been in Nepal for a little over three weeks, but I really wanna come back. Saraswati knows when though.

It’s actually a little cheaper than India. I mean, you may pay the same amount for certain things, but you’ll get better quality in Nepal. Plus the Nepalese rupee is one third cheaper to buy than its Indian counterpart, which definitely adds to the bargain value if you’re brandishing wads of a Western currency.

And this is a map of where I’ve been. I couldn’t add the trekking routes. I entered in the southwest, stayed in Lumbini, then headed up into the hills, to Pokhara. I was in that area, including trekking, for a couple of weeks, before heading to Kathmandu, and then south to the border town of Birganj, before walking across the border and back into India, at the grimy dusty town of Raxaul.

And now, here I am, finally, on my bus to Bodhgaya, on the home stretch. We won’t get there before midnight probably, about 4-ish hours from now, and then I’m gonna die of pleasure.

I’ll finally be able to be totally horizontal.

And I won’t know myself.

But, important disclaimer, don’t forget that this is India. My bus has just pulled over and stopped in the middle of nowhere, and I have no idea why.

So I’m not counting my whistling kites before they’ve hatched. Anything can happen here, and usually does❤️

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