Following the Ring Road

at the bus stop.

on the bus

For a while now, I have been formulating an adventure in my head to travel around the city following the Ring Road. The Ring Road was built in the 1970's by the Chinese, in hopes of alleviating traffic congesting in the narrow streets of Kathmandu.  40+ years later it is a dirty, congested, cow-couch. 

our cow

Central Bus Terminal

The fact that this circular road was there, was enough for me to want to conquer it somehow and so today, I strong-armed a friend of mine…since I helped her with her shopping, I figured she could humor me on this adventure, which she did willingly…and  we set off about 10 AM to work our way around the whole” Ring”.

Our sign

Message on money

We found the bus stop and did not have to wait long, as quite quickly a blue, city bus came zipping down the road. It stopped at the bus stop! Shock and surprise and after I recovered from that,  I was able to ask if it went to a certain intersection way up on the north end of the city. The bus caddy, the guy who drums up the customers by heckling them and then takes their money once the people are on board, gave the affirmative and so we jumped on.  We were able to find a seat and for the whole hour and 20 minutes, kept a lookout for our five ‘must see’ items: a monkey, a goat on a roof, four people on one bike, an interesting sign, and a black and white cow sitting in the center of the road ( hey, we needed an easy one).  It did not take us long to found the cow, and the sign was not long in searching for either.  There were lots of interesting sights along the way and we were able to track our progress on the map I had remembered to bring along.

When we got to our stop, we jumped off and paid our fare (30 rupees a person) and walked around the corner to catch a tuktuk down the road for lunch. I had heard about a Vietnamese place that was good and cheap.  The tuktuk dropped us off right in front of the restaurant and we were waited on immediately…being the only people in the place helped. The food was ordered and very soon we were enjoying the dishes we had chosen. Although the use of a  lot of cilantro put a dampen on things from my friend. She is not a huge fan of the herb and it was used in about half of the dishes we ordered.

Checking the map

Walking along Ring Road

Riding a Tuktuk

After  lunch, we got another tuktuk back to the northern most intersection on the Ring and hauled a bus. the bus caddy said they were only going to the central bus terminal down the road, and so we decided it would be better to walk to the terminal and get a bus there, rather than pay two more bus fares ( at 15 rupees apiece).  Actually I used the word ‘we’, but really it was my decision.  So we started off on our stroll, which turned into a 40 minute jaunt under the hot sun and no shade is it was about 12:30, when we started walking.  I did stop and ask someone if we were headed in the right direction and how far it was. He said, “Yes, keep going about 15 minutes more.”  25 minutes later we came to the bus station entrance and talked to a helpful policeman.  We then crossed the street  to walk down a bit further to get a bus going in the right direction. We did not wait long and when I called out the intersection we wanted, he waved us on and we jumped on again.  Buses here come to a rolling stop, so jumping literally  means jumping. This trip took about 45 minutes as we headed around the west and southern part of the city.  

We were both tired, so when we got to our destination, instead of walking to the house, we took another tuktuk. The tuktuk had to take a back alley because of some road construction and then just before we got to our stop there was a slight accident between another tuktuk and a taxi. No damage to vehicles, just pride. When our driver decided to add his two rupees, we hopped out and walked the rest of the way!

We were exhausted and slighty sunburned,

but was a great adventure although we didn’t see all our “must sees”.  I am thinking of making a certificate to say we did it. But for now we can mark an another item off our bucket list!