It looks like fun, and in many instances it actually was, but riding on top of a bus in the luggage rack was a strange cultural experience. These busses would go between various small mountain villages of Nepal, traveling on dirt roads barely wide enough for a group to walk comfortably on, much less a bus drive on. The discomfort of rain exposure and sitting on the metal bars of the luggage rack were minimal compared to the discomfort of seeing the unguarded several-hundred-meter drop-offs on the sides of these narrow roads. Coupled with the added height and unobstructed views gained by riding on top of the bus, the cliffs made it easy to occasionally imagine the worst-case scenario on a long journey from village to village.
Inside the city, low-hanging power lines caused us to imagine a different type of equally-startling Final Destination experience. Our group, and especially the taller members, were (theoretically) susceptible to not only whatever electrical currents these cables may have carried, but also the possibility of a literal beheading. Luckily, the novelty and excitement of all of it often blinded us to the dangers of this type of transportation, and we (or perhaps just I) routinely reminded ourselves that thousands of people throughout the country routinely traveled this way without incident, enabling us to lay back and be grateful that we weren’t hiking for hours on end from place to place.
Are you ready to have missionary adventures of your own? Check out our DTS beginning this October.