I really don’t know how to describe today – a total opposite to yesterday that’s for sure!
We drive from Jakar to Mongar. It’ 190km and it took us 10 hours! The first 1 1/2 to 2 hours is on the usual highway – lots of twists and turns, occasional rough road.
And then – the construction zone begins. Mud! Rocks! Almost zero visibility. The first mud we hit I can feel the rear of the car sliding a bit and I realize this will now be a difficult trip. What an understatement. My bones are jarred – at the first stop I can hardly walk – this is before the mud and things get really bad.
I am so glad the clouds & fog obscure the drop below. I know from descriptions of the road, and later from Kinzang, that he too was glad that I could not see the drop offs given the road conditions. But even with the visibility I literally spend hour after hour with my eyes closed and just staying calm. It pretty much works.
At one time Jamyang says “Kathy, look at the waterfall”. So, I open my eyes and there is a fall of water along the cliff that is so close it is beating onto the roof. And what to see – about 1 dozen people on motorcycles driving to Jakar on this road. A sea of mud. Terrible visibility. Small creeks crossing the road in places. Immense pot holes filled with water. Mist. And I can’t see how they’ll make it before dark through to Jakar, not even on a paved road! This seems like sheer madness. Everyone says – oh but they are on bikes designed to do this. We are in a car that does very well indeed and it is terrible going. Kinzang says the that this is the worse road he has ever driven! That’s saying a lot.
Rocks and boulders. The construction has made the road much worse. They dynamite the side of the mountain to widen this highway and then pile up the rubble – often huge boulders – on the sides of the road, making for a single lane of traffic for the most part. And you at times seem to be driving through a tunnel of rocks!
Passing vehicles – coming in the opposite direction – are treacherous. At one point we are stopped for 30 – 45 minutes to let a backup of cars & buses coming. At least 4 buses, 1 truck towing some equipment, and maybe 10 cars must pass. As we have managed to find a place to park we just have to wait until they all come through. The cloud / fog is so thick that each vehicle just seems to loom out of it. We send a couple of guys from the one other waiting car to walk down the road to be sure all of the traffic has come through. At the beginning of this stop the other car (called the car with the Swede) has to back up through the mud, rocks, and fog as they can’t get past the vehicles coming, and they could not see them coming until they loomed up. Finally we are able to proceed, slowly, ever so slowly. I have my eyes closed for sure. At the stop the Swede & I exchanged a few words – mostly OMG!
We get through to a place where we pull off. The Swede’s car has stopped too, and they are taking a bit of a break. But Kinzang wants to continue. Good thing! We get to the place where the road has been closed for the night – and we are late – past the closure time. Jamyang & Kinzang manage to convince the guard to let us pass, and that had we not had to stop for such a long time for traffic, that should have let us pass first, knowing the closure was coming for us, we definitely would have been on time. We are just a bit late. So, he decides we can go! Thank-you, otherwise we would have spent the night, or worse, in the car until they re-opened.
So, now we are in a construction zone. We come upon a full road moving shovel moving rubble and doing something else allowing for other people to also do something. We stop – the shovel is in the middle of the road. When I roll down the window I see this thin red cord around the rock just beside the car, and realize they are laying cord to dynamite the rock face. The engineer comes over. There is a chat, then the shovel eventually moves, just barely enough for us to squeeze by. Turns out Jamyang is calling the driver of the “Swede’s car” telling them about the road closure and to hurry and they might get through. They d, we find out later. They are the last car passed through before the rock face is dynamited – making us the second last car!
More mud. More rocks. More drop offs to no where with no guard rails. Now also construction people & vehicles. We come upon another road moving shovel (they are on tracks) in the middle of the road (single lane) shoveling rocks off of the road. I’m really nervous as I am sure the operator has not seen us the way he is moving, and there’s no engineer about to direct, as with the first shovel. Then a big dump truck pulls up behind us, the shovel starts backing up toward us, and I am thinking we are about to be run over by the tracks of this huge shovel, and we can’t back up because of the dump truck. But I guess the operator does know we are here – truck honking as he wants to get going – the shovel is able to move over just enough for us to pass – just barely as usual.
We continue many more km after km through the muddy rough road, rocks everywhere, water everywhere, fog thick, until finally we come to the end of the construction zone. What lay beyond is like some super highway – but is really a twisted road, quite rough, lots of pot holes – but no mud! Better passing places. (The fog /clouds clear as well.) I have spent hours with my eyes closed, but even so these images are not likely to pass soon.
We stop for lunch about 2:30. The lunch place is amazing. Western style food that is really, really good. Chicken braised in a lovely sauce, a great bean dish (green beans), cauliflower & carrots, a pasta salad, and watermelon. A feast. The dichotomy of that road and this guest house / restaurant and lunch is just crazy. Some far out travel zine – oh yes it is out travel zine!
We are off now to Mongar – the road quite good – and then very good. I’m tired, We arrive at our hotel about 4:30. We left Jakar at 6:30 – a smart move – so 10 hours. Maybe a total of 30 minutes of lunch stop. The hotel is good, though our guest house in Jakar better. But I’m tired, so I really don’t care. I see Jamyang briefly later to set up for the next day. He tells me that he sent a video to Ms. Sangay, but only after we got to our lunch place, so he could tell her we were safe.
I can write this, but it is so hard to explain in words. This construction won’t be finished for years I would think. The monsoon season will make it worse every year. But it is the only road from Eastern Bhutan to the West, and the capital, so it stays open. The drivers are amazing – but still I am sure there will be fatalities.
At some point we were laughing in the car, Jamyang had some kind of phrase, and I said “Ah but WHK”. What he asked? I replied “WHK – We Have Kinzang!” Our lives were truly in his hands – and he was so amazing. So calm. So steady. I can’t say I wasn’t nervous – I was, but rarely scared. (Helps closing one’s eyes – I recommend this!) I thank him sincerely in Mongar. I do hope he understood my sincerity.