the red tinsel hanging...

The red tinsel hanging off the bus's side mirror reflects the head lights of the oncoming traffic we are heading straight into. The tinsel, pictures of higher powers, and painted on good luck slogans, are here to protect us from any harm.

Kelly is "lucky" to have gotten the seat next to the driver. Wedged between several other people with her knees up to her chin, she gets to see what the driver sees.  She gets to stare the oncoming truck driver in the eyes for about a tenth of a second before we swiftly pull back onto our side  of the road, narrowly missing impact with a huge Indian-made Tata truck. The suspension squeaks in protest and I become air borne and strain my neck as we hit a pothole that just about bounces us off the road into the dark nothingness that, if we are lucky, represents dense bush or if not so lucky, an abyss. But we bounce right back into the road and, apart from my sore neck, escape without injury.
Judging by the virtually non existent tire tread and squeaky brakes, last years maintenance budget was once again blown on a new, louder and more obnoxious sounding horn.  
I am positioned a little further back occupying standing space designed for a small child with my neck bent as the bus seems to accommodate someone several inches shorter than me just perfectly. As our driver grinds the relict of a transmission into third gear with his left hand, he let's go of the steering wheel. It's safer after all to keep the right hand on the customized horn attached to the driver window than to hold on to the wheel. 
Executing the dangerous passing manouvers in the dark, on a narrow winding road with pot holes the size of a small country, next to a 300 foot drop off leaves our young driver cold. After all, that's where the red tinsel and so forth comes in. I don't think he has gotten the memo about poor Nepali bus safety records.
I exchange looks with Kelly and mouth "TIA". Our short for "This is Asia".  2 hours later we arrive safely at the Nepal Indian border after a 12 our trip that was supposed to take 7. TIA.

In the border town we flee from the first bug infested guest house leaving behind a sad looking proprietor who didn't quite understand why we weren't cool with just killing the hundreds of insects on the bed sheet with our pillows. The small blood stains are what got me, Kelly didn't care too much for the geckos. My trying to explain to her that they are our friends because they consume the bugs didn't help the situation. Another foreign tourist resorts to yelling at the owner at the top of his lungs while I smile and tell the manager "It's not you, it's us". One thing  about Asia is that getting frustrated and confrontational with someone (like we so often do in the western world) gets you absolutely no where.  Despite the chaotic traffic and many near misses I have never seen anybody get upset or yell at each other. No road rage here. Confrontational and aggressive westerners just embarrass themselves when they start resorting to yelling at someone. But man, sometimes it is tough to just keep your cool.
On we went to a slightly less buggy place. Not having air conditioning is cool with us, the temperature is only moderately hot, easily dealt with by  an efficient ceiling fan. Turns out ours was on permanent overdrive and the noise of it would have given any Vietnam vet flash backs from helicopter landings on Hamburger Hill.  But 3 hours of sleep after a 12 hour bus trip is plenty and we cheerfully crossed the border back to India. I declined our immigration officers request for a "gift" with a friendly smile as he tells us he's our friend and we shall have no problem getting our stamp (which shouldn't be a problem in the first place since we spent a whole day applying for our re-entry permit).  He asks again for a gift, and after the last 24 hours I'm not in the mood. I stand my ground with a friendly handshake. We do get to enter India without a bribe.  No hard feelings here.

A short horse buggy ride to the train station and we hop on a train to Kolkata that will take 18 hours. Well, we'll see about that...