Treacherous roads
Travel in nepal is notoriously dangerous. The tiny planes that serve the far reaches of the country do not infrequently fall out of the sky, and the “roads” are not roads as we know them in the West. The Karnali Highway is a very big name for a very small road; it is, to all intences and purposes, a track that clings to the side of a mountain. It is extremely bumpy, in some places gravelled (that’s the good bit!), and has absolutely no defences what so ever. We passed a truck on the first day which had just gone off a cliff; the driver was dead. Later we passed a bus that had fallen hundreds of metres down a ravine into the river below, killing everyone on board, only 5 days before. This road which offers so much hope to the locals in this isolated area, is just another challenge to these people who have to struggle so much with their daily living. We had the luxury of hiring a jeep; most cannot afford the bus fare, and if they do, risk their lives in the process.
Kilometre high vertical drop to river
