Death on the road to Kathmandu, Nepal

Death on the road to Kathmandu, Nepal
1991
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In reverse order:
Enlarged view of bus showing undercarriage up. Blankets over a view of the dead
Non-enlarged view of the crashed bus from the road.
View of the edge of the road and beyond.

Notice there is no fencing or obstacle in-placements to keep a vehicle from plunging over the  edge of the road. What you see that looks like such is what was needed to keep the land from sliding over the edge.These were far between at the time.

The back story; Pilgrims from India were traveling to Holy places in Nepal, of which there are many, in a bus. The bus parked for a rest, by the side of the mountain. A truck parked in front of the bus somehow lost its brakes while parked and pushed the bus and those within over the edge to a very long fall.

There was a mass cremation about 3 days later attended by the prime minister of India if I recall correctly.

This was either before or after we took a rafting trip down the river to Chitwan National Park to see Rhino and Bear. This is a road not for the feint of heart. I wonder what it looks like after the recent earthquake. In 1991 the British and the Chinese were working on improvements to this road.....as seen in photo below. Regardless one had to drive from Kathmandu to arrive at a point where a raft at the river was waiting. We did see Rhino, we traveled through jungle on an elephant to see Rhino, unfortunately the elephant enraged to bears under a fallen tree and two Bears came out and scared the hell out of us when they attacked or threatened to attack our elephant by standing on their rear legs, roaring and beating their chests so that the elephant driver was hard pressed to keep our elephant from charging into the undergrowth of the jungle which would have ended very badly, for us....

Driving this road in 1991 was a challenge in avoiding large deep holes in the road and large boulders  resting on the road from falling from higher on the mountain. After the driver had drunk a large beer at a roadside "cafe" (of sorts..shack to be certain) he expected us to get back into the car. I convinced our driver that I could take over the driving until he was sober. Remember "deep holes" and "large boulders" in the road. When I understood that the driver could negotiate this mess of a hellish road while high.... better than I could sober...after I smacked the metal of the wheels into boulders and careened through the large holes that bounced the car...the driver had enough as did I. I wonder what the road is like now.

Past post on Chitwan http://lens-image.blogspot.com/2014/10/chitwan-nepal.html