A Game of High Mountain Chicken (Continued)
The cargo area of the truck was one to two inches away from the windows of the bus, and that distance varied between one and two inches the entire time – never more. Somewhere in the middle of the process when the bus and the truck were so close that they both had come to a stop, I watched the mechanic out the window as he signaled to the bus driver to move over a little more pointing his finger towards the cliff precipice. Then he gave an indication of measurement with his thumb and index finger which clearly indicated the distance to the very edge of the shoulder – I reckoned his thumb and index finger were no more than 1 inch apart. We were an inch from the very edge of the road and moving over so that the tires would be exactly on the edge. My panic level started to rise at this point. I looked around to see how many other people had been looking out the front window and watching the mechanics instructions, but nobody had. They were all looking out the window on the truck side of the bus riveted with morose fascination to the incredibly close proximity of the truck to the bus. We inched forward and I could tell the bus driver was nudging the bus closer to the edge. The gap opened between the truck and the bus by maybe a half inch. Then the truck inched forward again and stopped. Again we were too close to continue and the bus driver nudged the bus forward again closer to the edge. The mechanic came up and talked to the bus driver at the front of the bus through the driver’s side window, and the bus driver stopped moving forward. Then he called out speaking to the mechanic of the truck, and the truck mechanic and truck driver began to talk. Apparently we were on the very edge – the very, very edge. The mechanic didn’t feel good about us getting either tire any closer. It was all up to the truck driver now.
The truck inched forward and stopped, then inched forward again and stopped. The mechanics kept calling out to each other and to the truck driver, apparently measuring the distance between the two vehicles. One was watching the side of the slope next to the truck driver while the other was watching the distance between the two vehicles. I wondered how much pressure would be exerted on the bus if the truck cargo area began to scrape the side; just how much pressure would it take to shift the bus over just slightly enough to nudge one tire over the edge? Or how much pressure would it take to collapse the edge of the slope underneath the weight of the bus if the truck began to wedge against it? And if one tire went off the edge, would that be enough to cause the whole bus to topple? It was about this time that I made another uncomfortable observation. If the bus were caught with one tire off the edge balancing on the side of the slope ready to tumble, there was no way for us to get out of it. The bus door would literally be hanging in thin air, and we couldn’t bash out the windows to get out because the truck had most of that side of the bus blocked off. Maybe we could have found a way out. One thing was for sure, we would have had to start chanting the India mantra again!
The truck nudged forward again and the two vehicles were so close together that you couldn’t measure the distance with inches anymore. Now there was a lot more time spent stopping and talking than there was moving. All of them were chattering now. I could hear the truck driver and the truck mechanic but I couldn’t see them because they were behind the bus and we couldn’t see out the windows. I could see the bus mechanic through the front windows of the bus and he was watching the proximity of the two vehicles very closely and chattering away in Hindi to the truck driver, and even our bus driver was chattering out of the driver’s side window of the bus – that was his only option; like us he certainly couldn’t get out of the bus because he too would step off into thin air. The truck pulled forward and stopped and forward and stopped over and over. The distance between the vehicles was less than an inch; I could tell that those guys were talking about it in centimeters – like one or two centimeters. Finally the back of the truck passed my position in the bus, and still the two vehicles hadn’t touched. After what seemed like an endless amount of time spent chattering between the various drivers and mechanics, the truck made its final motions forward and pulled clear of the bus without ever touching it. The whole process had taken over an hour. The bus driver slowly nudged the bus back into the center of the lane, and then got out to talk to the truck driver.
The drivers and mechanics spent a few more minutes talking. Maybe they were summarizing the high points of the experience like authoritative sportscasters after a football game. Maybe they were saying their goodbyes. Or maybe they were just huddling together and chanting the India mantra over and over. I don’t know. It occurred to me that this was probably not the first time these guys it had this experience. Who knows? Maybe they passed each other every other week or once a month on these high roads and did the same thing over and over. The bus driver hauling up trekkies, the truck hauling up goods and materials. Maybe they switched off who would be on the inside and who would be on the outside.
“Hi Joe it’s good to see you again, you taking the inside or the outside this time?”
“Think I’ll take the inside, I took the outside last time. How’s the wife and kids?”
“Little ones got a cold, but they’re doing all right. Why don’t I flip you for the inside Joe?”
“Tell you what, you take the outside and if I hit you this time I’ll flip you!”
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
The various parties said their goodbyes, the bus driver got back in the bus, and we started driving up the steep, high mountain road once more. We didn’t pass any more vehicles that night. It was past midnight when we finally got into the small village that represented the end of the paved road. From that point on there was only a trail crossing through the Himalayas into Nepal. We unloaded at a small trekking hotel and nicely, they turn the generator on for us for about 15 minutes so we could find our rooms. Then they turn the generators off and we were left with candles to illuminate our rooms while we unpacked our gear and climbed into bed. I noticed as I stepped outside one last time that it was a dark night with a ton of stars out shimmering in the sky. And I noticed that with all those stars – billions of them – so far as I could see none of them were touching.