- Friday night, terrible traffic, dark, packed minibus to ringroad .. Somehow found bus to Kosi quite easily and
- Wow 450Km in 14 hours for 400 Rp seems so cheap !
Well I got the last seat in the bus the 6th person on the back seat .. I gave up and lay on the aisle floor. (for Asians there is a big difference between the floor and a seat, but for me not cos almost everywhere is dirty anyway. ) .. Crappy loud Hindi music, the road was bumpy as hell, some of the night driving was too fast and dangerous . Same old story we'd stop for an hour for no reason. We didn't reach Kosi till 9am.

- Still the 200 parked up buses to get past. But big credit to the villagers it wasn't the disorganised fuck up it was before, Someone intelligent has made a system ! Instead of the suicide boats there are 2 200m long bamboo bridges on stilts .. I guess the water is not more than 1m deep mostly. Yes, one bridge for eastbound and another for westbound and motorbikes. They make 25Rp toll.

- Well until the deaths the locals had made 50Rp/head from boats, but after the government had finally organised a ferry. I guess this must have cut of the locals income so that must have been the motivation for the bridge building .. The ferry only ran for 10 days.

- What a Nepali fuck up ..the old bridge has been down for 5 months .. Government does nothing to organise a temporary replacement while the causeway is being fixed. If a bridge can be built in a week why wasn't this done 5 months ago ? The country has 2 armies ..yet neither can build bridges ?

SUMMARY
- Flood cause bridge to break in August 2008
- government eventually starts repairing causeway, which after 5 months might not be finished before it gets destroyed by floods coming in 4 months.
- meanwhile the government does nothing to help today's transport.
- locals profit by providing chaotic dangerously overloaded boat service.
- eventually 9 people die
- 10 days later government ferries arrive.
- 10 days later locals who have now no income build bridges so government ferry is unnecessary.
- will the road be fixed before the next floods ? I suspect not. The locals and construction company might think they'll earn more if it's not.

- UPDATE 27th Jan .. wow they have succeeded in diverting the river back through the barrage so I guess the bamboo bridge section has dried up and the road causeway can be rebuilt ... good on the Nepal & India joint team !

- Bastards, after the 16 hour bus journey I switched on my phone and the screen was blank. So another day of bus, but I can't listen to podcasts. Well if I stop in a town I can charge it.

- Ithari 11am, load shedding so no electricity
... then 2.5 hours to the Karkabitta border ... load shedding so no electricity

... Took tea .. Town not interesting , not so much hassle either walked across 500m bridge and into India .. Another day another country