The Sichuan Broadcasts

We were waiting for a journalist for our party to be complete. Sangha had warned me: she was not a communist, so I should pretend to be a freelance journalist myself.

   She showed up only shortly before the bus was due to leave. She was a Japanese lady, over forty but very fit, and was called Kiko. Every time the bus stopped at a roadside inn or at a checkpoint, we had the occasion to chat a little. I must have seemed a bit awkward to her, because I didn't know exactly how much I was supposed not to say. I asked her very few questions, so that in turn she wouldn't become inquisitive about me. I gathered she used to be a scientist. She was an entomology PhD., and had been a university professor back in Japan. From that, she had moved to be the chief editor of a scientific review and, as she said, had lost all interest in science. She had first come to Nepal as a tourist in 1990, and had arrived right at the beginning of the first Revolution, when mass riots in Kathmandu had compelled the previous king to proclaim the end of absolute monarchy and grant the establishment of an elected Parliament with limited powers. She had fallen in love with the country and its people, and started a new career as the local correspondent of a Japanese daily. I think she had married a local. She spoke Nepali very well, and knew everybody who was anybody on the political scene.
  When we arrived in Sallyan town, after our forced halt of the night, it was still early morning. We had only time to move our bags to the local bus, a rather dilapidated affair, which would take us as far up in the hills as any vehicle could go. I followed Sangha and the Commander on its roof. It would prove quite dangerous to sit up there: we had to cling to the ropes that fastened various cargoes to the roof rack, not to be thrown away each time the bus ran into a deep rut. But it was not really less comfortable than sitting inside, and at least we could enjoy the scenery. After five or six hours of slow creeping up the winding dirt road, and many stops to let people on and off, or for mechanical reasons, we got to the last bazaar that can be reached by car. I was completely worn out and stunned by the breathtaking beauty of the country I was discovering.(...)