Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Text | Dedee

Not long ago, the holy place of travel, Nepal, introduced a new tourism policy, stipulating that hikers who visit the country from April 1 must be accompanied by a licensed local professional tour guide, no matter how experienced they are outdoors. Or join a group tour.

The reason is that hikers are generally eager to drill wherever there is danger. Every year, in this mountainous country about the size of Liaoning, about 400 tourists are missing. Almost every time, Nepal has to deploy helicopters and other rescue tools, which will cost at least 3000 US dollars each time, which is too expensive for the national treasury.

To sum up, it is better to ban it directly, saving worry, effort and money.

Moreover, in this pure landlocked country just across the mountain from China and most of its territory is located in the Himalayas, traveling by car is an unforgettable experience, even as good as hiking.

So today, let's talk about Nepal from another perspective.

Because of the special location, road traffic accounts for more than 80% of all trips in Nepal, and cars are definitely harder than iron and stronger than steel. And in theory, Nepal can see the largest number of car brands in the world.

After all, the local automobile industry is almost zero, and there is only one independent brand named HULAS. There are only two products, the Sherpa pickup truck and the Mustang jeep, which use diesel engines from our country.

Among them, Mustang is the most popular (selected) independent brand in the area, with a price of more than 50,000 RMB. It once made a big appearance in the 28th season of Top Gear, and the new three cheap customers played an important role in the Rally self-driving tour in Nepal.

And it was the official car of Bhattarai, the 35th prime minister of Nepal-until HULAS began producing pure trams in 2016.

The current products are mainly a high imitation range Rover hatchback car and some electric tricycles.

Therefore, the HULAS electric car is similar to the old man Le, which the Chinese are most familiar with, and the appearance style is not nearly as rich as the latter.

In this way, Nepal is basically full of imported cars-even if the local comprehensive tax on imported cars is as high as 241%, basically an imported car can buy three HULAS, still can not stop the local people's unlimited desire for imported cars. However, due to high taxes and fees, Nepal can hardly see any luxury brands, mostly medium-and low-end models.

As a result, their car ownership rate can not be said to catch up with the United Kingdom and the United States, or at least make good neighbors India laugh. After all, the most common and most common local passenger car brand is Tata, which is dominated by minicars and small SUV.

Moreover, as the three sides of the territory is outflanked by India, Nepal can be called the most "imprinted" country in the universe in terms of means of transport and car habits, and even India is inferior to itself in some respects.

Tourists who have been to Nepal know that the most unforgettable things there are not only the beautiful scenery, but also the traffic conditions and car exhaust.

Even in a big city like Kathmandu, traffic lights are rarely seen at work, with an average attendance rate of 3.3%.

Cars, motorcycles, tricycles, buses, trucks and pedestrians go in both directions on the same road, and extreme cases of iron pressing meat are common.

Of course, compared with the roads in other parts of Nepal, the roads in Kathmandu already belong to the Roman aristocracy. After all, nearly 70% of the land is occupied by the mountains, so roads are mountain roads, one-way dirt roads can be seen everywhere, and potholes and gravel are as numerous as the air in Lay's potato chips.

Therefore, in Nepal, traffic jams on mountain roads are seen every day, bends without any safety barriers are common, and landslides and cliff waterfalls are appetizers.

All of the above is nothing to Nepalese, just open your eyes and drive boldly, even if there is a waterfall pouring down in front of you, there is hope for life.

In this country known as "the nearest to heaven", as long as you get on the "bus", both locals and tourists jump repeatedly at the gates of heaven.

Take the famous Pretway Highway, for example.

The highway, built with Chinese aid in the 1970s, is one of Nepal's main arteries and the only way from Kathmandu to Bokala, the most famous town in the Himalayan valley.

The 200-kilometer highway, which hovers around the mountains, is actually the distance from Shanghai to Hangzhou, but it takes a whole day in Nepal-or it should be better described as the old mountain road.

And it is already the best highway in Nepal.

Even on this road, as long as you identify yourself as a Chinese, the locals will give you a thumbs up to thank you. Rao is so, as long as the search engine type the word "Prittwee", it is bound to jump out of a variety of car accident news.

This shows how high the incidence of traffic accidents in Nepal is-but it still can't stop the big Nepalese and tourists who come to clean up their bodies and minds. They sat in shabby buses that could no longer be seen as they really were, and bumped along the dangerous mountain roads that were prone to landslides.

Some people will even sit on the top of the bus and look at the continuous snow-capped mountains in the distance to experience a real mobile observation platform. Of course, as long as you don't look down and watch the car go down the cliff, everything is so beautiful. Because once you bow your head, you are likely to look at each other with all kinds of unrecognizable car wreckage under the cliff.

By the way, the "bus" in Nepal is actually a general term for bus-like means of transport. This kind of bus may be a bus, a minibus, a truck, a van or even a MPV.

They always look shabby and crowded, and the door will always stand a vigorous teenager who keeps patting the car-similar to many Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam.

While seeking to attract guests and collect money to carry luggage, the teenagers act as guards to see if there are checkpoints or police, constantly driving passengers to get on and off the bus to avoid.

Even if there are frequent police checks, Nepalese are still happy with overloading. After all, local oil depends on imports. In order to save fuel and make more money, people will make crazy use of the space inside or even outside the car when they get out of the car. People sitting on the roof and even hanging people outside the car have become the norm. Even not only buses and trucks carrying passengers and goods, but also private cars and motorcycles are small experts at overloading.

In other words, South Asians' overload seems to be in their bones.

Special road conditions + overloading + poor vehicle conditions make traffic accidents in Nepal frequent. Even though the government has imposed a ban on overage cars and built a vehicle adaptability test center that can conduct a comprehensive inspection of vehicles across the country, these measures are just like the traffic lights in Kathmandu.

According to the data of the past decade, there are more than 10,000 traffic accidents every year, and thousands of people are killed every year. And the number of accidents and casualties is increasing year by year.

For example, there were 10013 traffic accidents with 2006 deaths in 2015, while in 2019, there were nearly 13000 road traffic accidents and more than 2500 deaths.

Moreover, the larger the national holidays, the more tragedies.

For example, during the October Lantern Festival in 2014, a bus climbed off a cliff in Nouakot County in central Nepal, and on the first day of the October Desai Festival holiday in 2021, a bus suffered a flat front tire and failed brakes in the western Mugu County. Of the more than 50 people in the bus, more than 30 were killed and many were seriously injured. In the next few days, a number of road overturning accidents occurred in China one after another.

However, the frequent traffic accidents have not stopped Nepalese, especially Nepalese drivers' love of road life.

Especially those truck drivers, they use their own hands to dress up the old trucks that look like the goddess Kumari, full of the unique aesthetic culture of South Asia.

Every truck is like a mobile art gallery, no car has exactly the same pattern and text. The principle of truck decoration in Nepal is very simple, that is, all parts of the car body except glass must be filled, and not a blank can be left! Even the wiper handle won't let go.

As a result, Ni-style trucks lit by various idols, animals, flags, geometric symbols, world-famous brands and even life quotes can be seen everywhere on the road.

Even discarded parts that are completely unused-out-of-date posters, broken wheels, colored tape, and even triangular warning signs for emergency parking-can be important decorations.

All the patterns and words are hand-painted by the driver, and they are all full of artistic bacteria, and their creativity seems to be coming out of their minds, showing off their personality and humor.

For drivers, it doesn't matter what brand the car is, and it doesn't matter how old or new they are. What matters is how they dress up so that they can be praised by passers-by.

For example, with the well-known phrase "ROAD KING", Nepalese drivers can draw 10, 000 amorous feelings for you. A few colorful flags or an abandoned triangular warning sign can switch freely between realism, Impressionism, Fauvism and Pop Art.

And the most magical car decoration is the horn sound of Nepalese trucks.

Unlike the monotonous and boring sound of horns in China, Nepalese truck horns are simply too interesting. Many drivers will install a row of more than a dozen speakers of different sizes under the bumper, each with a different tone.

They make up the inseparable scenery of Nepal's streets and urban and rural mountain roads, not only to see but also to listen to-drivers can press a very top tune through the loudspeaker according to their own musical preferences. and everyone's melody is different in strength and tone.

When there are many cars, it is like being in a symphony orchestra, and all kinds of tones are very harmonious one after another.

If you ask a Nepalese driver why he did it. They will probably only smile simply and scratch their heads to show that they like it.

I like colorful and lively colors and accessories, and I like to dress up the things I like-not only cars, but also temples, houses and goddesses.

Even if there are tens of thousands of traffic accidents every year, even if the mountain road is covered with cliffs, Nepal's veteran drivers are always optimistic.

This extremely optimistic driving attitude even spread to local airlines.

Yes, Nepal Airlines and airports basically have accidents and fix loopholes every day, such as human flesh pushing planes, battle wildlife groups, crashing wild boars and so on.

The bizarre air accidents in this country have become famous around the world and have even been collectively rejected by the European Union-no Nepalese airlines are allowed to appear in their airspace.

Of course, most of the accidents occurred in Buner, Nepal, such as the famous Lukala airport.

Today, it has been renamed Tenzin-Hillary Airport to commemorate the two super brave men who first climbed Mount Everest, New Zealand explorer Edmund Hillary and Nepalese climber Tenzin Norgay.

This small airport, nearly 3,000 meters above sea level, located in the hinterland of the Himalayas, is an important gateway to Mount Qomolangma and a bright moonlight in the hearts of countless mountain climbers. In other words, it is also one of the most dangerous airports in the world.

It is said that it is dangerous mainly because of its very special geographical location, because the airport is stuck between two mountains, is shrouded in clouds all the year round, poor visibility and changeable weather.

In addition, the air at this airport is thin, the airport runway is only more than 500 meters, and there is no radar and other navigation system, so the take-off and landing of the plane depends on the captain's ability. Many planes do not understand what is going on, so they explain it on the cliff at the end of the runway.

As a result, there are not many flights to Lukala, with an average of about 30 flights a day, all driven by old captains with amazing technical and psychological qualities.

And most of the people who dare to choose Lukala airport as their destination are Everest travelers. In their view, flying over the Himalayas on the most dangerous plane is an appetizer to their trip to Mount Everest, and even if it is enthusiastically taken in by Simawan on the spot, it is also a worthwhile experience.

But even so, the old horse will get lost and stumble.

In October 2008, for example, a snowman Airlines plane crashed after crashing into a rock as it approached the airport runway with almost zero visibility due to heavy fog. Eighteen passengers and crew were killed, but the captain miraculously survived.

The most common incident at the Nepalese airport is a battle of wits with animals.

Whether it is Nepal's only international airport, Kathmandu Tribwan airport, Nepal's second-largest airport, Genjie airport, or Lukala airport, where wealth is derived from risk, Nepal has dozens of aviation accidents caused by wildlife each year.

There is no way. Nepal is so rich in wildlife resources that there are at least 500 birds in Kathmandu alone-so it is sure to cause great trouble to the airport.

Even if Tribwan airport is equipped with monitoring equipment and even employs a hunter to drive away flocks of birds and wild animals, animal crashes still occur from time to time.

In September 2012, for example, a Xita Airlines plane crashed into a bird shortly after taking off from Kathmandu, killing all 19 people on board.

Genjie Airport, located in the southern plains of Nepal, has to compete with wild animals such as wild boars, rabbits, foxes, porcupines and pythons every day.

Because the airport is located in the wooded suburbs, it does not build any walls, but directly uses the bushes as fences, which causes all kinds of wild animals to directly regard the runway as their own back garden. it's all right to find food for a walk or something-and then have close physical friction with the plane that is taking off or landing.

For example, in November 2021, another Xita Airlines plane hit a wild boar family of three while taking off at Genjie Airport. Three pig families were killed on the spot, leaving an open wound between the front and rear wheels of the plane.

According to eyewitnesses, what was most unbearable at that time was the fragmented bodies of three piglets and long sticky blood stains-too easy to turn one's stomach and too difficult to remove.

Just a week before the death of the three pig families, a Buddha Airlines plane hit a little porcupine on the runway, and another Buddha Airlines plane hit a fox while landing in the same month.

What Genjie Airport can do is install a protective net. Of course, these protective nets are often full of big holes.

At present, there is no more harmless and joyful operation than the "passenger pushing plane" incident.

In December 2021, a plane of Nepal's Tara Airlines burst a tire while taxiing on the runway of Bajula Airport. Although no one was injured when landing safely, the plane was completely stranded on the runway and could not move, directly causing several planes to fail to land.

The captain tried to contact the management to apply for a crane, but as usual there was no reply. In desperation, the captain had to ask the passengers to get off the plane and called on them to push the plane away like carts.

Finally, with the concerted efforts of the crew and passengers, the plane with a flat tire was successfully pushed away and the plane in the sky was able to land successfully.

In fact, Nepalese people often worry about getting out of control of their vehicles. They pray to the gods, and of course they offer delicious food and even animals such as goats and buffaloes.

It was mentioned earlier that in the Nepal Rally in the 28th season of Top Gear, before the departure of HULAS brand Mustang, locals prayed to Vishwakarma, the god of engineering, to chant the sutra and bathe to keep Mustang safe and sound.

Of course, the end result is that Mustang is no big deal, just stuck in the alley can not get out.

There is also a strike before the plane takes off, and airlines often arrange sacrifices to Akkash Barabo, the god of the sky.

For example, Royal Nepal Airlines has two old Boeing planes, one of which is always having electrical problems. In order to solve this difficult pain point, the airline slaughtered two goats at Kathmandu airport. After that, the goat became a midday meal for passengers, and the plane did not fall midway.

Hindu Nepalese believe that all kinds of vehicles are "bloodthirsty demons", which will bring "blood disaster" to mankind from time to time, and should be sacrificed from time to time to reduce the occurrence of disasters.

Well, it seems that optimistic Nepalese have long been used to lying flat, but occasionally struggle to get up and lie down again in a different position.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: autocarweekly (ID:autocarweekly)

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.