Clown car bus was decently clown car like

What do you get when you put a person with a reasonably large personal space bubble (particularly when it comes to strangers) in a culture with a VERY low personal space bubble in 90 degree/90% humidity weather in a 19 seat minibus with 23 other people for 7 hours?

You get a person that needed a god damned beer on a rooftop deck looking out at the foothills of the Annapurna range! That's what you get!

My phone went bonkers on the bus ride...so sadly there are no pictures this evening.

Few notes about the day...

• 24 people (22 passengers and the driver and conductor) in a 19 seat minibus...not the worst I've seen (Hi, Guatemala!) but still pretty uncomfortable. My favorite part was the woman sitting next to me who was ~85 years old (she looked like she was 115...but they age quickly here) who alternated between resting her elbow on my thigh or her head and shoulder in my ribcage (Did I mention my larger personal space bubble?!)
• Second favorite part of the bus ride was after she got off and there was finally some space...we picked up a few new passengers who had the whole bus to choose from and chose...to SIT RIGHT NEXT TO ME!!! And to not have enough core strength to not sway drastically with every turn.
• As wild as the Nepali roads were in the mountains today...that adventure was nothing compared to going to get my trekking permit this morning when (Hi, Mom! Hope you like this part!) I got to experience Kathmandu traffic from the back of a motorcycle! With my backpack on! For about a 15 minute drive to the trekking permit office and then another 15 minute drive to the bus station. I couldn't help but laugh for the whole trip. It was insane...but an amazing experience. It was like open field running in football...but you're 110 lbs and not wearing pads and everyone else is 2500 lbs and sitting inside their vans and trucks and SUVs.

If my phone and the internet are working in the morning I will try to post some pictures of Besisahar. It is unimaginably amazing here. The scale of the mountains and the valleys is beyond Norway, New Zealand, Patagonia....really anything I've seen anywhere other than Alaska. I'm guessing that over the next few weeks...it'll even manage to best Alaska.

Internet is likely to get worse for a while...so this might be my last big check in for ~10+ days...the guidebooks say that there is some wifi to be had at some places...so we'll see.