The Murder of a Hitchhiker - A true story

After saying a hard goodbye to good ole' Ryan we went our separate ways. He off to Beijing, me off to Tansen, a village in the mountains.



I was excited to be back on the road. The comfortable bus promised an easy ride. The pure blue sky promised a beautiful day. The friendly man sitting beside me promised good company. Everything was supposed to go great, and everything was going great, until the bus driver told me to get off the bus.



Disaster struck



The driver of the bus explained that the place I wanted to go to was 'that way' and he was going 'this way'. He assured me that their would be another bus going 'that way' soon. Before he finished his next sentence a dump truck pulled up at the intersection. He talked to the driver and before I knew it my bag was being thrown in the back of the dump truck.

"He will take you." He said reassuringly.

I trusted the pleasant man and jumped in the back with 10 peasants. The ride started nice. The back of the truck was big and if you stood up you could see over the walls. With the breeze in my face and the lowering sun magnifying the beauty of the distant mountains I was in paradise. But what I didn't know was someone was watching me, very closely.



I took out my I-pod and put on some mellow music to enhance the ride. As the sun was setting it started to get chilly so I took out one of my sweatshirts to warm up. This is when things started to get ugly.



I noticed that the little mountain girl with the pink dress and brown skin was crying. I struggled to get to her with the truck blasting through the windy mountainous road. I knelled beside her, steadying myself, and offered her another jacket out of my bag, I thought she was cold. She wasn't. She pointed at what I perceived to be a pile of rags but turned out to be an old woman, her grandma. I took a closer look and saw puke everywhere around her. The little girl nudged the old woman but she didn't budge. Again she hit her and again she failed to move. Thinking the worst I went to see if she was still breathing. Just then she got up on one elbow and puked again. I saw the mucus hanging from her parched lips. I stumbled across the truck to get my bottle of water and came back to see her coughing up clumps of blood. No one else seemed to care. I again tried to comfort the girl with a sweat shirt but she wouldn't take it. There was nothing to do but wait.



Fortunately after about 20 minutes we stopped at a mud hut. I saw the the mark of a red cross and it seemed that the grandmother was being taken to the hospital. She got up and waddled off the bus along with all the other peasants except two, the two who had been observing me. They had watched everything I had done.



The driver seeing that everyone had got off the bus started up the truck and took off again. It was just me and two guys in the back of the truck. After some time one of the guys came up to me and asked for money. I saw him collect from the other passengers before and was accustomed to this. Unfortunately I didn't have time to ask for the price before I got on the truck .

"Mona", He stuck out his hand.

"Oh, right, how much?" I asked hoping he would say something reasonable.

"2000"

I broke into laughter. 2000 was a ridiculous amount, something like 30USD. This was just one of those funny Nepali jokes I thought. But when I kept on laughing and saw that he wasn't smiling, I knew that this knew it wasn't going to be a pretty scene. The sun was beginning to set and it would be dark soon. The truck was going at full speed and I hadn't seen any sign of civilisation for miles.

"I don't have 2000! I handed him 40 and turned my back. He muttered something which I couldn't understand and then let it be. 20 minutes later it was dark. I still hadn't seen any kind of lights and it was really starting to get cold. The two guys had been talking for sometime, probably planning my murder I thought.

The guy again crossed to the front of the truck where I was standing and said something. This time I had no clue what said. He then made the sign of music. He wanted to listen to my I-pod.

"No battery...battery no.....music no." I made some stupid gesture to indicate there would be no music.

The other guy came up beside him.

"Cold!" He hugged himself and shivered.

It was cold. What was I supposed to do. They knew I had sweaters, they had seen them. It would be just crude to say no. I gave them the sweaters. They then started pointing at my bag and asking other questions.

The made various gestures; Cell phone, music, money. I denied everything, but they knew.

My mind started racing. No one knew where I was. I didn't even know where I was. I needed to get out. But what was I going to do?

It was pitch dark and I hadn't seen any village for over an hour. I had everything on me. My passport, my money, my credit cards, basically my whole life.

I started going over situations in my mind. There were only two of them and if they did attack me I had attended two classes on kunfu that I could try. I could jump off the truck but we were still going extremely fast and I wasn't sure where I'd go. Its funny the things your mind says when your scared.

Finally all my worst fears came true at once. The truck stopped. All I could see was the black sky. All I could hear was crickets. All I could feel was my heart pounding in my chest.

"This is when it happens." I told myself.

The guy got off while the other standard on guard. After 5 minutes he came back.

" You, come!" He was leading me to my death.

I took my bag with me planning a quick escape if I had the chance. I got off the bus a noticed a small, dimly lit shack. He lead me into small thatched room. Four men sat in the darkness. I took my last breath.

"Be brave!" I told myself.

I walked in the room and one man asked me where I was from. A polite question, I thought, for a bunch of murderers.

"Canada." I replied gloomily.

"Ah, Canada." A different man replied. "Sit down, sit down."

"So where you going?" Asked yet another man.

My heart jumped.

"Tansen, you know Tansen, I want to go to Tansen." I said quickly.

"Of course I know, its my home town, and I will also go there."

"You are a passenger?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yes"

"How much are you paying for this trip?

"30 Rupees my friend"

Now realising that the guys in the back were just little bastards I told on him what had happend.

"You know, this guy in the back, he asked me for 2000!"

"2000!" The man burst out laughing. "That's ridiculous!"

He translated to the driver of the truck who in turn called in the guy and asked him if this was true. The scene that followed took all my worries away. When the guy admitted it the driver, who I now took to be his uncle, screamed at him. I watched as the guy trembled and cowered beneath his uncle.

Within minutes we were back on the road. The boys had given me back my clothes. I sat down on the opposite end of the truck. The guys didn't say a word the rest of the ride.



And I live to tell another story.