Kuzuzangpo Tour 2 Stories-I Left My Car on Cliff Road

My car was stuck in a muddy cliff road. It was a rainy, pitch dark midnight in the middle of a forest.

Cheki (Cameraman) and I were fighting the weather trying to push the car. As the rain progressed, the storm water flooded and buried the car deeper with debris and also eroded the road below.

After giving up on the car, I heard rocks falling from the cliff on either side of the road. When I felt the cold of the howling wind I realized we were in a life and death situation.

We decided to run back to the place we saw a van on our way to the cliff. We were both barefoot and in boxers. We removed our ghos to push the car.

I had no torch as my phone was damaged in the rain. Cheki was to light for me as well when we run through the falling rocks but when we ran we were on our own. Somehow we made it through the 300 meter something stretch of the cliff, intact and alive.

We didn’t talk. We kept walking until we found the van. There was a makeshift house below it. I knocked the door. There was no response. So, I went knocking from different sides of the house screaming ‘Lay bay la! Lay bay la!’ It was a desperate situation. After about 15 minutes, a man opened the door.

We told him about our plight. He instantly pulled an umbrella agreeing to help us. He awakened people living below his house but none agreed to come.

Surprisingly, he still suggested on going back and trying. He said empathized with us as his car also was stuck there once. I wasn’t sure about going. I knew three people couldn’t push the car. I also feared the rocks. But the rain had subsided. So, we returned. We got there safely as we had torches then.

We still couldn’t move the car. We diverted the storm water and dug the mud. After an hour, it rained again. It was heavier this time. The car was flooded again and so fell the rocks.

We took all we could carry and ran to his house. It was 2 AM.

Padam Dai kindly made us tea. He went to sleep saying, ‘Gari ta ja ni rai tsa. Abu manchi ramro tsa pani bas tsa wo la’ meaning ‘The car will be gone. It may survive if you are a good person.’

As the sound of rain on the roof became louder, I started thanking my car for its service. Expressing my gratitude to the deities for saving my life, I began thinking of shows I could still do if I hired a taxi. I was just done with Zhemgang School, the 3rd of the 25 shows of the tour.

I woke up four hours later. It wasn’t raining. My legs were hurting. I saw many cuts and bruises on my feet. I went to a point where I could see the spot where we left the car. Surprisingly, my red Alto was still there. It had lost its left headlight and sustained cracks and damages on the bonnet and left doors from falling rocks.

It was surrounded by many people. All of them were driving up but my car had blocked the road. Some of them were pissed as they couldn’t contact me although they got the number from traffic police. My phone was not working. It took about 20 men to get the car out.