Laxmi Poudel crosses the river in a tuin.
KATHMANDU, NEPAL – Passenger-filled buses, microbuses and trucks travel along Prithvi Highway, a 200-kilometer, snakelike road that connects Kathmandu, the capital, with the tourist town of Pokhara. The Trishuli River flows along the road. Over its rapid currents stretches a makeshift cable bridge with a small, rusted, square basket operated by a pulley system, popularly known as a “tuin,” which villagers in the foothills here use to cross the river.
The tuin here in Kumpur, a village in central Nepal’s Dhading district not far from the capital, is a rusted box that hangs from a wire with the help of two small, metal wheels. Passengers pull the worn plastic ropes that further connect the box to the wire to manually transport themselves across the river.
Beneath the midafternoon sun, people who live on the other side of the river make the treacherous journey via the tuin to make it to the highway, which connects to other roads, shops, schools and local trading outlets. The locals say that walking to the closest bridge to cross the river would take hours, but that, still, the tuin is risky.
In the neighboring district, Gorkha, Suraj Thapa, 12, says he survived a tuin accident at the end of June. The Chinese government had built the 120-meter tuin there in 1968 while constructing the Prithvi Highway.
Suraj, a sixth-grader at Pataldevi School, was on his way to sell gourds at the local market during his summer vacation. He says the nine other people in the tuin were also on their way to sell vegetables at the market.
Suraj says the villagers on the other side of the river were pulling the box toward them. After 10 minutes, he says they were halfway across the river when he heard a noise that sounded as if a tire had been punctured. The rope bounced like a spring, throwing all the passengers into the rapid Trishuli River – including Suraj.
“I made my way out by swimming,” he says. “But I’m really sad for the ones missing.”
Five of the passengers drowned. And they’re not the only Nepalis who have died while using the tuin system this year.
Nepalis say that tuins have made daily life more convenient by enabling them to cross rivers that separate them from shops, schools and trading outlets. But they say tuins are dangerous to use, sometimes leading to deaths. International and local nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, have been building tuins to improve transportation for Nepalis. Government officials admit that citizens’ expectations haven’t been met when it comes to building bridges and roads, which are costly, but say the government plans to get involved in building tuins.
Out of nearly 11,000 kilometers of roads in Nepal, 46 percent are paved, 19 percent are gravel and 35 percent are dirt, according to 2009 statistics from the Department of Roads.
In Nepal, people who live along the banks of rivers like the Mahakali, Trishuli, Karnali and Seti use the tuin for their daily affairs. But there isn’t any data on the exact number of tuins in the country, says Nawaraj Poudel, an engineer for the Dhading District Development Committee.
There also isn’t any official data on the number of Nepalis who die in tuin accidents, but some estimate the deaths at more than 100 per year.
Hundreds of people in rural Nepal use the free tuins to reach shops, schools and local trading outlets.
The tuin in Kumpur allows passage over the perennially deep Trishuli River, which has torrential currents during the monsoon seasons from June to September. Practical Action Nepal, an NGO, designed, built and financed the ropeway project in 2005. It cost 81,100 NPR, $1,090 USD.
Ambika Nepali, 26, of Kumpur, says the tuin has made her daily routine more convenient. Before the existence of the tuin, Nepali used to walk for four hours to get to the other side of the river. But with the tuin, it now takes her just 15 minutes.
As dawn breaks, she uses the tuin to cross the river to sell milk to the hotels on the highway. Then at 9 a.m., she uses the tuin again to drop her three children at school and return home. Again in the afternoon, she uses the tuin to go back to the market to buy seeds, fertilizer and other household items and to sell her vegetables.
“The tuin has in fact improved my financial situation,” she says.
She says that riding the tuin is risky, but that it’s faster than walking.
“This is my daily routine,” she says, wiping a stream of sweat from her face. “Though there is danger, we have to continue with our life.”
Ram Maya Sarki, 40, also from Dhading, says the tuin benefits the community in many ways. Though she lives close enough to the highway to hear the horns and people conversing, she says it would take her three hours to walk to the highway because of the river.
Before she started using the tuin, she visited the Prithvi Highway only once a year because it would take her hours to go and sell the vegetables she grew in her backyard. She says it was difficult to feed her family of nine, and her five kids couldn’t attend school because they couldn’t traverse the river.
At those times, she says she even thought of selling her property and moving to a place connected with proper roads. But after the tuin was built, she started poultry and vegetable farming and even sells milk now from her cattle, which has strengthened her economically.
“Now it just takes 20 minutes to go to the market, sell the stuff I have, buy what I need and return home,” she says.
Sarki, who belongs to the Dalit community, Nepal’s “untouchable” caste, says that all her children have an opportunity to go to school now – and to good private schools at that.
The tuin also helps people to reach medical facilities faster, Sarki says. Before, they had two alternatives: make the three-hour trek to cross the closest bridge to the highway or cross the river by boat. Sarki says she used to watch people die when boats capsized in the Trishuli River.
Nepalis in other districts also use tuins.
In Tanahu, a district in Nepal’s Western region, villagers in Dulepahara use a tuin as a bridge, too. Some 500 people – including about 200 students – use the tuin daily to cross the Seti River.
Before the tuin was put into place, locals had to walk for five hours to reach the district headquarters at Damauli Bazaar. But now, the distance has been shortened to an hour, thanks to the tuin over the Seti River, locals say.
Because of the tuin, locals can now sell their produce at the Damauli Bazaar, says Meghnath Lamichhane, 55, a local resident.
“The tuin has not only reduced the distance to the market, but also helped us improve our livelihoods and economic status,” Lamichhane says.
Lamichhane says locals are happy because it saves them traveling time, but that they are aware that a little carelessness can cost them their lives. They also say it’s physically demanding to ride.
“There’s always this fear that I’ll fall into the river and die,” Sarki says.
Jaya Ram Subedi, a social worker in Dhading, says that Nepalis recognize that tuins are highly risky. It is a necessary, not preferred, form of transportation in regions inaccessible by roads.
“Using tuin is rather an obligation,” Subedi says.
Back in Kumpur, Nepali uses the tuin to go to the rice mill on the other side of the river. After her visit to the mill, she struggles for about 10 minutes on the tuin to pull herself to the other side with the 40 kilograms of rice. As sweat trickles down her face, her red saree and shawl tied to her waist are also drenched with sweat. Her palms are covered with blisters.
“There is no other alternative to cross the river,” she says. “Despite of all the risks, to use the tuin is an obligation.”
Like Nepali, Laxmi Poudel is also from Kumpur. But she’s lived here for only nine months, after marrying Deepak Poudel, a local truck driver.
Poudel takes a deep breath after crossing the river.
“It’s really very difficult to cross over using the tuin,” she says, carrying pineapples, mangos and vegetables to send to her parents in Butwal in southern Nepal. “But despite the struggle, you get your work done in minutes.”
Before her marriage, Poudel says she had never seen a tuin. Born and raised in the Terai flatlands, which is well-connected with roads, she says that she was unaware of the transportation difficulties in the hilly region of the country.
Before their wedding, her husband had told her that they had to use a tuin to get to their house, located some 20 minutes away from the highway. But she says his definition of the tuin was misleading.
“He said that you had to press a button in the tuin, and it would take [you] straight to his house,” Poudel says. “But unfortunately, if you don’t know how to use the tuin, you’d probably not reach home but heaven.”
On the wedding day, it was already dark when they reached the river. When she found they had to hang on to the tuin and cross the Trishuli River, she says she “cried like anything.”
“I came with my groom in a car dreaming about a good life,” says Poudel, whose marriage was arranged. “But when I found that I had to use something like this to get to his house, all my dreams were shattered.”
She says she must use it often, but dreads every trip.
“For once I have crossed the river to come to this side,” she says, already fretting over the return trip home. “Now I don’t know how to make my way back.”
Poudel says that a local 19-year-old, Anuska Magar, fell from the tuin last month. Although locals helped save her, she suffered a severe head injury and lost all her mental facilities.
Children sometimes also get stuck in the middle because they don’t have the strength to pull themselves on the tuin, Poudel says. And women must handle the majority of the accidents because most of the men in the village work as truck or bus drivers or have migrated for foreign employment.
“Because of the problems, sometimes it just feels it would have been better if we didn’t have this tuin,” she says.
Lamichhane says that in his community, too, many have suffered problems like getting their hands trapped, fainting, losing their belongings in the river and getting stranded in the middle of the crossing if the rope ruptures. It’s also dangerous for children, as sometimes they fall into the river. A few months ago, eight children lost their fingers after they got entangled in the tuin.
Nepali says pulling the rope to use the tuin has given her back problems and made her feel as if her “uterus was coming out” when she was pregnant. She also says her children lose their belongings while riding it.
“Almost each time you bought children new shoes and slippers, they lose them in the river, and they come home barefoot,” Nepali says.
Because of all these reasons, Nepali says she and her fellow villagers went to the Dhading District Development Committee and also the Ministry of Local Development to appeal for a bridge a decade ago. Nepali says that someone has gone to the committee’s office every month since then to check for good news. But the government always cites a lack of funds, she says.
“During election time, the leaders come to us and say they’ll build a bridge for us,” she says. “But after the election, no one ever comes back. We are deprived of almost all the services that should be provided by the state. But we are hopeful, too.”
Krishna Lal Shrestha, an engineer on the Dhading District Development Committee, says that building a bridge at this spot is not technically feasible.
Until the 1950s, Nepal was dependent on hilly trails and pathways. Although roads have become more common, there have been minimal improvements in connecting rural Nepal with roads because of the cost and difficulty of creating them in the mountainous terrain, says Achyut Luitel, country director of Practical Action.
International and local NGOs have therefore helped in tuin construction as the next-best alternative. They have also formed consumer committees that train people to use and maintain the tuins.
From 2000 to 2007, Practical Action built 11 tuins over rivers in various communities. In districts like Accham, Kalikot, Gorkha, Tanahu and Dhading, the organization has also invested in gravity ropeways for hilly and mountainous regions that use gravitational force rather than an external power force.
So far, the alternative transportation system built by Practical Action helps around 14,834 households in these districts, Rabindra Bahadur Singh, project manager of Practical Action, says.
“We have made this plan targeting those people who live below the poverty line,” he says. “And we are seeing positive outcomes in their lives due to this.”
After many complaints from the locals about incidents, the organization has also upgraded the tuin technology since 2007 through its Access for Opportunities project. Under this project, it has built 17 new tuins with the latest technology, which uses a double-cable system that allows four people at a time to safely and more easily cross the river.
He adds that injuries and deaths occurred while crossing the turbulent rivers even before the tuins came into existence.
“We shouldn’t only emphasize on the negative aspects,” he says. “We should weigh its benefits too.”
Engineer Poudel agrees.
“The tuins have made people’s lives easier,” he says.
The government has not been involved in designing, financing or building the tuins in Nepal. But Ganga Bahadur Basnet, project chief at the Ministry of Local Development, says that since it seems that the technology is benefiting the people and NGOs are interested, the government is planning to get involved in tuin projects.
“We are in the process of talking to organizations and being involved in programs that directly assist the people,” he says.
Basnet says that the government is doing its best in accordance with its budget and in current years has been focusing on constructing more rural roads.
“Though the government is doing its bit, it hasn’t been able to fulfill the people’s expectations,” he says.
Luitel says that the government hasn’t built the bridges it promised because of budget constraints, so development partners have helped construct tuins as an alternative.
“But it would be wrong to consider this as a trusted mode of transport and a solution to the problem,” he says.
Still, as locals lament the poor infrastructure and compare their lifestyle to the privileged people living in the city, they can’t ignore the benefits of the tuin.
“People living a luxurious life wouldn’t know about our struggles and difficulties of using the tuin to cross the river on a daily basis,” Lamichhane says. “It seems we are very unfortunate. However, it’s better to have something [than] nothing. At least the tuin has made our lives a little easier.”
