Hey Guys sorry its taken so long……………electricity, internet and my time off don’t often coincide here! When they do more often than not either the internet or the electricity cuts out before I can press send!
This time however I have managed to borrow a laptop and am writing on battery so I can upload it later when the power and internet come back on.
I arrived safely in Kathmandu just over a week ago.
Richard took me to Manchester and all 39.5Kg of luggage and I checked in fine. The plane to Abu Dhabi
Hung around in Abu Dhabi for 3hours watched the sun come up and used their free complimentary internet/computer station – Leeds Bradford take note! Then on to Kathmandu .
I am volunteering with an organization called volunteer aid Nepal. They arranged for me to be picked up at the airport, thank goodness!!! It was like arriving in the middle of a riot, police with big sticks, the sort you don’t argue with were keeping the majority of the hoards back. Those that weren’t behind the barrier were trying to take your bags from you for the bargain price of 20euro!
Luckily a bit of fore thought meant I had emailed my photo ahead so the bus driver recognised me before I even saw him. Having arrived at the same time as an air India flight from Delhi I can tell you the word “Chaos” doesn’t even come close………..
When we got to the bus and I had managed to get on without paying 20euros there was a another girl called Emily from Germany sat in the back corner, the driver shut the door not too sure whether that was to keep us from getting away or the baggage guys from getting in, anyway we had to wait for another guy from Belgium to make it through the gauntlet then we were off.
Driving through the early evening streets into Kathmandu is like driving 500yrs back in time. Apart from the plastic refuse everywhere and the odd Bollywood sign not much in the way of infrastructure has changed. We arrived at our hotel which thank goodness was 1) not next to one of the all night music bars of Thamel and 2) not some cockroach infested mud hut. Needing a small army of Sherpas to get all of my luggage up the stairs finally I got to my room. Then reality strikes, why do none of the light switches work? Why is there no hot water tap on the “shower”? Why are is there no obvious signs of heating when its about minus 10 in here?....Oh that’s right I came to the other side of the world and apparently in to an entirely different century!
At least the room was clean and there was enough room for all my bags, and thank goodness there was an actual western style, fully functioning loo!
Then there was a knock at the door, Emily had come to compare rooms and ask if I wanted to brave the “restaurant” “Are you sharing with someone else?” She asked, before she had even seen the twin beds, errrrrr “No……….Oh yes I always travel with this much luggage!”
The “restaurant” served tea and a range of meals, we chickened out and ordered tea while trying to remember if the nurse had said tea was ok or whether that too needed filtering and chlorine tablets………..Another girl had ordered food so we decided to see if she would get poisoned first. A cup of tea and a festering but possibly safer option of a Boots airport sandwich from the day before and it seemed like it was time for bed.
Luckily I had got a sleeping bag for Christmas so at about 7pm I (foolishly) went to sleep. At about 2.30am a combination of jetlag and a pack of wild dogs in the street below meant I was wide awake! Oh no what have I done? I thought…………
Fortunately tomorrow is another day………
The sun was shining and surprisingly warm, I discovered the hotel had a roof terrace and actually their apple pancakes didn’t poison you!
We went to the office to discuss what I was going to be doing and I met two Australians, we arranged that I would go to work in a school supporting children infected with and/or affected by HIV/AIDS for four weeks and then possibly go to the Kanti children’s hospital, yes I could arrange to meet some street kids and yes I could go and ride elephants in Chitwan. Thankfully I seem to have found an organization that can fit volunteers to their chosen projects rather than making the volunteers conform to theirs…..
The next day I was to move to the Directors house where I would be staying, but for now the Australians suggested we do what they do best (which is certainly not play cricket! ha ha ha) and drink some beer! Then go for dinner and drink more beer!
We found a nice restaurant serving Nepalese food and after various questions about whether the salad garnish would kill me (it was washed in iodine water so apparently not) I managed spring rolls and my first experience of momos…….washed down with more beer! Momos are like a sort of DimSum with a spicy filling.
All was well, I had sorted my placement, moved half a ton of stuff around the world and not died from some sort of salad induced dysentery.
No comments:
Post a Comment