08/04/08
Yesterday was somewhat eventful. After squeezing every last thing back into my rucksack I headed off for the airport. As my turn came to check in I started to feel rising panic as the man behind the counter thumbed his way through my passport, stopped, stared and tutted. "Madam, do you realise that you need an Indian visa to enable you to make your transfers?". I spluttered back at him that I had been informed that I didn't, but it was to no avail. One month ago I had contacted my organisation to ask about transit visas and was told that I didn't need one. I was hopping mad! I was left with two options, neither of which enabled me to catch my flights. I could either go and spend hours at the notoriously slow Indian embassy and then try and change my flights or book a completely new flight that avoided the visa problem altogether. I opted for the second and landed myself a flight via Bangkok with Thai airways (preferable to Jetlite or Jetshite as I've re-named them!).
So today was like ground hog day as I once again went to the airport. As an afterthought I realised that flying a day late meant my Nepalese visa had also expired. I told my sob story to the sympathetic immigration officer and dropped in that I was volunteering and he let me off. Thai airways was deluxe with free drinks, mini pillows and real orchids in the loo - not bad eh! They should, however, have censored their complimentary newspaper as the front page read, "High danger: Qatar Airways plane has both engines fail 6 km above the earth"! Not exactly relaxing reading so I turned over to, "Men soon to become redundant as scientists develop artificial sperm"..... god help us.... I gave up on world news and looked out of the window instead!
Bangkok airport is space age and immaculately clean. Huge stainless steel arcs form the roof and there are windows everywhere reflecting people scurrying around busy on their own adventures. I like people watching. I see business men/women with their smart suits and whirring wheelie suitcases, briskly clip clopping along and wonder what it must feel like to be so professional and poised. Even if I had the right attire I don't think I'd carry it off - I'd break a heel or a wheel would come off my suitcase and I'd end up head first down the escalator! There are lots of people like me, fresh from Nepal, clomping around in their walking boots.
I arrived at Colombo airport at midnight and finally made my way to the exit by 1am to find no sign of the person that should have been meeting me. When I did track him down he cheerfully tells me that there was a board with my name on (under his desk!) and he misread my arrival time as 2am. My taxi driver was lovely but not particularly well suited to the job as he had to stop three times to ask for directions and was crawling along the road so slowly that the police pulled us over for suspicious behaviour! I eventually made it to the hotel and never have been so glad to sink into bed.
Tuesday 15 April 2008
Monday 7 April 2008
MSPN
MSPN is the organisation which I have been placed with in Patan. It is a charity which supports children (usually under the age of ten) who have HIV. Up to 16 children live at the home along with a parent or relative. Here they receive medication, nutritionally balanced meals, get taken to regular hospital check-ups, all free of charge. They stay as long as need be to ensure that their condition has improved and stabilised as far as possible (normally several months), and receive follow-up once discharged home. Almost all of the children have other illnesses alongside HIV, normally Hepatitis and Tuberculosis, so their little bodies are really struggling. The difference in them from when they arrive to when they leave is astounding. Some were extremely malnourished and as soon as they put weight on you would hardly recognise them as the same children. It's lovely to see them grow more confident and cheeky as time goes by. When they are feeling better it's easy to forget that they have HIV. Because of this it came as a shock when one of the little babies suddenly died after contracting pneumonia. His mother was only 18 and his father already dead. She was at the home the day after it happened. I've never seen someone look so full of despair. Her baby was the one spark of light in a life already so full of shadows. It was heart-breaking to see her.
Thursday 3 April 2008
Gone trekking!
I'm just back after trekking to Annapurna base camp which sits at 4130m. Some nutters do the round trip in 7 days but we (me and my housemate Britta) did it in 12 and still felt like we busted a gut! Escaping to the mountains was just heaven after 3 months of producing black snot as a result of the fumes and dust of Kathmandu. Travelling to Pokhara to get near to the start of our trek was some what eventful. It went something like this. Day 1: left trekking permit behind - retrieved it, lost purse - found it in the bin, walked to wrong bus station, got bus to what we thought was the right one but wasn't, finally got a random bus that took 2 hours to fill, crashed into truck, our driver and the truck driver had a fight, arrived after 7 hours, hotel fully booked, replacement hotel has a family of 5 cockroaches. Day 2: got up and one of only two T-shirts that I packed got crapped on by a bird (lucky..I don't think so), the 3rd member of our walking party deserts us, Britta decides to give up smoking and I offer to give up drinking for the trek to offer moral support (too late to leave that day so evening spent smoking/drinking!).
Day 3: the trip got off to a cracking start when we got lost on route to the bus station....it didn't bode well! However luck was on our side and we bumped into the nicest man who happened to be going the same way. The bus was rammed so we were ushered up onto the luggage rack on the roof with 9 others and everything else you could possibly imagine. We hurtled along the road, ducking the overhead electric cables, 360 degree views...it was great, a bit like surfing just replace the board with a bus! Just to spice it up a little 5 minutes into the journey a thunderstorm broke right over us and soaked us to the skin. We hopped off at Phedi (the village at the start of the trek) to be faced with a brutal uphill slog which made us seriously doubt our decision to carry our own bags (13kg). Still, we soon got into the swing of things and got a steady plod going. Along the way we stayed at basic lodges which were great, especially when it got colder as we ate around one huge communal table which had a heater beneath. The table had blankets all around to keep the heat from escaping, so you'd stick you feet under and get nice and toasty. The scenery was so varied and beautiful - not one day was the same. We initially walked through farmland, steeply terraced paddy fields, neatly domed haystacks and wood stores. Then came forests of birch and lastly rhododendrons in full bloom - the mountainside carpeted in deep scarlet red and vivid pink. The old, gnarled tree branches were draped in mosses and orchids. Nature has found its own way to combat stinky trekkers by producing jasmine by the bucket load - the air was heady with the scent of it. Each day followed a similar pattern - we would wake up to a glorious hot sunny day, by lunchtime the clouds would have started building and by mid-afternoon a huge thunderstorm would rock the valley. I was left speechless as I walked through the snow, sheer rock faces and icicles towering overhead, the swirling mist offering tantalising glimpses of craggy mountain tops seemingly brushing the sky, and all to a soundtrack of thunder booming....it was amazing. Every now and then we would hear the sound of rocks bouncing their way down hundreds of feet as the ice thawed in the sun. The area is prone to avalanches, a fact that was made more real when we saw one speeding down a distant slope. We spent one night at Annapurna base camp which meant that we were able to see the sun rise behind Macchapuchhre (the fish tail mountain), its rays setting the tops of the Annapurna range ablaze with gold - it was absolutely breathtaking. We were so lucky, we couldn't have asked for a clearer day. It was so cold that I had to spend 3 days with my camera down my top just to keep the battery working! Thankfully it held out and I got some great shots, which will have to be posted at a future date (attempted uploading one and an hour later it still hadn't happened!). We took a little detour via Ghorepani as we descended (so we could go up Poon hill at 4.30am to see the sunrise over the Himalaya) and ended up at Birethanti, our final destination after 12 hours of knee-breaking downhill steps. We arrived just in the nick of time - the mother of all thunderstorms raged for the next two hours whilst I was savouring a much needed beer.
Day 3: the trip got off to a cracking start when we got lost on route to the bus station....it didn't bode well! However luck was on our side and we bumped into the nicest man who happened to be going the same way. The bus was rammed so we were ushered up onto the luggage rack on the roof with 9 others and everything else you could possibly imagine. We hurtled along the road, ducking the overhead electric cables, 360 degree views...it was great, a bit like surfing just replace the board with a bus! Just to spice it up a little 5 minutes into the journey a thunderstorm broke right over us and soaked us to the skin. We hopped off at Phedi (the village at the start of the trek) to be faced with a brutal uphill slog which made us seriously doubt our decision to carry our own bags (13kg). Still, we soon got into the swing of things and got a steady plod going. Along the way we stayed at basic lodges which were great, especially when it got colder as we ate around one huge communal table which had a heater beneath. The table had blankets all around to keep the heat from escaping, so you'd stick you feet under and get nice and toasty. The scenery was so varied and beautiful - not one day was the same. We initially walked through farmland, steeply terraced paddy fields, neatly domed haystacks and wood stores. Then came forests of birch and lastly rhododendrons in full bloom - the mountainside carpeted in deep scarlet red and vivid pink. The old, gnarled tree branches were draped in mosses and orchids. Nature has found its own way to combat stinky trekkers by producing jasmine by the bucket load - the air was heady with the scent of it. Each day followed a similar pattern - we would wake up to a glorious hot sunny day, by lunchtime the clouds would have started building and by mid-afternoon a huge thunderstorm would rock the valley. I was left speechless as I walked through the snow, sheer rock faces and icicles towering overhead, the swirling mist offering tantalising glimpses of craggy mountain tops seemingly brushing the sky, and all to a soundtrack of thunder booming....it was amazing. Every now and then we would hear the sound of rocks bouncing their way down hundreds of feet as the ice thawed in the sun. The area is prone to avalanches, a fact that was made more real when we saw one speeding down a distant slope. We spent one night at Annapurna base camp which meant that we were able to see the sun rise behind Macchapuchhre (the fish tail mountain), its rays setting the tops of the Annapurna range ablaze with gold - it was absolutely breathtaking. We were so lucky, we couldn't have asked for a clearer day. It was so cold that I had to spend 3 days with my camera down my top just to keep the battery working! Thankfully it held out and I got some great shots, which will have to be posted at a future date (attempted uploading one and an hour later it still hadn't happened!). We took a little detour via Ghorepani as we descended (so we could go up Poon hill at 4.30am to see the sunrise over the Himalaya) and ended up at Birethanti, our final destination after 12 hours of knee-breaking downhill steps. We arrived just in the nick of time - the mother of all thunderstorms raged for the next two hours whilst I was savouring a much needed beer.
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