Berrys Blog

Our journey across India has been great so far. And aside from all of the stares, which have been seriously off-putting, the touts, the rickshaw driver yells, it has been really great!

The trains have been very good - very relieved that we booked them though as Indian queues are an experience - and we have been to a peaceful Bodhgaya, a crazy Varanasi where we took a lovely dawn boat ride with a tiny 10 year old rower (we thought it would be his dad taking us but it was him!!), and a stunning Taj Mahal.

We arrived in Rajasthan to discover that there is a festival here, so we saw an amazing parade and finished with an unusually luxurious dinner in a revolving restaurant. It looked weird from the outside and was very surreal! It also made me a bit dizzy after all the rocking from our train journeys.

Further west into Rajasthan this afternoon and then north towards Chandigarh...

Ok, you've guessed from the title i've been ill again, but don't worry, i'll spare you all the details. It was amoebic dysentry for my health worker friends.

Talking of near lethal illnesses, here is my report on the medical tent.

The set up was simple - dirt floor, tarpaulin and bamboo frame, 2 chairs, a chest of drawers and a bed-sized straw mat.

The provisions were basic (though mostly in date) - a large box of various size plasters, equipment for basic wound dressings and some basic medicines.

The expectations were great - a broken arm and a blind man both in the first week!

My friends at work had kindly made me a good luck card which had a picture of "Dean's Magical Medical Tent". I think the sick and needy of Nepal had heard about this but interpreted it literally, as a queue of expectant people gathered daily, eager to see the "magician" from England and witness his magical powers.

Luckily i was not alone. Luckily i had a fellow nurse to share a puzzled look with. Unfortunately she was 17 years retired and had specialised in midwifery. Luckily we were not alone. Luckily we had an interpreter. Unfortunately he only spoke sketchy Swahili. Okay, only kidding on that last bit. He was an ex-Rokpa street kid who spoke good English and had been the interpreter in the medical tent for the past 8 years.

So, i knew i had to dig deep to serve these desparate people who were looking to me for help, and with encouragement from my wife, i searched my memory for the knowledge i had learnt at university. The void was discouraging. The regret was sincere. The panic, absolute. My final option... "Look into the eyes, into the eyes, not around the eyes, directly into the eyes" only kidding, i'm no Paul Mckenna, my final option... the power of the placebo! I was amazed at what my paracetamols could fix. Thank the Gods for the power of the mind and good old blind faith and trust.

Kathmandu has specialist hospitals for leprosy, the blind and orthopaedics and there was also a clinic nearby run by the neighbouring monastery where we could refer those who didn't respond well to my placebos, such as lepers, the girl with the broken arm, the blind, major organ problems, grossly rotten teeth (only seen previously in textbooks) and a man with his big toe missing, which oozed green pus when i squeezed it, but who had the biggest smile!.

The patient who made my adrenaline surge the most was being seen by the other nurse one morning while i was finishing helping serve breakfast. I heard his screams from the tent and went in to see him sat on the chair with his mum behind him and the other nurse holding a dressing to his forehead above his right eye. I looked at the interpreter who looked back and said "monkey bite! monkey bite!". It turned out that this 4 year old boy had been attatcked by a monkey at a nearby temple, which bit him above his right eye and scratched his face with its hands. This had happened 4 days previously, but the mother could not afford treatment, and therefore, with no free health care, the boy had just been given a simple dressing. The wound was still actively bleeding and the skin had started to retract, leaving an ugly wound which would need plastic surgery.

The good news is that Rokpa paid for his operation and a few days later he was back playing around and smiling. Until i tried to take his stitches out. Apparently the hospital would not take them out so his mum held him, but he screamed and wiggled around every time i got close. They left and his mum went to buy him a small toy. He returned smiling but had the same reaction when we tried again. So the other nurse held him and his arms on her lap, while the mother held his head and i managed through screams and tears, to take them out. Amazingly only a couple of minutes later as he left, he gave me a smile and a wave.

All in all, it was a fantastic experience, and although sometimes overly trusting, generally the patients were friendly and very grateful. My nusing has definately benefitted, and my appreciation of the NHS has increased.

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Quick note to say we have safely arrived in India and things went just about as planned. A lovely flight with mountain views!

After being hustled at the airport by about 20 men trying to tell us we couldn't cross the border there, we finally got someone to drive us. He waved us in a general direction and we walked along with crowds of Indian and Nepali border-crossers until we were finally waved into an immigration office and told that we were in India. They only had forms for Indian nationals but despite trying to explain that maybe we needed one for foreigners they insisted that it was ok and finally we were allowed through! Very weird experience, but a big relief.
The official was really helpful and explained which trains to take and luckily we were soon on one - 2nd class with wooden seats - and then changed to another, to discover it was 6hrs, but at least these seats were slightly padded!
Arrived 1am and discovered the wonders of 'retiring rooms' in Indian train stations, it was enormous and cost about 1.50!

Then a jeep ride and the toy train to Darjeeling - now enjoying very cold weather and nice tea!

Hello all, hope you are doing well. We are fine here, having finished at the soup kitchen and begun our travels. Please read on...

Having trouble trying to leave Nepal. Our plan was to go to a national park for an elephant safari and rafting, then go by bus over a couple of days to the eastern border with India. However! not so simple in this interesting country! ...a few riots, roadblocks, deaths, protests and general disruptions have meant a change of plan. (see Annies earlier blog).

We now have gone back on ourselves to Kathmandu and plan to fly to Biratnagar to attempt to cross the Indian border there. We had intended to fly directly to the border crossing that we were heading to by bus, but the airport there is closed for a month for maintainence work. Biratnagar is the next closest airport, although we had read that it was not a border crossing point for tourists, but have double checked this with travel agents AND the british embassy who give us a Nepalese guarantee (...erm, well, probably, ...ahh, hopefully, good luck sir!) that we can cross at this point as we have our Indian visa. We will then get ourselves to Darjeeling as planned.

So, to backtrack, we finished at the soup kitchen with mixed emotions. The last day felt celebratory with the biggest turnout of customers, many of whom had bought us thoughtful gifts like purses, jewellery and scarves. They wished us all well and we took a long time to say our goodbyes. We then had to dismantle, clean and transport it to ROKPA's childrens home which took a couple of days. We had an enjoyable last meal together before people went their separate ways- back home, onward travelling or trekking to everest basecamp!

We headed to Pokhara via an interesting bus journey through the countryside/mountains. Pokhara is a beautiful city with Nepals 2nd largest lake. Popular with tourists for paragliding, trekking, rafting and relaxing by or on the lake. Unfortunately Annie was ill again, so as the dutiful husband/nurse that i am, i made sure she had a plentiful supply of loo roll before heading out to hire myself a motorbike. 5 quid to hire a bike for the day! I don't have a bike license nor have i ridden a bike with gears before. But i did have hard currency, so took the bike and spent the first hour or so learning how to ride it, then hit the open road to learn how to avoid lorries, buses and potholes - don't worry mum i'm fine and the bike has been returned!

Annie wasn't ill all the time in Pokhara (and is now better) and we did manage to bike up to the top of a mountain for a view of the "real" snowcapped mountains at sunrise which was great, especially as they have been mostly covered by a misty haze during the day. We also walked up another mountain which gave us great views of the town. We hired a boat (and boatman) to get to the other side of the lake for that walk. A few of the others from the soup kitchen have been around Pokhara, in between rafting and trekking so we've hung out with them too.

So fingers crossed for our great escape tomorrow...

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Hello! We packed up and left the kitchen a few days ago, which involved lots of dusting down and folding of tarpaulines! It was quite sad to go, but we have been looking forward to moving onwards.

We are now in Pokhara, on a lakeside, with mountain views in the distance...especially when there are no clouds (which there have been most days)!

Things have been getting a little tense here, firstly because I (Annie) got quite ill and was stuck in bed for two days, so we were late moving on. Secondly, now that we are ready to move on, there is no way out the way we wanted to go: the east-west highway is blockaded and there are strikes all the way along it, so no traffic can get to the eastern-most crossing we were going to use. There are about as many reasons for the blockades as the people participating - they happen if people want compensation for some reason, political recognition, police action, etc. So talks are taking place, but meanwhile road traffic across the country is not really possible.
This means that we can't get to Chitwan Park that we really hoped to see - no elephant safari or rhino spotting for us apparently Chitwan is all locked up and no one can get out - so in some ways a blessing in disguise that I was ill so we were not stuck there.
To add something else to the mix, protests happened in Pokhara because a girl was bitten by a dog and died after being given a rabies jab. The locals then trashed the hospital (!) and police sprayed tear gas resulting in a young girls passing out and dying on the way to the second hospital - so that then also got trashed (!!). We always thought hospitals were except from these kind of things.
Another blessing in disguise is that we had antibiotics on us meaning that we weren't at either of the hospitals when they were trashed!
Good news is that we now have a flight booked so have to go back to Kathmandu to then fly to a less used crossing at Biratnagar-Jogbani. We then have to make our way overland to get to Darjeeling/Sikkim as planned. We should hopefully arrive on time for our plans for India - this has only messed up the travels in Nepal! Other good news is that I'm feeling completely better and finishing off the antibiotics.
Wish us luck on our way to India!!