Elephant safaris, rhinos and lots of sweat!!

Well I’ve not posted for a while, because I’ve just been so busy! Last week at KAT, I was finally allowed to assist in surgery, which made things a bit more interesting for me, but generally things have been pretty slow. Most of the dogs are much better now, so panic over on the distemper front, although we have recently lost one of our favourite puppies which was sad 
Laura, James and I decided a couple of weeks ago that we were going to go on a bit of a mini holiday to Chitwan national park before I leave Nepal – the first time they would have left Kathmandu valley in 9 months of living here! We got everything booked and planned to set off on the 6 hour bus journey there on Friday morning. The trip didn’t get off to the best start, as we woke up early to find a power cut, and in my windowless room, that meant packing everything up in the pitch dark. We just about managed though, and made it to our bus on time. The bus journey was fairly uneventful, but some beautiful scenery – jungle, waterfalls, terrifyingly steep ravines that the buses sped round the corners of extremely fast. We couldn’t help but notice numerous large gaps in the safety barrier where vehicles had obviously plummeted into the river below! We were also very aware of the increasing heat, as we got further and further from the coolness of Kathmandu.
We had prepared ourselves for the onslaught of local touts when we finally arrived in Chitwan, but in fact it really wasn’t too bad at all, despite the stories we’d heard! We found ourselves a room in a small family run guesthouse fairly easily, and had a cup of tea while we tried to get used to the baking hot sun, and insane humidity. We were absolutely sweating buckets – literally we weren’t dry for the entire 5 days – either rain, river water, sweat, or shower water that didn’t dry in the humidity! After we had settled in, we went down to the National Trust Centre for Nature Conservation, to meet Sarad, a vet working on TB in elephants. We had a nice chat with him about his work , and he organized us an elephant safari for the next morning, with his office’s elephants.
It is very much off season in Chitwan at the moment, and the place resembled a ghost town. It was amazing how few people were around, and the only traffic was horses and carts and elephants! It was hilarious to sit up in the rooftop restaurants and watch the elephants trundling up and down both sides of the narrow streets, like taxis! We went down to the river side to watch the sun set, and watch the elephants and try to spot crocodiles at dusk. After dinner at the riverside restaurant, we had an early night, in our very sweaty room (with no power, therefore no fan!), ready for our elephant safari.
The next morning we had to get up early to get down to the nature conservation centre for 7am to give us the best chance of spotting wildlife. Of course when we got there, our elephant was nowhere to be seen, and so we sat and watched the little elephant camp preparing for the day– mahouts all chatting and having breakfast whilst people wrapped up grass and seed into little packages for the baby elephant to eat. Eventually our transport arrived, and we watched them strap a bamboo platform onto her back. We climbed on, and off we went! It perhaps wasn’t the most comfortable way to travel, but it was fun, once we’d figured out how to stay on despite the steep banks that she navigated! We headed off first across some relatively short grass and across a river. We then found out just why it was low season in Chitwan. The grasses are over 15 ft high – and came up well over our elephant! She just ploughed on through anyway, munching all the way. We were generally sticking to paths that other elephants had made, but suddenly our mahout saw a wild boar, and we went off track into the dense, dark jungle to try and find it again. The phrase ‘dragged through a hedge backwards’ doesn’t even begin to describe it. We were being dragged through a jungle forwards – with trees, branches and spiders webs hitting us in the face every few minutes, and nearly getting pulled off the elephant by the odd branch that got caught! It was all part of the fun, though I’m not sure I can say I was all that desperate to see that wild boar. We never did find it again, but we did see some Samba deer, and the back legs of a rhino! We were quite excited, but not entirely convinced that it wasn’t a Nepali person just holding the back legs of a rhino! That was pretty much the extent of our wildlife spots for the day, but we enjoyed the ride nonetheless!
We returned to our guesthouse to find another powercut – the load shedding (basically when there’s no power) in Chitwan is 8 hours a day. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but when it’s so hot, we really needed the fan to be able to stay in the room. So we decided that there was nothing for it but to go for a few drinks instead. James bought a bottle of local Raksi – (rice wine/firewater), and we sat at a little local café called the Nepali kitchen for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We met various people that came in for food and drink, and also bumped into Marianne, the Dutch vet student we had met in Kathmandu.
The next day we organized a canoe trip and a visit to the Elephant breeding centre – recommended by the lonely planet. We weren’t going until 3, so I decided to have a much needed shower, but then got a call from Sarad, the vet, saying he was at the guesthouse to take me to the elephant treatment centre. I was still in my pyjamas, but figured it wasn’t too obvious that they were pyjamas, so went off in them! The centre was about a half hour bike ride from the centre of Sauraha, the town were we were staying. It was all very hidden away, as they are very sensitive to tourists finding out about the elephants that are being treated. The ride was nice – through lots of small Nepali villages, over the river and through some small forested areas, so I kept my eyes peeled for tigers and rhinos the whole way! The centre was basically a camp with about ten elephants that were all being treated for TB. It was really interesting to see how they treat them. It is the human form of TB that elephants get, and so they use a human drug protocol – but some elephants need 60 tablets in each dose! They crush up the tablets, add some salt (to taste!) and then wrap them in a flour dough – elephant momos one of the handlers told me delightedly – (momos are a really popular snack here – similar to dim sum). They also showed me how the elephants will only accept drugs, food, or anything else from their own handlers. One guy threw a doughball to an elephant that wasn’t his own, and the elephant just pushed it angrily as far away as she could with her trunk, and stamped, but then accepted it fine from her own mahout!
After helping with the treatments for an hour or so, and having some dahl bhat with the handlers we headed back to the town. We had lunch in a rooftop restaurant, looking out over the town – with all the elephants coming about up to our level! Afterwards, we set off to the community forest – a community owned part of the national park, for our canoe ride. We all climbed in to the canoes, which were worryingly wobbly and close to the water – bearing in mind we were on a croc spotting mission! It was a nice peaceful ride down the river, and we saw one pair of eyes appear and promptly disappear under the water, but again not a particularly successful wildlife spotting mission. We did see the back end of another rhino disappearing off into the trees though. We were hoping that we would start to see some whole animals at some point, rather than just bits of them! The canoe ride was a disappointingly short 20 minutes (we had been promised an hour), and the elephant breeding centre was quite unpleasant. We had been led to believe that it was a conservation project, but in fact they are breeding elephants to use for tourist rides and for jungle patrols, not to release back into the wild, to help the dwindling numbers of wild elephants in the park. The elephants are all chained up with their calves for the majority of the day, and the breeding side of it is basically allowing a wild bull free access to the elephant cows whenever he chooses; whilst they’re tied up, which is quite disturbing. After an extremely precarious canoe ride back across the river, with the top of the canoe actually level with the water, we headed back to the town. We all felt a bit duped by the whole canoe trip, and yet another power cut gave us no choice but to go back to our Nepali kitchen for a few drinks, some aloo paratha – (potato pancake) and some card games.
The next day was our final day in Chitwan, and we decided that we wanted to go on another elephant safari to try and see some whole animals, so arranged it, along with a night in a treehouse in the jungle, for our last night. On the way back from booking it, James and I went to sit by the river to try and spot some crocodiles, but after spending half an hour watching a suspicious looking bit of weed very intently, we gave up and decided to go and watch the elephant bathing that we could see going on just upriver. We wandered up, and there were no tourists this time – we had been on the first day, as it is one of the big attractions in Chitwan – helping bathe the elephants. Unfortunately, the week before we got there, a lad got drunk and fell off the elephant, cracked his head on a rock and got washed down river and drowned, so tourists aren’t allowed to take part any more – for a few weeks at least, until it’s all forgotten! This time however there were no other tourists, so we went down to the ’beach’ to see if we could go in the water with them. One old mahout, with a huge bull elephant said we could help scrub him, so we grabbed ourselves some flat stones and in we went! The elephant loved it, and lay in the river spraying water all over us with his trunk as we climbed on him, splashing him with water and scrubbing the mud off him. It was really good fun, though we did get soaked – but Laura was really sorry to have missed it!
When we got back, we had to pack up and get ready for our elephant safari and night in the jungle. There is (obviously!) no food in the jungle, so we had to get take out…more aloo paratha and momos, and lots of water and rum! We boarded our elephant (with all our luggage hanging from the sides!) and set off to the jungle – picking up a fourth passenger, Lewis, on the way. We went straight into the community forest, in a herd of other elephants. We thought at first that we would barely see anything, in such a big group, but the elephants all took different routes once we got into the forest. Within about 5 minutes trundling along jungle paths, we came across a rhino, right in our path. I couldn’t believe how close we got to it – we could have just about leaned off the elephant and touched it – though I don’t think that would have been the best idea! Some of the other elephants appeared also then, and just surrounded it in a big circle – which made me a little nervous, but I was surprised at how well a wild animal tolerated it! We watched him have a mud bath, and then set off in search of more animals. About five minutes later, we came across another rhino in a clearing, this time with a baby. It was incredible to see them so close up in the wild, and they didn’t seem at all perturbed by our presence! We saw some peacocks, which didn’t excite me too much, but Lewis was an avid bird watcher so was quite taken with them. After seeing some more Samba deer and a wild boar family, we crossed a river. The elephants stopped in the middle of the river, to spray water over themselves, whilst the mahouts all stood on their heads with umbrellas up! We then broke away from the tracks, and headed through some dense jungle again. Eventually, we came to a watering hole, which we crossed, and came out at a clearing, and saw a jungle tower – our home for the night. We climbed off the elephant, onto the first floor of the tower, where Dev, our guide was waiting for us. We checked out the rooms – hot, tin rooms, with wooden beds in them – luckily there were mosquito nets, but they were full of holes! There was no power there, or running water, so we settled in before we had to do everything by candle light! We sat on the veranda, with the rum and some snacks that Dev had brought…dried soy beans, buff sekuti and dry instant noodles! As the sun started to go down, we spotted a herd of deer in the clearing, and then a family of three rhinos emerged from the forest, and started grazing. As it got darker, the rhinos got closer, and by the time it was completely dark, they were underneath the tower! Eventually, once we decided there was no point looking out for animals any more, we lit a candle. This attracted lots of huge moths, insects and a curious praying mantis! We sat on the veranda, sweating and chatting all evening, until we decided to turn in. We took a group trip to the toilet on the ground floor – where we’d seen rhinos a few hours earlier – it was one exciting toilet trip, complete with large spiders! Laura and I went to bed a bit before the boys, and as soon as we stopped chatting, we heard a loud growling noise coming from somewhere very close by. Sloth bears are the biggest fear in the jungle – as they will attack unprovoked – so we sat up terrified, to try and hear the noise again. We heard it and shouted to the boys to get in the rooms. Strangely though – the noise stopped as soon as the boys got into their room-turned out the growling noise was their chairs on the sides of the tin rooms – we knew it was close by! We eventually got to sleep, to the jungle lullaby of mosquitoes, crickets, barking deer and occasional distant howls and roars from the forest.
We woke up early, to find more rhinos grazing just below the tower. We had to pack up early to get our bus back to Kathmandu. We got a jeep back to the town and had a final breakfast of puri tarkari at the Nepali kitchen. It consisted of two hard boiled eggs, curried vegetables and sweet bready pancakes! Laura and I then went to go and wash and clean our teeth using the water pump out the back of the café. It was a fun experience, but not something I’d like to do every time I needed water – it was quite tiring pumping it after a while!
We walked across town to the bus – there were plenty of horses and carts on offer, but they looked so badly treated, and covered with injuries from the harnesses that we decided to walk anyway, despite the baking hot sun. When we arrived, we found our seats were sat the back of the bus – not a good place to be on a Nepali bus! So James had a word in Nepali, and we found ourselves in the cab with the driver – very spacious – and he nearly even let me drive the bus, until I admitted that I don’t actually drive a bus at home! The downside of being right at the front was that we saw every near miss – nearly hitting a woman, a cow, a micro bus and a few trucks – scary!
We arrived back in Kathmandu, and I have never been so grateful to land in a cold rainy city! We were all in desperate need of a shower, so got clean at my guesthouse, and then went to try the steakhouse in Thamel that everyone raves about – and it turned out it deserved all the good reviews!
I am now back at KAT, and today have assisted in surgery all morning, and done a castration myself! 2 days to go and I’m finally accepted into the OT! Typical! I only have a few days left here – I can’t believe how fast the last month has flown by, but I’ve had a fantastic time. Not sure if I will have anything more worth posting again – just two more days at KAT and some shopping! I have posted some pictures of Chitwan on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22434&id=278600184&l=417638d4fa which you shouldn’t need a facebook account for…so enjoy!

Some pictures on facebook follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22334&id=278600184&l=a10b790482

Garden parties and sightseeing

Since I last posted, I have had lots of fun, and many Nepali experiences, but still, unfortunately not done a great deal at the clinic. I have mainly been offering medical advice for the dogs at the clinic, and cleaning more maggot wounds. Becoming a bit of a pro at pulling out maggots! Thursday was really quiet, so Laura and I went down to a little shack just down the road from the clinic, that does amazing banana lassis. On the way, we spotted a dog in a terrible state - it had horrendous mange and a huge wound across his neck, and some locals were throwing stones at it. We bought some biscuits with the plan of trying to walk him back up to the centre, but he ran off to hide in a nearby shed. Laura went back up to KAT to get some of the dog catchers and a chain, whilst I sat with the dog, trying to calm him down, and feed him some biscuits. The guys from KAT arrived before too long, and without too much difficulty managed to get a chain lead on him to walk him back up to the centre, where they cleaned up the wound.

The next day was similarly quiet at KAT, but Mo, Laura's dog was ill, and had a seizure, so I went with her to a private clinic on the other side of Kathmandu. It was amazing to see the facilities they had - Xray (something I have not yet seen here), Ultrasound, MRI, and full intensive care and hospitalization facilities. The problem is though, the clinic is in such a remote location and is prohibitively expensive for most locals, so it seems the facilities largely go to waste! We managed to get some blood tests for Mo though, and it seems the most likely diagnosis is tick borne paralysis.

The drive across town was a great insight into Nepali life - over the Bagmati river - which is the filthiest river I have seen, huge mountains of rubbish, with dogs foraging around in it. We were driving during the daily downpour - which is a quite a sight in Kathmandu. There are still hoards of motorbikes on the road, but all either covered with ponchos, or holding umbrellas up whilst riding with one hand! On the way back, we stopped at a little roadside shack, for some sekuwa, a Nepali snack. It is buff meat (water buffalo) barbecued with spices and served with rice krispies (!!) The woman was barbecuing it over a very smoky fire, so that we could barely see her, and the stall was very popular with locals, and numerous street dogs that obviously were living on the scraps! It was a bit spicy for me (which admittedly is not saying much!) but really nice.

That day was Suraj, one of the Nepali volunteers' last day. We arrived back at the centre and were told that everyone was going for wild boar at a garden centre that belongs to Suresh, one of Suraj's friends to celebrate. Laura and I didn't really have a clue what to expect, but piled onto the bikes with Radeep, Suraj and James (two bikes, 5 people, not a problem in Nepal!) We drove across town for quite a while - a not entirely comfortable journey, in the dark and the pouring rain! We arrived at said 'garden centre'...in fact a plant nursery, with a small room nearby, and a tin shelter as a toilet. First of all we were all ushered into the room, where there was a bed, a gas ring and very little else. When we realized we didn't all actually fit into the room, we went to investigate the garden centre. At first it looked like were going to be settling down in a foot wide corridor between potted plants, but then we came across a bit of a clearing in the mud. Luckily there was fairly effective tarpaulin to keep us dry from the continuing rain, and someone brought out a couple of rugs. Already quite a surreal experience, Laura and I were wondering where wild boar fitted into it all, and quite how long we would be sitting in the nursery before we could get back home to read our books! Soon though, a woman emerged from the room with the single gas ring, with plates and plates of freshly cooked prawn crackers, masala poppadoms and vegetables. Then the drinks appeared. Numerous bottles of whisky, beer and sprite. We were joined by Suresh, Ramesh, Rajesh and a few others, and they introduced us to the Nepali drinking rule of never being allowed an empty glass, and not really having any sprite with the whisky! They also taught us 'campai', meaning 'down it'!! They then brought out the most amazing plate of wild boar stew - it tasted amazing - I am trying to get the recipe for it so that I can treat you all to it in the UK! There was lots of singing to obscure English songs (in Nepal, as I also found in Africa and Malaysia, the English songs that are popular over here are things like old Boyzone songs, Baha men and various other songs that were barely given airtime in the UK!!) It was a really fun night (helped along I'm sure by the vast quantities of whisky drunk!) with conversation centering around language, (the crisps, cheesy balls caused much hilarity!) and humane ways to kill chickens.

The night came to a natural end, when none of us poor English people could stomach any more whisky! After a bit of a debate about how we were all getting home, and us refusing to get in the car with drunken Nepalis, it turned out the only 'safe' way to get home was back to Laura and James' on the bike again. So off we went. Turns out Laura was too drunk to actually hold on to the bike, so I spent the journey home, up the mountain and through the muddy, rocky tracks, holding Laura onto the bike, whilst she focused her efforts on singing Molly Malone!

We arrived back at Laura and James' and Suraj and Radeep came in to continue the party. I tried to drink water Nepali style from the kettle. Here, they have lots of shared bottles/jugs/cups/bowls of water, so you have to pour it into your mouth without touching the container, and without pouring it all down yourself. I had been practising at KAT, but seemed I had lost the art that night!

After a good night's sleep, we all headed back to KAT, to check quickly on the particularly sick dogs, and then I went back to Thamel to spend a quiet day in a café, reading my book. I put off my day of sight seeing till Sunday when I had a much clearer head!

On Sunday morning, I went for breakfast in the deaf bakery café - which I am becoming a bit of a regular at, and met a lovely German girl, Anna. She had just arrived in Kathmandu the day before, and was planning on a day's sightseeing too, so we decided to keep each other company and set off to Patan, to visit the famous Durbar square.

We got a taxi there and were immediately accosted by people wanting to be our guide for the day. We fended them off, but followed one guide's directions up to a terrace that gave us a great view over the square, which is a complex of amazing Hindu temples. There was a little stall at the top, selling the usual Nepali wares of laughing Buddha ornaments, beaded jewellery and bangles, and the not so usual copies of the Karma Sutra. They were selling them as 'family planning guides' which we found quite hilarious!

We spent the morning in the baking hot sun - for once no rain, wandering around Patan. It is a fascinating place. There are hundreds of different Hindu temples, stupas (4 big round white decorative domes, one at each corner of Patan), chowks (squares) and monuments just dotted throughout the city. Every corner you turn you come across something worth stopping at, but daily life just carries on around it all. We were followed around for about an hour by a little girl - she didn't speak to us, and wasn't asking for anything, but just followed us round the streets, chatting away to herself.

There are lots of little bazaars, and people selling street food, and we had some delicious samosas on the way. I even got to try out a bit of the Nepali that I have been learning, as, despite being one of the Lonely Planet's 'must sees' , many of the locals don't speak any English. After we decided we had just about seen all the sights, we went for lunch in a little rooftop café overlooking the main square. We then got a taxi to Swayambhu, a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Kathmandu - also known as Monkey temple, for the swarms of monkeys that live there.

Swayambhu is notorious for the thousands of pilgrim's steps leading up to the temple. Somehow though, our taxi dropped us just 85 steps from the top! It's a beautiful temple - white and gold with lots of brightly coloured flags strung all over it, and Buddha's eyes on each side of it it- I will try and put some pictures up so you can see it. Buddhists go there to spin the prayer wheels that surround the main stupa - and you have to walk in a clockwise direction around it. There were monkeys climbing all over the temple, and lots of naïve tourists nearly getting attacked as they got their cameras, and faces too close to them! We could go inside the temple, as it is Buddhist, unlike at Patan, where they are Hindu temples, and non hindus are not allowed in. There was a group of Buddhist monks all chanting and playing various drums and wind instruments - it was really interesting to watch.

After we had had a good look round the temple, we headed back to Thamel and met up with Laura, James and Marianne, and played a few games of pool and then went for Chinese (again!) We were all suffering a bit last night though, so have vowed, despite its deliciousness, not to go back to that Chinese!

I am now sat at KAT, and have FINALLY been into the operating theatre today and seen my first flank bitch spay. It's amazing how fast they do it, and all through such a tiny incision! Anyway, I am hoping that I will progress from observing in a few days - who knows, maybe I'll be putting in the odd suture by the end of next week!! We have had a bit of an outbreak of diarrhoea in some of the in house dogs - we're not entirely sure what it is, but are hoping against hope that it is not distemper, as some of the dogs are showing other signs. It could wipe out the lot of them, as they're not yet vaccinated, so fingers crossed I will have some good news on that front for you next time....

Bev Panto, BVetMed MNVC

Hello again. I have now been in Nepal for about a week, and have discovered a few interesting facts. Firstly, whilst you all perhaps know where I am, I bet you don't know when I am...I am in the year 2067 - yep - I'm way in the future here! Not quite sure of the reasoning behind it, but Nepal is 57 years ahead of the rest of the world! And within the year 2067, we are not 5 hours ahead of you in the UK as I originally thought, but 4 ¾ hours ahead - I didn't know that time zones could work in such small denominations, but apparently it is just because Nepal are so determined to be distinct from India, they made themselves 15 minutes ahead!

So since I last posted, I have mainly been at the centre. I spent Sunday afternoon relaxing in a rooftop coffee shop, not wanting to go too far afield with my toe still being sore. After I had been there for about an hour, the heavens opened, and a torrential downpour began. As the café was terraced, most of the tables around the outside got drenched, and everyone huddled into the few tables in the centre of the café. The rain carried on for hours, and was so heavy that parts of the roof started falling in to the exit, so we couldn't get out! After being trapped there for most of the afternoon, the rains slowed, the exit was cleared, and I headed back to the guest house for a well needed early night.

The next morning, I went to the bakery café near the micro stop that Laura and James had recommended. I went in, and when the waiter came over, ordered a fruit salad. He touched his ear and gave me a pen, which confused me at first, but then I realized the he was deaf. In fact all the staff are hearing or speech impaired - it was only when I realized that that I noticed the complete silence in the café! The food was great though, and a really lovely little place. I turned up to the clinic hoping, possibly a little naively, to be able to get into surgery. I was told by the vets that they had had a discussion with the board of directors, and decided that to eliminate any talk of sexism, no one apart from the Nepali vets were allowed into surgery. This obviously didn't help me very much, but when I mentioned it in passing, to Jan, who I, (again, naively!) assumed had been involved in the discussion, it turned out that the vets and some of the clinic staff had gone behind her back, and she was fuming. I decided to just accept whatever was decided, and just hope that once I had my Nepali registration things might change; it's just not worth getting involved in the politics of it all!

I went off to get my registration sorted out at the Nepali Veterinary Council in the afternoon - which involved riding across town on the back of Suraj's motorbike. Not my idea of fun in the Nepali traffic, and with insane amounts of smog and dust in my face. The journey lasted about an hour, but felt like a lot longer, especially as I couldn't see or feel my hands by the end of it, from clinging on for dear life! It wasn't a smooth journey, to say the least! When we arrived, we had to wait for the vets, who were meeting us there, and while we waited, I had a hilarious conversation with Suraj:

Suraj: how old are you?

Me: guess

Suraj: well you must be older than Laura (who is 27, and by the way, extremely slim!)

Me: No, I'm 26

Suraj: oh, well she must just look younger then cos she's not fat like you!

I actually had to bite my lip not to burst out laughing - it is very much just the Nepali way, to be so direct with comments like that-he wasn't meaning to be rude, in fact it is considered healthy to be 'rounder' here! Did amuse me though!

Eventually the vets arrived, and we went to get my certificate. I was amazed looking at the Nepali Veterinary Council building (their version of our RCVS). It was a small, run down, yellow building in the middle of a huge overgrown, filthy back street area. The registration itself involved signing lots of documents, answering strange and obscure questions, and waiting for long periods whilst everyone obviously spoke about me in Nepali! I met Dr. Gamiri, one of the government vets who also runs a private clinic down the road from KAT. We chatted for a while about the veterinary profession in the UK, and how impressed they are with the RCVS, and he then asked if I would lecture a group of his vets about legislation in the UK...not sure that's quite my forte, so hopefully he won't ask again! I think they get very confused between the RVC and the RCVS despite my attempting to explain the difference! After completing the registration and them telling me they would send my certificate the next day, the vets took me to a lecture by a Nepali vet who has just spent a year in Canada. According to the Powerpoint, he was talking about disease reporting in Canada, but the majority of the lecture was in Nepali, with a sprinkling of English here and there. I have never been so bored, but everyone was watching me, as I was the only English vet there, so I think I might have been fairly conspicuous every time my eyes closed! Eventually, Prabin, one of the KAT vets passed a note to me from the back of the room saying 'lets go?'! Clearly they were as bored as I was, and they understood it!

That night, I went back to the New Orleans bar in Thamel to get something to eat quickly before planning to head back to my hostel early. But an English guy who was also travelling alone came up to me, and we ate together, had a few drinks and talked the night away! It is well known amongst solo travelers that the worst part of it is eating alone - so it's always nice when someone approaches you! He showed me a couple of bars in Thamel, and we went to one called Reggae, where they had a great live band interspersed with reggae music. It had a great atmosphere, and some very strange characters, including a girl with a cat on a lead and a drunk dressed in full cycling lycra.

The next day at the clinic, after my usual breakfast at the deaf café, I was tasked with treating all the inpatients, whilst Bidur did the surgery. The operating theatre is a complete no go zone for me now, to the point that I stand at the door and call if I want to ask any questions. It really is quite ridiculous! Anyway, the rescue cases basically consist of kennel after kennel of wounds, in varying stages of healing, plus a few new, infected maggoty wounds. But I managed to get them all done before lunch without too much difficulty. After lunch there wasn't much to do on the ground, so I spent the afternoon helping James draw up a volunteer policy for vet students and vets, so that no one else has to come in to a similar situation as I have. After work, Laura, James and I went into Thamel for a Chinese - although actually ended up having a chicken wrap and a few gin slings! It was a good night though, and we decided to all go to Chitwan National Park the weekend before I leave which is quite exciting!

On Wednesday, I had to go and pick up my certificate - apparently they couldn't find my RCVS membership number on the certificate, so I had to trek across town, just to point it out to them. When I got there, there was just one man in the office who didn't speak a word of English. He appeared to be looking for my certificate...he poured out a drawer of about ten different keys, and then proceeded to try them each in turn in all of the many filing cabinets, drawers and cupboards around the room. It was clear than many of them had not been opened in a very long time, and that my 2 day old certificate was unlikely to be in there, but I just watched with a combination of frustration and amusement! An hour or so later, a woman walked in, picked up my certificate from his desk (!!) and sent me on my way!

Now fully certified, I am hoping that I will be able to talk my way into surgery, but I have also been down to the private clinic down the road, and they have said I can go there too if things don't improve at KAT. It's all a bit of a pain, but I'm having a great time, just unfortunately won't get the experience I came for.

Hopefully by the next time I post, I will be much happier with things at KAT! Oh, and my toe by the way, is healing...slowly, but it's getting there!

Gender issues and infected toes

Hi again! Well I've an interesting couple of days settling into the clinic, and Nepal living. I went down to the KAT centre again on Friday, and spent the morning doing the vet checks with Bidur - the main vet. The cases were mainly cleaning mange and maggot wounds, as well as the post op checks. You would not believe the size of the spay wounds on their flanks - they're less than an inch long! Before doing the vet checks, I had been into the vet clinic, where they do all the surgery, but Bidur had immediately come in and asked me to come and help him with vet checks. I didn't think much of it at the time, but after we had finished checking all the dogs, I asked if it was ok if I went back into surgery to see how they do the flank bitch spays. I was then told that they wanted to ease me in slowly, and they didnt want me even watching surgeries for the first 10-14 days, and would prefer if I just helped feed the dogs and help with post op checks. In that I'm only working in the clinic for a month, this didn't seem like a great plan to me - as I really wanted (and had told that I would be!) hands on.

Jan, the founder and director of the clinic arrived then, for a photo shoot, with Mango, the clinic dog, for her upcoming appearance in Yes! magazine! She came to meet me and we went for a chat - at which point Bidur came in with my Nepal veterinary council registration papers for her to sign. I felt this was a good point to bring up my unwillingness to pay $150 for my Nepali license if I would not even be able to watch surgery. Jan was horrified that Bidur had not allowed me into surgery, and a huge row began between the two of them. It was lunch time, and we were sat in the staff room eating our Dahl-baht (lentil soup and rice - the staple food in Nepal). More and more people came into the room, and I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life! We all sat moving our food around our plates awkwardly whilst Jan laid into Bidur, asking him if he was on a power trip, if he felt threatened by me as a western vet, and eventually, if it was because I am a woman. This was in fact the case, and it came out that Tristan, a second year vet student from Australia had been watching surgeries all week! Bidur came up with a number of excuses so as not to admit that it was a gender issue, but Jan was having none of it. It turned out that this is not the first time that a female vet has been refused into surgery, when male vets and students have been allowed in, with no questions asked. I am all for accepting cultural attitudes and local gender roles and but having paid over $1000 for my flight, I wasn't feeling particularly sympathetic at this point.

I managed to escape eventually, with Jan teling Bidur he needed to go away and have a think about it. Laura, one of the researchers saw that I felt pretty uncomfortable with it all, and we went off for a banana lassi until things had calmed down. In my rush to get out of the room, I stubbed my toe quite hard on a step - but it didn't seem too bad at the time. Laura and I got on really well, and chatted for a while before heading back to the centre, where we found the vets had both left.

Without any vets on site, we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and I filled Laura and James in on the UK chart music, as they feel so out of touch having been away for 18 months! After work, they invited me back to theirs for dinner, via a Kiwi couple's house near them. Marianne (a dutch vet student) and Tristan came along, and we all set off to Koppan, where they live, high up in the hills. It was a couple of bus rides away - the buses were reminiscent of the daladalas and matatus in Africa - crammed full to bursting with bus boys hanging out of the open doors shouting their destination and banging loudly on the side of the bus. We got off the second bus and popped into the supermarket before setting off up to the village where Laura and James live. By this point, I was limping from my stubbed toe, which had formed a large blood blister and got worse throughout the day. The walk started off fairly gently, but after about ten minutes, we were wading through paddy fields full of leeches - in my Birkenstocks! The next section of the walk was debatably worse - not in the water, but instead a balancing act along the narrow brick ledges in between the fields! After a very steep climb and a few more hills and fields to cross, all now barefoot, we arrived at Kate and Doug, the kiwi couples' house. They have the most incredible house up in the hills, with amazing views of fields, mountains and beautiful monasteries. They are setting up their own small centre for street dogs at the back of their house and took us down to show us the progress on the kennels they are building. They invited us in for a drink, which became a couple of drinks, which became more than a few drinks, and hours later, we stumbled out to stagger down the lane to Laura and James'.

The next morning, we all headed back out, to go to the hindu temple at Pashupati, the biggest Hindu crematorium in Nepal. As we were strolling down the lane towards the bus stop, I, again, stubbed my toe on the ground, and the blood blister burst - spilling blood everywhere. It looked an absolute mess, and was really painful now, but I bandaged it up with a wet wipe and a hair bobble and we got on our way. The temple was somewhat disappointing - partly as I only made it halfway round before I gave up and headed back with my bad toe, and partly because it just didn't seem that spectacular. We saw the burning ghats and the outside of the temple, but didn't seem to be much special. We all then headed into Thamel for the most amazing chinese meal, and then Laura, James and I spent the rest of the evening in a bar, putting the world to rights!

When I eventually got home, well in need of a good night's sleep, I peeled my 'bandage' off my toe to reveal a large green infected wound - lovely! It is now Sunday morning, and I am soon off to find a pharmacy to find something to clean my toe with - monsoon season in Nepal is definitely not the time or place to have an infected toe!

Tomorrow I am heading back to the centre, hopefully to go and watch some surgery, despite being female! I will let you know my progress!

Day one - one very long day!

Well, have finally made it to Nepal after what feels like days of travelling! It wa a fairly uneventful couple of flights - Bahrain airport is not a bad place to spend 7 hours! The onward flight to Kathmandu was interesting though - the first strange thing was walking onto a plane through clouds of thick mist - it actually turned out to just be the air conditioning, but I actually couldn't see more than about a foot in front of me through the mist! Very strange! Secondly, were the unruly Nepalese passengers. I have never experienced a flight like it - they were all standing up during take off, on their phones throughout the flight, stealing drinks from the hostess' trolleys, and....wait for it....smoking on the flight! I felt really quite sorry for the poor air hostesses who were getting so exasperated with everyone. But it was quite an entertaning flight, despite all the official entertainment being in arabic with Nepalese subtitles!

Anyway, I eventually landed in Kathmandu airport to 29 degrees C and bucketting down rain. I was entirely inappropriately dressed in my flipflops - which were on their last legs anyway, but lasted about 10 minutes before they were chucked! I made it through all the security checks plus baggage collection and visa application in less than half an hour - impressive. I then braced myself for the inevitable onslaught of taxi drivers, beggars and general hassle that I have experienced at every airport in Asia that I have arrived at. But to my (very pleasant!) surprise, there was none! I made it into a taxi without one single person approaching me for anything! Driving through Kathmandu towards the hotel, I watched the usual hustle and bustle of frenzied activity that I have come to love about Asian cities. But again, it was noticeably different to everywhere else I have been - the people seem less aggressive, even the people selling things at the car windows walk away at the first 'no'. I checked into my guest house, which is a bargain at about 3.50 a night for a double ensuite room - the water doesn't come out of the taps but out of one of many tubes that empty randomly into the bathroom, and the shower is barely a dribble, but still, a bargain!! I had a quick nap before heading up to Budhanilkantha, about 40 minutes from Thamale, where the KAT clinic is.

Jan, the founder wasn't there, but I met all of the other volunteers, the two Nepalese vets, and two English researchers (one of whom is from Southwell, Notts - small world!!) - and loads of dogs, cats and puppies that the centre has rescued and adopted over the years. There's not much you can do without tripping over a puppy, or being jumped on or licked by one of the bigger dogs! I was given a quick tour of the centre - the facilites are fantastic for a charity clinic - they have boarding kennels, isolation kennels, the vet clinic, and many other areas. I mainly spent the afternoon trying to keep my eyes open, and getting to know people, but also spent half an hour pulling huge maggots from the large open wound on a stray dog's back.

I sloped off at about 4.30 to get some sleep, and found a very cheap and pretty quick internet cafe next to my guest house - where I am now! am off to go and get some good sleep before hopefully starting properly at the clinic tomorrow. Am loving Nepal so far, and fingers crossed will get lots of good experience here, and some chance to explore a bit too! Will write again when I actually have something to tell you!