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!