This and that

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Well the past week has been great, although it started out quite awful. On Saturday I ended up spending the night over our toilet bowl - I vommed 6 times within a 10 hour period along with having fever and chills, and ended up in hospital with a saline drip fed into my arm all day Sunday. They diagnosed me with food poisoning and dehydration. I was feeling much better after this and headed home….unfortunately by Tuesday I was feeling awful again and this time had diarhea along with the vomiting. So went back to hospital. This time they did some tests on me and found I had Acute Bacterial Dysentary. What a relief to know! I ended up with some antibiotics for the next few days and stayed at home, sleeping and reading my book. So by Friday I was feeling much better and Anouska and I ended up going to the shops to by some cleaning products for our place as we hadn’t cleaned the house since we moved in over a month ago. Later on that afternoon, Anouska and I went out in Thamel for dinner and a few drinks with some of her friends that were by chance in Kathmandu. They were mostly med students and lawyers. There’s Veronica from the US, Rebecca living in the Terai who was up for the weekend and Aimun, a med student from the UK.

Saturday Celeste and I ended up spending the most part of the day at Patan Durbar Square which really is quite chill and only 10 minutes walk down the road. We went to Swayambunath that afternoon as it overlooks Kathmandu and is apparently quite beautiful at sunset, however there was a whole heap of dust in the air so the view was not all that great. I think I will head back one evening - its kind of like the Mt’ Cootha lookout of Nepal.

On Sunday Celeste and I went back in to Thamel to use the internet and try and be a bit more touristy as we haven’t done all that much since we’ve been here. We went on a mini shopping spree in Thamel and I ended up purchasing some purple Aladdinesque style pants for $8.

Yesterday my boss called me early in the morning informing me that there was a Bandh (Strike) in Kathmandu and so I shouldn’t go into work. Instead I ended up spending most of the day at home, before going in to see what all the fuss was about. I went out to the street to catch a micro (microvan) in. These cost about 10 Rupees (25 cents) rather than paying 200 Rupees ($4) via a cab to get into town so are a much more economical option. One pulled up and it was packed to the brim, Nepalis were hanging out the slide door. They opened the front door for me and I wedged myself next to the 3 other guys and the driver. One of the guys slammed the passenger door shut on me, pushing me further in to the front seat at an off kilter angle. As we were driving along, I saw a huge burst of electricity come from one of the lines and hit the road. Low hanging power lines are not safe people!!! I laughed awkwardly whilst the other Nepalis chatted excitedly in the back (FYI there were 23 Nepalis squeezed into the back of this van).

Ratna Park was filled to the brim with people at this political rally. I would say there were at least 5000 people there. It didn’t actually end up being a bandh that disrupted traffic though (suprisingly).

So today I am back at work - my co worker politely informed me that when I started with them I looked fat but now I’m slim. Nepalis love commenting on each other’s weight it seems. Oh well that’s enough for now.

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Comments

[Dad]

Great post, any chance of some pictures of the places mentioned? Would have loved one of the interior of the bus! If the dust is having a bad effect on the view wait for a windy day or (less likely I know) after rain.