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Life is pretty challenging here on one leg. I spend most of my days resembling a cross between a kangaroo on speed and an unstable flamingo. My new best friend is an old guy with a prosthetic leg and finger stumps at knuckle level who sees me as some sort of disabled ally and keeps giving me the thumbs up, or rather I should say the stumps up. By the way, I'm only his friend because I can no longer travel faster then him to escape him ; in fact, I'm a walking ( or non-walking!) disaster on crutches!!!
My prophesy about the flip-flops ( see earlier diary) came true: two days ago I found my flight out from Kathmandu had been cancelled by the airline, which is about to go bankrupt . I rushed to the internet caff to try to sort matters; on the way out I suddenly found myself a sprawling mess on the road. Not sure what happened but my ankle went over. BIG TIME. For the first time in my life (excluding heavy drinking sprees...lol!!) I couldn't stand up and had to be carried back to my guest house, where my ankle started swelling to
gigantic proportions. I have elephantitis of the ankle. Cutting a long story short I ended up at hospital - no broken bones but a severe enough injury to require bed rest for 2 weeks, plaster and crutches. Suddenly the guest house started to resemble a giant obstacle course. In fact I am so pathetic that I have now taken to being carried around the place and have a recruited a harem of slaves to perform every task for me! Joking aside, I'm sooooo glad I have practised my yoga-standing-on -one-leg postures. They are coming in extremely useful in the shower, and I have devised many ways of crossing my room using knee, bed, towel rail, and in fact any solid fixture that looks like it wont collapse under my weight, and a few that look like they might !
Before my latest, and so far most impressive, disaster struck I was having a jolly nice time in Kathmandu. Tibet was amazing- amazing scenery, fascinating people , and like stepping back in time. We stayed in some amazingly basic, showerless dorms, where even a flask of hot water was a rare treat , and the toilets were a health hazard,
A very non-touristy street in Thamel!
In fact I'm sitting in an internet caff which is just besides the red 'four seasons' sign on the right of the picture uploading these pics! to some surprisingly advanced accommodation. I spent some really special moments alone with the mountains, brilliant stars, and spiritual places, and equally some fun times with our group, which was generally a really good bunch. We even went to a Tibetan disco which was somewhere between a potential Eurovision song contest and a potential riot; Tibetan heart- throb singers performed to a backdrop of security guards pretending to be police wearing riot helmets, and the audience applauded using plastic hand-shaped clapping devices. All very bizarre........
Myself and one of the lads from the group were game for a dance and joined mr Eurovision on stage as his backing dancers. All heads swivelled in our direction and we became immediate celebrities. We were the only Westerners bar 1 in amongst around 250 Chinese/Tibetans. We had backs patted and thumbs up as we made our way off stage. Then came the Tibetan shuffle. About 100 people descended on stage and started performing this slow dance where you all moved round in several big circles, shuffled monotonously slowly, then basically kept on moving round and round for about 10 minutes to this droning music. Hardly anybody made eye contact. It was all really
General road chaos... Thamel
Taken from the back seat of a taxi as we were trying to squeeze through a gap too small.... strange. It was evidently wild by Tibetan standards as suddenly the bouncers-come-riot-police- with- motorbike-type- helmets all lined up at the back of the stage in case of trouble. As I was now miss- western-celebrity-dancer, I ended up in a row of 5 Tibetan men holding hands with me sandwiched in amongst them. They kept jostling for position trying to be next to me, barging in between other men. Even funnier was Dan, one of our group ( a tall Swiss army guy )being grabbed by a group of men to dance with them; They held his hands too and next to him was a 3 foot dwarf. I couldn't stop giggling as he looked distinctly uncomfortable holding hands with these men - of course in Europe men just don't do these things but in Asia it's perfectly acceptable. One of group commented that watching this dance, coupled with the heavy security backdrop,was one of the weirdest things he'd ever seen , and I must admit I felt kinda trance-like by the end of it!
One thing I couldn't write about in China and Tibet was the heavy policing of everything, even the internet. Trying to upload a photo with
a policeman in onto this site, my internet connection was suddenly terminated. I even heard stories of internet police tracking an IP address and turning up and arresting people if they didn't like what they had posted. I took no chances and quit the internet caff immediately! Sending post home, they inspected my photo cd and skimmed through all the photos to see what was leaving the country. Around the Jokhang in Lhasa, there were Chinese police everywhere. On the roads we were pulled up at police checkpoints to have papers checked and sometimes asked for money. Several of the roads were even being built as we travelled along them and we had no choice but to pull over and wait while they laid the top surface! One thing is for sure and that is Tibet is not a free country. The chinese are ruining all character by building and expanding the old Tibetan towns and forcing Chinese way of life upon these people. At the Chinese border they fire an infra-red beam at your forehead to read your body temperature to see if you might be carrying SARS or the like........
Anyhow, back to Kathmandu. My days are presently spent ( when not being adopted as mascot for the disabled and deformed, or avoiding the same young boys who try to sell me the same hash every evening despite me telling them every day I don't do drugs) eating, drinking, socialising, game-playing, hopping (all around the same table outside the guest house), and explaining that no, I never had any co-ordination in my feet, and yes I survived Base camp and the like but the pavements of Kathmandu were just too much for me. Everybody wants to know my story and it's getting to the stage where I might just get a t-shirt printed telling it as it's kinda getting repetitive! Occasionally I break the monotony and try advanced crutch-techniques like scooting up steps to the guest house toilet ( looking like I'm about to break the other leg any moment) and in the evenings, if I'm good, I usually escape off- site to a caff a few doors down, although I have to take a minder to help me up the steps. Mike ( water-bomber) from my group is still around 'till tomorrow and has been a very patient home-help to me . The lads are threatening to carry me up to a pub later, but we'll see if I dare inflict it on them.
My home help has just arrived so I'd better dash! Will post some photos when I get outta here as I can't upload on the guest house computer!! xx
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Quinnthefinn
Teresia Quinn
Oh Sally.....
I can't bear this happening to you! You do make me laugh though, but believe me we are all sending strenghthening thoughts to you and hope your ankle gets better very soon. Does this mean you're stuck in Kathmandu? My brother's parents-in-law spent some years in Kathmandu and they said it was quite a busy city, I've got a little Nepalese rucksack they gave me. And a hand puppet! On another note-Finland won the Eurovision song contest! First time ever, so now I'm the local hero in Weston-super-Mare! Keep writing, we look forward everyday to see if there's anything new from you, Love Tess xx