Day 2: exploring Kathmandu

I’m going to caveat this blog post by letting you know the internet is way to slow to upload pictures at the moment. So I will try but I may be you need to wait till our return.

After a good nights sleep on Stephens part, and myself tortured by jet lag we awoke around 8 to breakfast at the hotel, omelettes to order and proper coffee. Big tick. 

I then rang my colleague and friend Kulesh, medical director of the Nepalese ambulance service, to organise when we would meet him today for the work aspect of the trip. 

He popped by to say hello and would pick us up at 12:30 to head to the Ambulance based here in Kathmandu. This is a charity I have got involved with through some work collegues. It is the first charity ambulance service in Nepal. 

After breakfast we decided to head down to Durban Square, mum you’ve probably seen it in Michael palins Himalaya. The main square full of holy temples was hit hard by the earthquake in 2015, with many of the important temples partly destroyed. We walked around the sight for about an hour with thompson tours, (aka Stephen trying to work out where we were on the map), visiting the temple of the Alive goddess Kumari, who sadly we didn’t see. 

Following this we wandered back to the hotel, via some outdoor shops, where we bought rain jackets, hiking poles etc, getting back in time to meet Kulesh.

We jumped in his car, greeting by him and his friend Peter, an English man who has been in nepal since the 70s who founded the British Nepali medical society. We then headed to the Nepalese ambulance service headquarters. We arrived greeted by some of the paramedics and the amazing team. They treated us to a lovely lunch of momos (Nepal’s version of dumplings) and chatted about how the ambulance was getting on and the training the paramedics undergo. We also talked about some of the difficulties they have had setting up the service, with the limited understanding the public have of what an ambulance is and what it can add. They are currently running education programmes in schools to try to help raise awareness.  This was followed by a tour of the ambulances themselves and some photos.

Kulesh was then kind enough to drive us back to town and take us for a walk around his hospital, the emergency room, operating theatre and clinics.

It was so lovely and such a privilege to meet these wonderful people and here about the great things they’re doing. 

On the way back we stopped at forest plate, a rooftop healthy cafe for smoothies before coming back and meeting Sadhana, head of our trekking company, and then being taken out for dinner by our guide Depandra. Treated to a Nepalese feast of more momos, dal baht and rice and curry. 

Tomorrow we leave Kathmandu at 6am. I’m not sure when we’ll next have WiFi but keep checking back!