FIRST HIKE

We walked down to the lake. 

Got in our little boats with our porters rowing. We crossed the lake. 

Stopped at a Hindu temple. I couldn't go in to get blessed because I had leather shoes on and cows are sacred. Our ported got blessed so came away with red paint on their foreheads. 

Then we climbed up to a Buddist Temple. It was a mile up very tough hike so my porter in the rear asked if he could carry my backpack. He didn't have to twist my arm. 

The orange backpack is mine. This is Bemba. He is going to get a for serious tip. 

This temple is way on the top. Look at the top of the mountain for the white building in the next picture. We took our shoes off to go up and look at the temple. This is serious business here and you have to be silent and respectful. 

It's so high I can't see it but it's on the top of this ridge. 

By the time I got back down my legs were rubber. It's a good thing I worked out as much as I did before coming or I might not have made it. 

We get to hike another hour this afternoon. Whose idea was this anyway? The views are spectacular. 

This is from the top of the city of Pokhara. 

HOTEL ORCHID

This was the best night's sleep I've had yet. The water works and shower is hot. Internet is strong. 

Our room has the third balcony up on the right side. 

The entrance with our bags. 

Our room. 

The towel is folded like and orchid. 

Two of our team has made it to China on the way to Houston. One gave up on the airport and rejoined us. One left for Bali via Bankok and one was headed to New Dehli but we have had no word from him at all. Our breakfast this morning was fried curried potatoes, papaya and watermelon, steamed vegetables toast, omelets and tea. 

I woke up at 5 to pouring rain so quickly got the clothes off the balcony that I had washed in the shower. Fortunately there is an overhang so they weren't drenched, but everything is moist. I decided to just wear them today since my wardrobe is limited. I had expected to wear the same clothes for a week at a time without showering but things are a little better than that. Our duffle bags can only weigh 30 lb. each porter carries two so they  limit the weight. 

Pokhara is beautiful and not nearly as chaotic as Kathmadu. We are hiking up to somewhere this morning, then driving an hour to hike from the end of the road to Seuli Bazaar and spend the night in a tea house. I don't expect a shower there but they should have electricity. 

I highly recommend these hiking pants. The legs zip off and they have lots of great zipper pockets big enough to keep your passport right on you along with some money. They are stretchy, comfortable and dry quickly. 

 There is another Shintu priest standing in the hotel doorway with his little bucket of red paint and marigold petals to bless me but I still have the red dot on my forehead from yesterday, in spite of the shower, so I don't need another one. 

We have a couple from the UK who had to abandon their trek to Everest Base Camp when the earthquake hit half way along the route. 

Jules and Lynsey from UK. 

They have a harrowing tale to tell. They are in the process of moving to India with the military and are delightful. 

Our Sherpas aren't from the Sherpa clan so I learned a lot about them at dinner last night. I'll get a picture of them and post more when I can. 

KGH

I only slept till about 2:30 and was able to text with the kids a bit. The toilet doesn't flush any more. Bathroom saga abroad is always an ongoing problem. We still have running water in the sink. 

We are sitting down to breakfast in the hotel. Hot boiled eggs and bread. Food is to be eaten judiciously. 

Most of the team is here. Two more probably won't make it. The International, one runway, airport is only open for government planes, aid, etc. people her are heading to the airport. Wishful thinking I'm afraid. 

Breakfast of boiled eggs and bread. Tasty. 

POKHARA

This was a long day. We ran out of water in our bathroom overnight and felt more aftershocks. Many small ones overnight. It's easy to get up early because of jet lag so I was awake befor 4am. We packed our duffle bags and backpacks, leaving extra non essential stuff at the KGH. 

We had to walk to the end of the street because it was too narrow for our van. The porters carried the ruffles for us. They can carry up to 200 lb for 10 hrs according to Binoy, our guide, so two 30 lb bags is relatively easy. 

Our van picked us up on a very dusty street after waiting a bit. I'm not sure why. 

A Hindu priest came along and put red dots on our foreheads along with marigold petals as a blessing for our trek. He also wanted some money so I gave him 10 Rupies. I think that might only be about a penny but he seemed happy with it. We took Ag about 9 am on a 6 hour drive to Pokhara. We got there at 6:30 pm. We had heard that 100 buses were taking people home to India and peasants back to their villages leaving Kathmandu. We also heard a rumor conflicting reports about the road being blocked with a landslide. Here is a small one. 

It only blocked our lane. It doesn't seem like drivers pay much attention to the lanes anyway. 

I don't know for sure about the 100 buses, but the 'bus stop' Binoy said had 5,000 people when it usually should have 500. 

Bus patrons. 

We were stopped in traffic where the road divided and one lane went off toward India. 

We walked on past all the cars and over the bridge to eventually be found by our driver. 

Our driver picked us up across the bridge at a cafe an hour and 1/2 later. 

We made it to Pokhara and it is great!  It has a great shower, electricity, toilets that flush, and Internet that works. We are in the lap of luxury. We went for supper and had water buffalo meat appetizers called mo mo. 

Vegetarian masala. Lots of curry. 

I don't remember the name of what I had but it was good and it wasn't rice! 

Tomorrow morning we hike up to a Hindu temple in the morning then take off and drive up an hour to a trail for real hiking. 

I've got to sleep. It's beautiful here. I posted a couple videos on FB Columbus medical mission team. 

TUESDAY MORNING IN KATHMANDU

There were many small aftershocks overnight and water is gone again. John poured our precious bucket of water in the tank so we can flush one more time before leaving the hotel for the day. 

John can get email, but I can't. I'm blaming Verizon for that, but am not sure. I can get texts from iPhones only when I'm connected to Wifi so it's very sporadic. We've were able to FaceTime all the kids yesterday. 

It's 5 am and 6:15pm back home. Yes, do the math we are 10:45 minutes ahead. Apparently Neoal wanted it's time zone distinctly different form India for some reason back in the day. The monkeys start calling, birds singing about 4am and so far there haven't been so many dogs barking like they have other days. We've packed our duffle bags to leave. These are provided by the trekking company Alps in Nepal. Go to www.alpsinnepal.com to check it out. One of them did graduate work in Nebraska. Who'd have thought! We get to keep the bags at the end. 

They can only weigh about 12 kg. the folks who tried to leave yesterday are not out yet. At least one came back to he hotel. I think one slept at the airport. Two others I'm not sure about. I haven't spoken to any of them since they left. 

Another small aftershock right now the bed wobbles a very little bit. John didn't feel it. Perhaps I'm paranoid. I'm the one who always figures the tornado could never hit exactly where I am, but with 3000 dead all bets are off. Where the Avalanche was is where we were planning to go. Now our plan has completely changed. We will drive to Pokhara 7 hours today. They say there are 100 buses heading to India on the Same road so this could be interesting. I'll have my camera ready and lots of water and snacks with me so I can survive. I gues the $100 worth of snack I bought at Hy Vee and made into many small trail mix bags will pay off after all. We've eaten that along with snacks form others when we get tired of fried rice. Mostly rice, by the way, not much fried other stuff. I'm also mostly vegetarian now. 

This is Lisa and Patricia, both of whom are making efforts to leave Nepal now that the plans have fallen apart. So far no luck getting out. We will visit a health center in Pokhara today. We expect to do minor medical things along the way wherever we can, but don't really have the usual lines of people and clinic or surgery set up like past missions. This is a reconnaissance trip to see if a new mission can be organized for the future. 

BACK ONLINE

It's been a roller coaster the past day with plans shifting and changing by the minute. We have had no internet for a day and a half and have been trying to decide how to best proceed. We are still at the Kathmandu Guest House. The water in the bathrooms quit 24hrs ago but now is back, although it's brown. We've eaten fried rice 3 of the last 5 meals. Boiled eggs and bread for breakfast. The electricity might even be back on, but I'm not sure. Our hotel has been on backup generator all along. 

We visited the U.S. Embassy "club" this morning and got some MRE's. That is meals ready to eat. They weren't the best, but also wasn't fried rice. 

This is the embassy compound. Really the lap of luxury. It's only about 6 blocks away and admitting all Americans. There is a tent city there but we weren't supposed to take pictures. I snuck this one so I hope I don't end up on the black list. I don't think it includes any military secrets. 

We are down to a few choices and have debated all this at length. Our mission part is over, I think. We did a mini clinic at a tent city set up at a Nepal army base. It wasn't much ENT, mostly injuries. They seemed grateful to have us there for yesterday morning. 

The tent city. 

A bunged up knee that needs x-Rays. 

Mom and baby. 

People lined up to see us. 

They found a Red Cross flag so we took a picture by it, but it wasn't anything to do with the Red Cross. 

Then in the afternoon we visited the B&B Hospital. It's a private hospital where Dr. Pine had planned to see patients. Most of them didn't show up because of the earthquake, but we were able to see some and donated equipment to Dr. -uh you pronounce it. ;)

Dr. Gyawali with Dr. Pine. 

They had moved the patients out of the hospital afraid the building might collapse and they didn't want us inside too long. There is a sense of fear here. They were doing surgery outside in a tent. Only the very urgent surgery so most things were on hold. 

This is a tent for patients. 

Here they are putting up a surgery tent. 

Broken leg. 

We were tired of fried rice so had our own supper in the balcony when a team member brought in a massive papaya. We ended up hungry later and walked out on the street to find more rice and French fries. It was a blackout so we wore headlights to see on the street. There were 9 of us so we had safety in numbers. The area, although crowded and a little disorganized, seems safe and the people are just wonderful and kind hearted. 

In the midst of all this the trek to the Everest Base Camp has totally fallen through. One trekker supports 10-11 Nepalese for a full year so to abandon our trek is a huge hit for our guide, Binoy. He was very discouraged to find out about all the deaths (17 so far) on Everest and that the villages along the way are badly damaged. There are rock slides and he said it's too dangerous for us to think of going. To come straight home has its own problems. The airport is chaos with people trying to get out and all the treks cancelled. A single one way ticket home costs as much as the entire trip and it might include spending a couple nights on the floor of the airport. Our airline, Qatar Airway's next open seat was May 2 last we heard. To switch everything around without Internet was a huge hassle. We've had 4 of our team that are in the midst of doing just that to get out but we've decided to ride it out for now. We even discussed a 25 hour bus ride to New Dehli, which would be an adventure in its own right but I can picture that and it's ugly, not to mention the difficulty getting a visa for India, but it only costs $36. Much more reasonable to be sure. 

Our plan currently is to change to an easier, 3 part 'trek'. First drive to Pokarah tomorrow and trek there for 5 days in the foothills (15,000 feet). So not so high. Then water rafting at Seti River Camp, then Chitwan National Park safari in the low elevations. We could drop off at any point if things change. It's an area that is much less affected by the earthquake. 

There are a lot of interesting dynamics at play here and we are flexible. We will know more for sure later today. There are rumors of rockslides on the road so we are hoping they aren't true. I'll post more when I can. 

Rickshaws hoping to give you a ride. They are everywhere. 

This is a Bhuddist temple crumbled just down the street. There are cracks in the cement everywhere including our hotel. 

The courtyard of our hotel.

THE EARTHQUAKE

I just woke up. It's 2:30am in Kathmandu. The television and Internet have the exact details of the earthquake better than I do so I will tell my version from my perspective. 

The mountains just before we landed. 

Our Qatar Airways plane landed around noon in Kathmandu.

 We went into the terminal filled out the immigrant papers and were in a slow like for our visas when the building shook a little. There was construction going on outside so it seemed like a big equipment thing but then it escalated to the building moving maybe about three inches side to side up and down so while a few ran out of  the building most of us hunkered down beside the huge 2' square pillars. It lasted a minute or so and stopped. We stood up and looked around. The room looked ok and they started processing us again. After about 20 minutes and a couple aftershocks they moved us outside into the Tarmac. I could see the walkway bucked in one place and cracked in several. A decorative wall was crumbled. Look closely. 

We waited there about an hour. One huge plane landed while we were there so the runway must be ok. You can see the huge plane on the other side of the building. 

They say a tower was damaged but will reopen tomorrow. 

We eventually got through the visa line. By then many of the workers were gone and they would not let us get our checked bags even though we could see them. They have go go through security and security was down. Our guide, Binoy went back to get them later in the day and everything is there. They must have a disaster protocol that they were following. It seemed orderly for the most part.

 

We rode to our hotel, The Kathmandu Guest (KGH) house in a van. Here are street scenes. Walls are crumbled and electricity was down in places. No code here! See the pole leaning in this picture. 

Crumbled wall. 

Street scenes on the way to the hotel. 

We ended up walking to the hotel. Somehow we couldn't drive on it. Maybe the van is too big but we walked the last 1/2 mile. 

These bike taxis were everywhere. 

You can see how there could be electrical problems. This is the norm for their electric lines throughout the city. 

Entrance to Kathmandu Guerst house. Locked gates but the guard was very nice and let's us in and out without any hassle.  I think we look like we belong inside the gates. We waited around. There were people who were supposed to check out, and us to check in but and the city was chaos. The streets were just full of people with big crowds in places. I think where buildings had collapsed. 

We went to a nearby cafe. There was a crumbled wall and leaning pole to squeeze through to get to the bathroom. The old bathroom saga without running water of back in the day. 

Almost all the shops were closed with sliding metal doors like a garage door pulled down tight. Other Trekkers we met told how they were in a shop and everything went flying off the shelves and out into the street. They said the shopkeepers cleaned it all up and closed the doors very quickly. I suppose there could be looting but I haven't seen anything of it. 

I ended up walking with some of our team down the street. We found Internet in a cafe and checked in at home. Fried rice is the meal of the day. The menu was down to one thing only. Our hotel, KGH I'll call it now served free fried rice to the guests. We didn't go hungry. 

We got checked in about 7 PM. There is a 10:45 hr time difference. We are tomorrow already.

John checking us in. Harold and Patricia looking on. Harold says he was in another earthquake in Peru once so he's taking the blame for the bad luck here. 

Out room is pretty good. We swapped out our own towels and wiped up the bathroom a bit but can't complain. I suspect the housekeepers might be home digging their friends and families out of the rubble. I slept hard till now and will try to sleep some more. The time difference makes it tricky. Good night.