Lumbini

Just got off of a 3 hour ride through the mountains, now in the town
where Buddha was born! We're gonna take it easy for the rest of the
night, but tomorrow we're gonna rent bikes and go around to all the
monasteries. More later

Nepal Jungle Hike: By Mary

Today we embarked on a beautiful journey into Chitwan National Forest. It began at 6:30 am with a relaxing canoe ride down the river, where we saw crocodiles, fish, and birds. Spirits were high on this sunny Saturday morning. We docked on a rocky beach and were ushered through 9 foot high grass. We took a break to go over some important rules (ex. if there is a rhino running at you climb a tall tree, or look a tiger in the eye to intimidate it), standard stuff really. I felt a stinging on my left ankle and figured some of the grass had cut me. To my surprise it was not grass at all but something much much better- my very first leach! This little 3 inch long bloodsucker had grabbed on for a quick meal I suppose. We were all quite amused. Onward. We began to trek through the dense jungle seeing some interesting insects and learning of the medicinal uses of some of the tropical plants. We approached a grove of trees and our guides grew quite. They pointed skyward and we realized we had stumbled upon a monkey gathering. This is when I discovered my second leach. It had crawled through my sock. I guess my blood is extra sweet. Back to the monkeys. High in the tree tops were several adorable fuzzy white monkeys with black faces. We were thrilled. Or so we thought. All of a sudden a barrage of urine fell from above. We ran, the whole while our guides were laughing and saying, "golden shower golden shower!". We barely made it out alive. Just as were lulled into a false sense of security one last evil primate took his ultimate revenge. Benny and I were the o poor casualties. It's not so bad though. We can now say we've been peed on by monkeys, and how many people can say that? Plus we had some excellent showers waiting for us at Chitwan Park Cottages. With an exciting start to our hike we moved on and really had a wonderful time. We saw a bathing rhino and snuck up pretty close to him. Then he spotted us and the guides hurried us along to avoid unnecessary carnage. It felt like something on the Discovery Channel. All that was missing was an Australian narrator. We also saw several deer, and many different varieties of animal prints and scat. We went onto a lookout tower that overlooked the vast fields and grass land banking the river, enjoying the clear blue sky above. Just as our exciting hike drew to an end and we crossed the muddy river bank to access the canoe that would take us home, Tom got stuck in the mud. The more he struggled the worse the situation became. His feet were entirely covered and the mud went up to his ankles. He literally couldn't move and escape seemed futile. Most of us were laughing too hard to help and it took a guide and Benny to finally free him. Never a dull moment. We gladly returned to our lodging with some excellent memories and empty bellies, just in time for lunch.

Chitwan Hospital

We've been working in the hospital for two days now. It was easier
for the staff to split us into groups of two so we've been rotating
through the ICU, peds, surgery, and OB/GYN. This week will be mostly
observing how their system works so we can get more involved next
week. We're currently planning some projects for the orphanage and
somewhere in there we'll be going to the Medical school for a day to
observe classes.

We'll be leaving for Chitwan national park this weekend so hopefully
we'll have some wild elephant ride stories to tell.

-Jon

Chitwan

Greetings,

We arrived by bus in Chitwan yesterday afternoon, it's about a half
hour ride from the main part of town to the orphanage where we are
staying. After we arrived we met all 23 children currently being
housed near our guest home, they seemed really amused with us as we
played games for the rest of the afternoon.

We didn't get power back until about 9pm last night so we ended up
playing catch-phrase by candle light on the front porch. Most of us
went to bed pretty early due to the 5am wake-up we had before we left
Kathmandu.

This morning we grabbed breakfast and then headed into town to tour
the hospital where we will be working. Right now the plan is to break
up the group into pairs and rotate through different departments, Tom
and I will be starting in the ICU tomorrow morning. The orphanage is
a little farther away from town than I was expecting so it might be a
while before we get another post up.

15 minutes at the top of the world

Clouds…clouds….clouds. That’s pretty much all we saw out the small windows of the Agni Air turboprop as we climbed high into the Himalayan mountain range. We had already had the flight canceled the previous day and this morning we waited around for over an hour to hear if it was going to be canceled again. Thirty minutes into the flight and I felt like we might not be able to see anything.

Just when those thoughts ran through my head we lifted out of the cloud layer and I saw the sun in a blue sky for the first time since we’d arrived. The cockpit door swung open and our Nepali stewardess indicated that I was supposed to step into the cockpit for a better view. What lay out on the horizon was nothing short of spectacular, a sea of white clouds pierced by the tallest mountain in the world. Each passenger on the plane then filed forward to get a glimpse of Everest. All the while the rest of us snapped photos of the surrounding mountain ranges through the small windows.

All together, we probably spend less than 15 minutes above the clouds in clear view of the world’s tallest mountains. But I’m sure the image of Everest filling up the cockpit windshield of that small plane will remain etched in our memories for the rest of our lives.

Hardcore Touristing

After waking up Saturday morning and having our flight tour of Mount Everest get cancelled due to weather, we had an entire day to kill in Kathmandu. By suggestion of Rahm, the manager at the place we are staying, we paid a driver to take us to a couple different sites so we could have more time exploring and have to not worry about taking cabs all over the place. We visited four different places and spent about an hr at each. First we visited the Pashupatinath Temple (One of the most significant temples to the Hindu god Shiva in the world) where we saw many Sadhu (holy men), admired the architecture dating back to the 17th century, and witnessed the ceremonial cremation of the deceased. Our next trip was to Bouddha which is one of the holiest Buddhist sites in Nepal where we saw one of the largest Stoupas in the world. Next we ventured over to Swayambhunath, which is a large buddist temple on top of a mountain that is also known as the monkey temple due to the population of holy monkeys on site. Finally, for dinner and a quick site see we went to Durbar square in Patan (there is another one in Kathmandu) where the architecture dates back to the 14th century. Below I’ve attached the Wikipedia links to the places we visited for more information on their historical significance.
At the end of the day, myself and our other party members were all exhausted but overwhelmed by what we had seen. I feel like these two religions are an important part of Nepalese culture and was very privileged to have the opportunity to spend some time visiting such amazing religious and historical sites. I think today was a great chance to learn more about a side of Nepal both as an interested tourist and traveler but also from the standpoint of someone who will be spending time in the coming weeks providing medical care to the people who hold these places as sacred. Anything that will help us relate to the Nepalese people can only serve to benefit us for the next three weeks.
Namaste!
-Tom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupatinath_Temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudhanath
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swayambhunath
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durbar_square (the one in Kathmandu is described here.)

Greetings from Kathmandu, Nepal!

We arrived at the airport about about 9:30 yesterday morning. We immediately went to the hotel to meet up with the representative from IFRE, Hom seemed to understand that we were all really tired and kept his comments very brief. After a round of nepali tea and some basic language lessons with the owner of the hotel we went to get lunch.

I think we figured out pretty quick that we weren't going to last very long after being up for so long. Luckily Ryan and Margaret were there to herd us around kathmandu for a few hours. I think we all had bigger plans but ended up heading back to the hotel shortly after lunch, if it weren't for a few rousing games of UNO and that game where we put someones name on your forehead we would've crashed right there. Personally, I made it to about 8PM before finally succumbing to exhaustion. Fast forward 14 hours and I woke up feeling normal for the rist time in almost 3 days.

Heading to lunch with the IFRE office soon, time to begin culture immersion.