Több mint egy hete nem írtam. Ez azért van, mert miòta Tansen-be érkeztem, mindig történt valami érdekes. Elöször is Pokharából kellett Tansenbe jutnom egy minibusszal, amin én boltam az egyetlen nem-nepáli, kb 5-6 órás kanyargós út volt, remek nepáli zenével (link lejjebb). A busz az út szélèn tett ki valahol, de kb. 5 percet vártam, mire egy önkéntes taxi jelölt felajánlotta, hogy elvisz a kórházhoz. Itt rögtön befészkeltem a kórház vendégházába, ahonnan ugyan félidöben költöznöm kellett. Mint kiderült, feleslegesen, úgyhogy 3 nap után visszaköltöztem. Itt is találkoztam egérrel, meg bazi nagy pókokkal, valamint tudomásomra jutott, hogy egy óriás patkány lakik a tetön. De mégis inkább ez, mint a folyton bulizó hotel. Tansen egy elég kis város, 1350 m magasban, a hegyoldalba épülve, amúgy nagyon aranyos. Kedves emberek, 0 turista, rengeteg külföldi, akik a kórházban vagy az iskolában dolgoznak, 3 svéd család. Úgyhogy végre találkoztam itt Amandával, a svéd ortop orvossal, aki ezt az egész kórházasdit leszervezte nekem. Ahhoz képest, hogy milyen kisváros, mindig történt valami (köszönhetöen a külföldieknek). Egyik nap lekirándultunk a Rani Mahal nevü templomhoz, 700 m le meg ugyanannyi fel a tüzö napon, hát nem volt egyszerü. Vissza Kathmanduba a kórház jeep-jével jöttem még 4 másik emberrel, 12 órás út, aminek az elsö 6 órája kizárólag borzasztó kátyús földút volt. Este 6-ra értünk a városba, reggel 4-kor pedig már indultam a következö helyre. Ja és most van nepáli új év, úgyhogy boldog 2079-et!
Oh, more than a week passed and I haven’t posted anything. This is because all the time something was happening since I arrived to Tansen. And now I have already left it and I am back to Kathmandu.
Hospital in Tansen with ambulance cars
So we go back a little bit in time. The bus trip was ok from Pokhara to Tansen, but not as comfortable as the “VIP deluxe” bus from Kathmandu. Here I was the only non-nepali person and the mini bus was really mini with not so spacious seats. Interestingly in Nepal somehow all the buses are always full. If not in the beginning, they pick up people on the way on every possible locations. So first I was sitting beside an elderly lady, and after that she was changed to a younger girl. During the whole journey we had the privilege to listen to high tuned nepali/indian music. For example (if you want to get in the moods): https://youtu.be/P4x2C6z80bQ
Maybe understandable that after a half an hour I switched to Spotify. The road was very wavy but maybe less bumpy than the one from Kathmandu to Pokhara. As the bus was not going directly to Tansen but somewhere else, it dropped me in some village on the way, some km away from Tansen. I just needed to wait 5 mins until a local guide offered himself as taxi service (although for sure not official taxi) and took me up to the mountain.
A part of Tansen from above
Tansen has a great location at 1350 m altitude, built on the side of a mountain which makes the town and streets quite interesting. There are not so many flat parts, even the hospital is built on several floors, adjusted to the steep mountain wall. According to wikipedia, 30.000 people live here but there are many who comes to the hospital from other places. So far I liked Tansen the best of all the places I have seen. The whole town and the surrounding mountains have a real beauty but also the people are very kind and as this is not a touristic place at all, they don’t want to sell constantly something to you. Interestingly there are many foreigner expats who serves at the hospital or in the school nearby, currently about 30 people, and 3 swedish families.
I landed finally at the hospitals guest house where I have been the only guest in the beginning. In the afternoon already there was an English service held by Dr Rachel, the hospital director (from the UK). So here I met almost all the foreigners and finally also with Amanada and her family (the swedish ortho doctor who organised for me the whole visit in all the hospitals). Tansen felt like home from the first day.
Guest house area
The day after we had lunch in a restaurant with Amandas family and she also showed me around, we climbed the Shreenagar mountain and I bought my first kurta, a nepali dress which is worn by the women here. Was a good fit for the church which was fully in nepali for 2 hours, but still interesting. Unfortunately it shrank quite a lot after I washed out so now it is a bit difficult to breath while wearing.. Of course the second time I wanted to walk to the city, took me double the time as I didn’t find my way because half of the streets were not on google maps.
Tansen when a little bit of more mountains were visible
The hospital is much bigger than what I expected, I think they have 160 beds and every day a lot of outpatients which makes the waiting area look like a train station. There are 5 ortho surgeons whom I was following. Every morning we all went round and visited the admitted patients (around 25 patients usually + children) and then mostly I was at the surgery. They are really effective, operating around 6 cases in one OR daily, almost no waiting time between the operations. Mostly fractures and trauma cases with a little old school instruments but almost the same technic as we do. Interestingly all the doors are always opened and sometimes there are flies but it looks like it doesn’t bother anyone. At the outpatient clinic we have seen around 60 patients in one day (starting from 10 am with a lunch break). Talking about lunch, I usually ate at the canteen, a full meal costed about 0,5 euros.
Canteen
One day we (me, Amanda, an Australian couple and a swiss lady) took a trip down to the river where there is an old hindu church which is now a museum, called Rani Mahal. We had to first walk down 700 m altitude, then walk up again. During the time it became midday which means it was verrrry hot. In the group I was the youngest but was close to give the whole thing up. We started walking at 7 am and came back around 5.30 pm, the last 5 km finally we did with a help of a car (shame on us..?). Was a nice trip but more demanding than my multiple day trip the week before.
In the middle of my stay I had to move to the Annapurna Hotel nearby because the guest house was fully booked but the day after it turned out that it was some misunderstanding so after 3 nights in the hotel I moved back again. During that time new guests moved in, 2 dutch guys who were making a movie about the hospital and a swiss medical student. The hotel was quite fancy but really noise by having some party in the evenings. Of course I had some encounters with different animals even here. In the hotel I was hunting down a lot of moths and in the guest house I found my second mouse in the dust bin which I set free. Also met with some huge spiders which I haven’t set free... Good that I got to know only on the last day that the noise that is coming from the roof in the mornings belongs to a huge rat which was running up and down and sounded like a size of a dog.
Otherwise food was always prepared at the guest house by the “didi”s, the housekeeper ladies. In Nepal didi is a general term for women, older than you, used very widely, mostly instead of names. Sometimes though I was invited for the dinner, first at an Australian lady’s house called Paula, then also at the head of ortho, Dr Tul, along with other nepali people where I managed to forget about all the important rules of course... For example taking the shoes off before entering the house, washing hands before meal, taking everything with the right hand (as the left one in considered dirty). Yeah, really many rules... On the last evening I was invited for the dinner at Amandas, was a really nice closure of the whole stay.
I got back to Kathmandu by the hospital jeep along with Dr Paula and Dr Abishek, a nepali ortho doctor, 12 hours/ 300 km (including breaks), of which the first 6 hours was only dirt road, not even a minute without huge bumps. Thanks to that my watch gratulated me that I did 10.000 steps that day only by sitting in the car... Anyway, at the end I really felt like I did some exercise as I had muscle pain everywhere. Got back to the world’s most polluted city again at 6 pm and I realised I really didn’t miss Kathmandu. Although I haven’t spent too much time there as the day after I was on the road again at 4 am with an other jeep on the way to Okhaldhunga, which is on the other side (East) of Nepal. Between 4 and 6 am we were just picking up people at different points of the city until the jeep was totally full again (luckily I got the privilage to sit front) and we were off with the already known nepali music vibes. This time 10 hours trip - 125 km. I can say I am a bit tired.
But today (*yesterday) is the celebration of nepali New Year!
So 🥳 HAPPY 2079!🥳 to everyone!
Finally a harmonic pic of a chicken
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