You know how much time you lose by checking in? - Up in the Air (2009)

Hours before our flight back to India from Kathmandu Elaine and I found ourselves awake in the middle of the night and neither of us knew what had woken us. Then a deafening boom hit the room, so loud the panes of class in the windows were rattling. Never have I heard thunder with such force or that felt so close, what had woken us was a flash of lightening so bright that it had woken us from our sleep. We lay awake for a while listening to the thunder reverberating off the mountains, not knowing that this mega storm would go on to delay our flight out to Delhi leaving us to stress over the idea of missing our connection to Goa.

One rushed and unsettling flight later we arrive in Delhi with an hour and a half to spare. After 30 minutes sweating in line at the ever inefficient Indian Immigration, we get our bags and make our way to departures with the clock ticking, after some unhelpful information from those you'd expect to know better, we are informed our departure is in another terminal (now when I say another terminal it was a fifteen minute drive on a public road to another compound, I'm sorry but for me that is classified as another shagging airport). So with 50 minutess to take off we are sitting in a gas powered van/taxi casually driving through rush hour Delhi traffic to get to our terminal with 30 minutes left on the clock. 

I am at this point a boiling heap of frustrated anger while Elaine, who isn't keen on flying at the best of times, is still shook from the last flight and not in any hurry to go back up. We run to the check-in expecting to be laughed out of the airport, only to find out the storm that delayed us in Kathmandu had worked it's way down resulting in our connecting flight being delayed for 40 minutes. With a sigh of relief we went to get some food (me) and drink (Elaine).

Now this next part is typically Irish: My pizza had just arrived and Elaine had gotten her second glass of wine when she decided to check the board for our flight. Que Elaine sprinting back, shouting it's final call at our gate and to get my pizza to go, she downs her glass and we run to the gate. 10 minutes after take off I'm munching on take away pizza, Elaine is more than a little merry and we are en route to India's sunny west coast.

Patrick (15th of February 2011)

Candy-stripe a cancer ward. It's not my problem. - Fight Club (1999)

They say the Himalayan mountain range is a sight to behold, an awesome thing. You spend months training to get to the peak of your fitness, hundreds on the proper equipment, travels thousands of miles and finally when you climb the range, you are humbled by what you are see. This is truly the only way to witness the Himalayas

OR

Air India flight AI-9747 Kolkata to Kathmandu flies over the range for a good 20 minutes, leaving plenty of time for oohs and aahs without all the pesky climbing. This should give you an idea of what our 15 day trip to Nepal is going to be about - key word: relaxing. Or laziness. But who can blame us, 4 months working in Kolkata we deserve a lie in.

Katmandu Street

But not to discount the Himalayas, they are a spectacular sight and even more so looking down at them. It's quite an experience when your up so high and those snow capped peaks are still as clear as day nestled in the clouds.

We stayed in Thamel - a really chilled out section of Kathmandu where the emphasis was on beef steaks, cold beer and BEING offered hash on a twice hourly basis. But the most curious experience was walking around this brightly lit city full of shops and restaurants only for it to plunge into darkness and everyone to continue as normal lighting torches, candles AND gas powered lamps (Nepal is in the middle of an energy crisis and 14 hour rolling blackouts plague the country).

 So after gorging ourselves on every edible section of the cow (India revers the cow so scoffing a bacon beef burger is a big no no) we took a 7 hour bus to Pokhara which was an exhilarating experience down miles of winding roads along the edge of the Kathmandu Valley, Elaine wasn't too impressed when I kept pointing out how high up and near the edge we were.

Average sight

Our arrival in Pokhara was not without some drama as when we got off the bus I realised my backpack was nowhere to be found. Thankfully the rep from our hostel was at the bus station and he took control of the situation - which meant telling everyone within earshot what had happened to us and then surrounding the man that was responsible for our bag theft for a group interrogation. The bag guy decided to get cocky and told the crowd "it's not my problem" HE quickly received a right hook in the face by our rep and a number of bystanders. With no satisfaction to be had the rep brought us back to the hostel and asked us to let him make some enquiries while we rest up, an hour later after putting together a very expensive list for our travel insurance we had a knock on our door, the bag was recovered! I didn't care where it went or how it got there but it was back and untouched. One hour later we bought a bike lock.

Road to Pokhara

Pokhara was a beautiful lakeside town below the Annapurna range and was famous for its treks and views of the Fishtail Peak. We chilled out here for a number of days enjoying the clean air and peaceful surroundings. We'd like to say that we did more during our stay but we were just wrecked from the last few months and did little other than eat steaks and nap. Rock and roll huh?

Fewa Lake

Getting back from Pokhara to Kathmandu was a bit of an experience though. As with the last bus journey, it was a 7hr trip over 160km, which shouldn't take so long but the roads are narrow and winding so the drivers HAVE TO go slowly to make it to their destination safely. Case in point: on this particular bus trip back to Kathmandu we saw, a) one small bus turned on its side down a metre drop on to some ride paddies - no one appeared hurt, b) one lorry who didn't make a turn in time and had one wheel and a quarter of his cargo hanging of a good hundred feet VERTICAL drop and c) one 4x4 private jeep, wheels up body down in the river after going over the edge of hundred foot drop. We didn't hear if there were any survivors. Buses in Nepal are scary!

Thankfully our trip didn't require any more bus rides as we were leaving the next day and headed for the beaches of Goa, India. 

Patrick (15th of February 2011)

Relaxing Nepal

On a side note, people mainly visit Nepal to trek. We had no interest in such a thing (well at this time anyway) and were really out of place with the bearded adrenaline junkies who had just scaled such and such a mountain. We were considered right weirdos to relax in Nepal when there were all these adventures to be had. Lets just say we got many strange looks. Oh well - next time!

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye - The Sound of Music (1965)



Messing at the party with SEED



So our plans have changed. Instead of going to Bangladesh for 8 days we have decided to postpone leaving Kolkata for a week and then spend 15 days in Nepal. Reason being a) even though we have delayed leaving Kolkata by a month already, we still aren't ready to leave and b) Bangladesh seems to be a country sized death trap. 2 examples - 1) on the same day two separate public transport buses were bulldozed by two separate trains after trying to rush though two separate rail crossings leaving many people dead 2) a public ferry carrying hundreds sank after a hull breach resulting from sailing over the wreckage of another ferry that had sank the previous week, leaving many people dead. 8 days in Bangladesh? No thanks.



Decorations went down a treat!



You would think that after an extra 6 weeks in Kolkata we would be ready to go, bags packed, goodbyes said, gas turned off etc.  Yes you would think this. We are of course, the exact opposite. Unpacked, unprepared  and in complete denial that we are leaving at all. Typical.

For our final week we finished up our classes so we'd have time to go through handovers with the new volunteers and in theory we had loads of time to get organised. But we couldn't bring ourselves to say goodbye when we were going to be in Kolkata for another week so we continued pretty much as normal. I had a big party with my SEED girls where I gave them our apartments Christmas decorations, but like any children they were more interested in the box (the lovely box that Patricia sent over with my Christmas goodies - thanks you O' Donovan family). The party was a blast and was the perfect way to say goodbye to my girls. However I didn't realise at the time it was be goodbye as I was scheduled to see them again before I left, but they went on an excursion and I didn't see them again. In hindsight it was a better farewell with no tears (mine) but at the time it was upsetting.



Small Boys Cake

Our last day in Kolkata was a full day of farewells ranging from a gathering in the small boys home with cake and a beautiful handmade card to cake, speeches and dancing in Punorjibon that evening. It was horrible to say goodbye to the kids we had gotten to know so well over the past four months but we were comforted by the knowledge that they were in the good hands of The Hope Foundation. Later that evening we went for dinner and drinks with the volunteers before heading back to the apartment to start our packing. See what I mean about being disorganised? It was the perfect last day and we couldn't have wished for a better end to an amazing four months.

We met some amazing people in Kolkata; all the Hope staff, children and volunteers along with the lovely people in our local area; our friendly neighbours, shopkeepers, laundrywallahs, tailors, chicken roll man, noodle man, momo woman, chai man, vegtable market men - the list is endless. All these people helped make us feel at home in Kolkata when we were far from our own.

Patrick and I would like to take this time to thank everyone who supported us in our efforts to get here and also to the people who kindly donated money towards Christmas parties and presents for the children in the Hope homes. From the bottom of our hearts we thank you, it was greatly appreciated.

Elaine (5th February 2011)



Boys presenting us with a card