DHARAN

Rice harvest
Nepal's rice harvest is almost finished. On the flat cobbles in front of temples and shrines piles of grain lie on plastic sheets to dry. No associated blessing accompanies this placement as I'd assumed, thinking of the blessing of first fruits or the blessing of the fleet. It is simply a matter of making use of an open and warm space. In the fields bundles of rice straw are carefully arranged in solid cylinders about 6'wide and 6' tall, coming to a point in the center topped with a decorative marigold branch. What is it about the flowing lines of terraced rice fields that stir the heart? The infinite shades of green or gold, the notion of fecundity, the foreignness of the organic lines to western eyes? Rice fields dominate Kathmandu's eastern valley. The middle distance is thick jungle or forest, while snow sharpens the distant peaks. Viewing the cold, forbidding, far horizon framed by graceful banana leaves puts the scene into another world.

Yeti Air
Thursday morning I flew Yeti Air from Kathmandu to Biratnagar in the SE of Nepal to visit the BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan. Kathmandu's small domestic terminal was filled with trekkers, primarily "geared-to-go" middle aged Europeans or young travelers in their 20s, flying to distant base camps to begin their treks. The quality of the PA system made announcements incomprehensible, so everyone crowded around the airport staff near the gate, afraid to miss their plane. One can fly Yeti Air, Buddha Air, Cosmic Air, Gurka Air, Agni Air, Mountain Air, or Tara Air. After learning about Tara at the Rubin Museum before coming to Nepal, and knowing how positively disposed she is for helping humans, I would have liked to fly with her. I was the only barang (frangi, gringo, haole) traveling to Biratnagar--not exactly a prime trekking destination.

Taking off at 07:20 the fog in the valleys hadn't yet been burned off and another layer of cloud obscured the high peaks to the north. The landscape of the middle range became steeper and drier as we flew east, forest and field giving way to rock and scattered hamlets. The cloud and the filthy window prohibited any reasonable picture taking.

Dharan
Biratnagar is flat, warm, and humid, with an immediately recognized decrease in smog compared to KTMD. It also has more bikes and rickshaws, tractors and old trucks on the flat, better maintained roads.

Congregations of Indian mynahs on wires look natural here. Delonix regia, coconut, mango, acacias, figs of various types, eucalypts, casuarina, plumaria, papaya, great spreading canopies of an albezzia, and 40' tall bauhinia purpura are trees I can identify. There are many more I can't place.

The campus of BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences is lush with old growth trees in a run-down park-like setting. The British built a Gurkha camp with hospital here and now it has evolved into almost a town dominated by the extensive health complex of hospital, medical and dental schools, hostels and housing and playing fields. The huge compound has a nice, active feel.

The ER is a crowded chaotic mess with patients on mattresses on the floor and people milling, pushing to enter, demanding, holding up their papers. The noise is terrific. I was taken aback seeing a middle aged man in peasant clothes bagging a patient while white coated doctors and nurses tended the person on the trolley. My orthopaedic colleagues frowned when I commented on this, saying it was sad, but the hospital only has a limited number of ventilators and not enough staff to physically ventilate every patient who comes to the ER in need of assistance breathing. A family member has to do it. I can't imagine what a son must feel when he is handed an ambu bag and told to press it in order to deliver oxygen to this dying mother.

My room at the guest house is fairly clean, a bit shabby, but suitable. Besides space sufficient to do TaiChi, hearing the familiar chur-chur of resident geckos makes even the lack of hot water acceptable.

While I bought a beer at a small shop outside the hospital, a woman came up and stood beside me at the counter. With no verbal exchange, the proprietress walked to the back of the store and returned with a half liter of whiskey, wrapped it and gave it to the woman. How convenient to have your wants known without saying a word. I came away with a semi cool 650ml Tuborg, wrapped in a June 26, 2009 page from the Katmandu Post.

While waiting at the Biratnagar airport for the return Yeti flight to Kathmandu, a small high-winged STOL airplane taxied to the departure gate. Short dark, wrinkled hill people--women with heavy gold rings hanging from their nasal septums and ears and wearing long colorful skirts and head wraps--filed out of the gate and into the plane.

It seems one can tell where people are going by their clothes and what plane they board. The trekkers in their gear leave in certain planes, the hill people in another and just regular folk into another. Who you are determines your destination.

The "GPS Manikin"
I don't know the streets in Kathmandu or the neighborhoods, except the one in which I'm presently staying. I don't even know which way I'm traveling and the short cuts the taxi drivers take leave me baffled. However, over a couple days riding around the city I have come to recognize a few landmarks. One is a manikin at a dress shop. It stands on the sidewalk and has breasts so pointed and unbalanced, Barbie would be embarrassed.