Saturday
Lesson #3
A nice dinner and wine do not go with an already stressed stomach.
I know this and I should know better, but oh well, thats life.
Managed to get up and have a shower and pop in to the shop (luckily its next door) and stock up on water. I couldn't find any lemonade, but suprise suprise, I got some Golden Circle Raspberry Cordial which seems to be helping. ( Its a very well known Australian brand for the non aussies )
Today is declared a day of rest and recupuration ...
Sunday
Woke up feeling a bit better. Bored, cranky and tired of being stuck in the room, but thats usual. I make a real good patient :-)
Besides not physically being able to go far, I couldn't have done much anyway as there is a bandh ( general strike ) on today. Apparently these are very common and called by the maoists. Most of the cities transportation is ground to a halt when there is a bandh on. I am told some taxi's will still operate, but it then makes them (and you) a target, so you either walk or stay home.
I really had to get some fresh air ( and with no taxis and buses it wasn't too bad ), so I went for a walk down to the bookshop which is not far. Got a novel, one of the local papers and an ASP.NET book. Wasn't long back and the cleaners and the guys to install the broadband turned up. It was a little crowded in my poor room. Turns out the cable is actaully the whole deal. Something on the roof, I didnt see it, some utp down to my room (they just drilled a hole in the window sash which is wooden ) , broadband router and wooohooo I've now got a 32/64k connection. The mac totally confused the guy setting it up, but once I got a console window up for him it was sorted pretty quickly.
I had to run out and get another powerboard as this has now added another 2 things to my collection. So here I am, running smoothly, find out in just 3 weeks of being relatively offline I've got 100mb of updates to do, get that done and bang .. the power drops out.
This is fairly typical as I've said before, but when it came back on it blew the new (crappy) powerboard. Off I trot down the road again and found an electrical shop. Got a new decent powerboard and priced a voltage regulator. Think I better get one .. they are only 800 rupee which is well and truly worth it considering the cost of my gear, not to mention the lack of reliable parts or support this way.
Looks like I'm nesting again and building up a supply of stuff I will have to give away when I go .. just can't help myself ..
I did some looking around on the net on the "Kathmandu Quickstep" ( aka Travellers bug or Dehli Belly, etc,etc) and actually found that one of the clinics here (
CIWEC Clinic) are world class experts in researching this lovely phenomenen and have actually discovered one of the bugs. I suppose this isn't suprising in that they have plenty of research subjects !!! But their
website is actually worth checking out if you are thinking of heading this way as there is information on all sorts of health related issues that are particular to foreigners in Nepal.
Can tell you one thing, once this gets sorted I don't want to see red cordial or digestive biscuits for quite a while ...