Top 5 must do's of Chitwan in Nepal!

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Medical Placement (Radiotherapy & Paramedicine)
WRITTEN BY: Thanh Vu

1. Attend one of the many, many holiday celebrations in town.

Festivals are often celebrated with the family, where most of the members don't go to work. Quality time is spent eating, laughing or cooking traditional dishes for the occasion. Sometimes the festivals are held outdoors, where a vast assortment of shops and companies congregate to advertise their products and entice you with their treats. There are even some activities to get involved in like going for boat rides (if you can stand the long lines!) and taking pictures with historic cultural sites.

2. Go hiking to a rural village in the mountainside.

Chitwan is more commonly known for it’s National Park and wildlife, however many people aren’t aware of some of the intense but amazing trekking trails. One kind of hike that our group had just ventured through recently was a 2-day trek up some amazingly steep and beautifully green mountains and hills. The climb to the top where our very cosy cabin sat was more of a mental challenge than physical. While it was quite strenuous on the legs, many of us felt like the battle was all in our minds. My trick was to not look up at how much we had yet to climb, but rather, to look back at how much we had already climbed. After making it up through the first leg of the hike, most of us were flat out exhausted and a few were just a little on the more queasy side. But we pushed on and the final steps up to the top tasted very sweet.

3. Spend a weekend at the Royal National Park.

The iconic tourist destination of Chitwan is a big, big must. While our group has not gone on a trip through the jungle safari yet, we have plans to explore the National Park's exotic vegetation and wildlife. We are anticipating the visit to the elephant breeding centres, riding through quiet rivers on canoes to watch the small crocs sun-bake and delving into the deep forests in hopes of catching a glimpse of a rhino.

4. Dal bhat power 24 hour!

A good depiction of Nepali culture, this meal is eaten almost every day. Extremely large servings of rice are not unusual, as it seems like the amount of rice is directly proportional to ones ability to power on throughout the day. Their staple dish consists of rice and legumes such as lentils. When in any part of Nepal, one cannot go without the Dal bhat experience. That is, eating the rice, lentil soup, potato curry and sides of chutney and or pickles... using only your right hand! One feels like they are truly Nepalese once Dal bhut is eaten the way the locals do.

5. Stay with a host family.

Last but not least, something I would recommend to anyone wanting to explore the lifestyles and living in Nepal. It takes you away from the comfortable tourist seat and into the deep end of cold showers and to the front-line of frequent power cuts. However, these issues are quite negligible when given the opportunity to live side by side with such kind-hearted people. I am having an extremely pleasant time with my family; more often than not I familiarise them with my own family back in Australia. The family dynamics and the way everyone acts in their society, what is expected from each family member etc. is really tangible as you yourself are placed in a Nepali family, where you are treated as a proper member of the family.

A day in the life of a medical volunteer in Chitwan

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Medical Placement (Radiotherapy & Paramedicine)
WRITTEN BY: Thanh Vu

A standard day starts early in the morning, where our host family makes us breakfast. A milky rice-like breakfast is often served, and it tastes better than it sounds! Other times a serving of bread and jam is also given. With our complimentary tea and coffee that seems to be available 24/7, we are off to our respective placements by 7-8am.

There are eleven of us students on this trip; two are placed at the teaching community school to teach the kids English, six nursing students and one paramedicine student are placed at the local community hospital and two are placed at the cancer hospital.

Myself and another student are placed at the cancer hospital, which treats a patient load far larger than its limited staff should be dealing with. But they adapt and manage the stress exceptionally well. On the first day we were introduced to all the main doctors and heads of each sector; they were immensely welcoming and extremely friendly, encouraging us to exchange our procedures with theirs. Their head technologist said, "We are all students, constantly learning. You are a student, I am a student. We are all equal here." To myself and the other student, this was overwhelming, but in the best of ways.

For these first days we have just been observing the way the procedures are carried out. For the most part, the concepts and the procedures done are very much the same. Even the type of treatment units are the same back at home. We are all bouncing off ideas off each other, myself, the other student and the doctors and technologists, getting a grasp of how things are done. We have lunch in the canteen, which varies each day from the standard Dal bhat- a rice dish with some potato curry and a mixture of side dishes like picked radishes, to a spicy noodle dish.

After lunch we resume our observing and then make our way homes to our families, which is about a 5 minute walk for us and the teaching students, and 15 minute walk for the community hospital students.

After getting home, we spend time sitting outside, going for evening walks- in which we can see many buffalo, goats, chickens and pigs in the neighbourhood- playing with the kids, drinking plenty of tea and coffee, eating mandarins all the while struggling to understand the Nepali and English language, but we have the best laughs from it all.

Later on the families retire for the rest of the night or have a nightly praying session which includes reading from historic Hindu texts which is inevitably followed by lots of dancing and signing.

Namaste Nepal!

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak
PROJECT: Teaching and Mixed Health
WRITTEN BY:  Julia Quine

Namaste! Tashi Delek!

After months of preparation the time has finally come! We all arrived at different times at a hotel in Kathmandu, and eventually gathered together on Sunday night to meet the legendary Kalden who welcomed us to Nepal and gave us a run down of the days to come. The next morning, we boarded a surprisingly comfortable bus that would take us on the 8 hour journey to Pokhara, our new home for the next 4 weeks.

There is something inherently magical about being on a bus driving through the beautiful valleys, occasionally catching glimpses of the majestic Himalayas. There is something inherently not magical about this being accompanied by one of the bumpiest bus rides you can imagine. Somehow though, most of us managed to sleep. After a couple of food stops that were accompanied by Dire Straits, Jimi Hendrix and Rodriguez blasting over the speakers at one point, we arrived in Pokhara. We immediately went to Tashi Ling, a Tibetan Settlement about 10 minutes away from Lakeside, and met our host families.

Tibetan hospitality is like no other. The meals are huge, endless and extremely carb loaded. Let’s just say that we’ll need to fulfill our desire to go trekking to balance out all the rice we are eating. Then there’s the tea! To live like a Tibetan, you must drink tea like a Tibetan. ie. All. The. Time. For the tea drinkers among us, it is heaven! The families are all incredibly kind and giving, and have made us all feel like family in just a matter of days. It is a beautiful culture, and we are all feeling very privileged to be a part of it.

On our second day in Pokhara, we had a small tour of some of the main attractions. We visited Devi’s Falls, a beautiful waterfall very close to Tashi Ling, a Hindu temple and then off to Lakeside to explore the many shops and cafes for the first time. I expect many post-work coffees and meals out there!

We have all started our placements and have been there for only two days thus far. The nurses at both hospitals have been visiting different sections of the hospitals and are easing themselves into a routine that they hope will lead to much more hands-on experience.

The teachers at the schools were thrown in the deep end immediately and were teaching on their own on the very first day. The level of English is impressively high, and teaching the children is proving itself it to be tiring, although very rewarding. The shy smiles the children give when you catch them staring at you, and the big smiles they smile when you tell them they are doing well make it all worth it.

This weekend we are visiting the World Peace Pagoda on Saturday and then paragliding from Sarangkot on Sunday. Wish us luck!

Next week I will talk more about our daily life in both Tashi Ling and our respective work places so that everyone can get a bit of a feel for the experience we are having here in this beautiful Tibetan settlement in this beautiful country!