Jack fell down . . . .

19th September 2006 - Pokhara
Travelling through developing countries can be a risky business at the best of times. First of all, there's the whole range of tropical diseases, and then there're things like diarrhoea, food poisoning and dehydration to watch out for. But wost of all are the whole range of man made hazzards like bungee jumping, paragliding, white water rafting and canyonning etc. These can be very bad for your health. So being of sound mind and nearing sixty, I determined to be totally risk adverse this time around. I got all my shots, even those you don't really need, drank only treated water, watched what I ate and religiously abstained from any activity more risky than reading. Apart from a minor eye operation in China, this stragegy was quite successful.
So, today, in accordance with our "No Risk Policy" we tooka taxi rather than trekking to the top of Sarankot. Even though it's nearly 2000m it's dwarfed by the surrounding Annapurnas (6000m - 8000m) so doesn't even qualify to use the term Mt Sarankot. A safe enough strategy you would have thought. Then, caught by a fit of mountain madness, we decided to walk down and back to our motel. The guide book didn't actually use the works "steep vertical descent" but did assure us that it was a good path and should only take 2 - 3 hours. What it couldn't tell us was that heavy monsoon rains had swollen the streams the cross the path about 2 km from the bottom and that part of the track was under water.
SO being a careful risk traveller that I am, I promptly slipped and fell approx 1.5 metres from the track into a man made irrigation ditch below. Fourtunately the stones in the ditch were quite smooth and soft so I only bruised rather than broke my hip/ankle/wrist/arm/leg but I did crack my head on the nice smooth flat stone that was being used as a foot bridge by those who chose to walk across rather than fall across.
The resulting rush of adrenalin had me on my feet again quite quickly byt the mossy stones underfoot had other plans for me, and, whilst cautioning Anthea to be careful, I slipped and fell again. Twice! By this stage the small gash in my head had pumped out enough blood for me to be able to audition as an extra in ER.
So on the way home I called on the local doctor, Prof C.N. Pandy. AHW CTEVT (Nepal). His practice is easy to find. It's on the footpath near our motel. It has a corrigated iron lean to roof like the shops on either side, and the front is completely open to the street. There's a long wooden bench beside his desk which serves as his waiting room and from where he gives medical advice and despenses prescription drugs from the shelf behind his desk. More serious cases, like my own, are dealt with in the surgery, a small narrow space at the rear. All very much the one stop shop model and certainly easier than getting to A&E and getting the prescription filled at Boots. My wound cleaned and armed with antibiotics and iodine, I returned to our motel thanking God that all that school milk I was forced to drink as a child had strengthened my bones and I only had a few cuts and bruises.
Anthea was gracious enough not to laugh till after my third fall, but was too distracted to notice my prized English sun hat floating off down the irrigation ditch towards the nearby rice paddies. Oh well - win some, lose some.