During breakfast we found out from Surita that Diego had been admitted to the hospital across the road in the early hours of the morning. He's been suffering really bad stomach problems and was trying to put his shoes on to talke himself in when Surita found him in the hallway.
David had been to see him earlier in the morning and we made plans to go and visit with him and Paula. Poor Diego didn't look too sparkling at all. He was hooked up to a drip and looked pale but said he was feeling much, much better and wanted to leave.
Nepali hospital tests are a little hard to fathom but it seems that there's no method of submitting and retrieving tests and results. David had had to take the tests down to the lab in the morning and also had to go and collect them so that the doctors could take a look and decide if Diego was well enough to leave. While David was collecting the tests we discussed what we thought might have caused it. Diego thought it was the 4 slices of pre-s;iced watermelon he'd muched through yesterday but then we remembered the gutter water that had been used to soak him through during Holi. Eventually te doctors decided that he could leave and gave him a list of medication to buy from the pharmacy. After making sure that he knew what he was doing with it all, we deposited Diego back at the hostel, collected Forrester, and went in search of coffee and cake.
After stopping at a street stall on the way for the tastiest momos yet, we all followed Matt as he navigated to a coffee shop that he's read up on online. It was much further than we'd thought and had almost given up hope of finding it when we detected the smell of freshly-baked pastries.
The coffee shop was divine and as we sipped our French press and shared our fabulous cakes in amongst the shelves of English books, I had to keep reminding myself where we were. Travelling is awesome but it is so good just to have the feeling of something familiar and decadent every now and again. Given that I was a bit nervous about the move to China where I was anticipating problems with communicating and eating, it was just what I needed.
The rest of the afternoon was spent scouring the shops in Patan for the Kathmandu fridge magnet that I had promised Denise. Since we weren't technically in Kathmandu and it wasn't a tourist area this was harder than I expected. Trying to explain that I wanted a picture of a different part of townm, that stuck via magnetism to a household appliance most people woud never own was quite a challenge. Unsurprisingly I went back to the hotel empty-handed.
We had time for our last communal dinner without everyone before the flight and it was really nice to spend the last hour chatting and enjoying their company. The food was great as usual and it was a little sad to be leaving such a great bunch of people. Paula was heading to Pokhura, David and Forrester were spending a few days elsewhere before joining her, Josh and Naomi were continuing their work with rescued sex traffickers before popping back to Australia to renew their Visas so they could continue running the ashram in Varanasi, and the Scottish girl (why can't I remember her name?!) was finishing her thesis while waiting for her girlfriend, Megan to come back from her hospital placement so they could decide whether they'd move to the US together.
About 9pm we headed to the airport. Surita came with us so she could pick up some people who wanted to stay at the hostel and dropped us off at departures. We were scanned and checked so many times starting from the second we set foot through the door but yet most of the officials didn't wear uniforms. The airport was a bit like a delapidated hotel with wood panelled walls and fancy wooden mirrors but I did manage to find the fridge magnet!
Time at the airport was mostly spent queuing up for continual checks. When we finally got to the gate there was just a big group of people (too many to fit) and a very expensive shop. I asked to go back through to the main bit so that I could grab a few things but when I got there, everything was suddenly shut. It seemed strange that it handled so few people that they only bothered to open things just before a flight left.
The Dragon Airlines flight was pretty unremarkable apart from that they asked me to fill is a customer satisfaction questionnaire, with the chance to win free flights to Hong Kong. This seemed a bit daft considering we were on a flight to Hong Kong but I wouldn't complain at winning. I mostly kept myself entertained by filling it in at each key point: when I used the in-flight entertainment (which was crap and crackly with no function to stop and start), following the meal (which was pretty tasty), after going to the loo (no complaints there) and when I asked the stewardess to bring some water (efficient and polite but was still thirsty). I did consider asking for all sorts of things to see how hard they tried but thought I might be better trying to rest instead.
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