Asleep in Kathmandu

OK, so, I had to come to Kathmandu to meet with people from the university who got me my visa, and to meet with BK Shrestha from Global Action Nepal (GAN) as I will be doing some work with them on their teacher training programmes, all this neatly tied in with my friend Alina's birthday party.



So, my first day was day one of Alina's two day party- loads of fun meeting her and her friends:



Second day in Kathmandu was day two of Alina's parties, this one for her college friends (and me, because, well, I'm awesome, that and I know how to use my camera, but also because I'm awesome, or something, haha):



(there was some guys there too but this was the best of the group photos).

I met with Alina again the next day to show her the photos. The day after, well, I woke up feeling ill, thought I had a bout of man-flu, a quick online diagnosis from confirmed my suspicions, so a lazy day on the internet watching top-gear clips and chatting with friends seemed the appropriate cure, then an early night.

But, that evening, it appeared I didn't have my early diagnosis of man-flu, but instead, had full blown-flu, fever and everything. Not good, that was followed by two days solid in bed, not able to eat or do anything fun. Eventually, I picked myself up enough for a day out, met again with Alina because some of the photos hadn't copied properly onto her pen-drive, then just relaxed chatting with friends online.

Yesterday, woah, not a nice start to the day, woke up to find a mark like this just above my right hip. This photo isn't of me though, it's from Wikipedia.



Went to the hospital, who said "come back tomorrow to see the dermatologist". So, I chose for a simple day of just catching up with some more friends and my parents on Skype as I didn't really feel comfortable enough to go out with that on my body. Evening time, I lifted my shirt to show someone and found it had now gone very red and spread all over my chest, stomach, sides and back, with bits on my arms and legs. It was horrible, so I was taken to the hospital again, who gave me an Anti-Histamine injection, in my buttocks of all places, nice and dignity destroying, lets just say, in a Nepali A&E, there's no cubicles, or curtains like in a British one, nope, you just have to "drop trou" in front of everyone else waiting to get served while a guy sticks a needle in your butt. Nice stuff hey? But, I have to say, it was A LOT quicker than British A&E too. And this was a Nepali government hospital.

And all I can say is the injection worked, I woke up this morning and my skin is well and truly back to normal, I have a slight cough still and slight blocked nose from the flu, but otherwise my health is back to normal. Although I still haven't had chance so visit Tribhuvan University or Global Action Nepal, but he ho, I'll get that done tomorrow and the day after.

As for the cause of my rash, no idea, the doctor said "it could be an alergic reaction, there's no-way of finding out", Wikipedia says that it could be any number of causes, including an allergic reaction to absolutely anything (I have no known allergies), a rare side effect of infection like cold or flu (I had flu, and this was about 5 days after it started), usually presenting itself 5 days after the first symptom, or it could be food poisoning from eating the skin of out of date fish (I had fish when I met Alina, the day before the rash started), I will probably never find out, but it was unpleasant. I did take a photo of it on my chest, but I'm sure you don't want to see it haha, I'll upload it if you really want to though.