Next, please ...

I can’t say that visiting a doctor in Nepal was initially on the list of things to do before I am thirty, though in retrospect it was such an unusual experience that perhaps it should have been. I had not intended on visiting the gentleman in question, (Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against those practising medicine in Kathmandu!) but had managed to end up in a situation where seeking medical advice was probably the best thing to do.

I had felt the sharp pain the evening before, whilst sitting on the roof-top of the house I was staying in. As the sky darkened to an inky blue-black, an array of insects buzzed and chirped , the way insects can only buzz and chirp in Kathmandu! As the mosquitoes nibbled away at the surface of my skin, I decided to venture inside before I was eaten alive!

I thought very little more of the wee creatures that had dined on me that evening until I woke the next morning to find two small, raised red lumps where the perpetrators had feasted. Another two to add to the collection, I thought! As the day wore on, I began to notice that the small raised red lumps were beginning to change into swollen red discs, more akin to the size of the base of an average tea-drinking mug.

Walking from Imarode back to the guest house, I popped into the local pharmacy, and in my best Nepali tried to explain that I had been bitten. Twisting my arm to the light, the pharmacist, in broken English, proceeded to ask which creature I thought was responsible. “Mosquito?” I quizzed.

“No mosquito,” He commented. “Doctor!”

I presumed that the grey-haired gentleman was suggesting that it would be advisable to visit a practitioner, rather than the doctor being the unlikely cause of my ailment, so set out to find one of the local polyclinics. Finding one, I proceeded to the reception desk, which was guarded by a tall, and rather flustered man. Taking my relevant details, and of course my rupees, he guided me upstairs, and into the waiting area. As I stepped through the door, I began to feel like only an English traveller can in a Nepali clinic. Some familiar words whizzed around my head. What were they again? Oh yeah, water, fish and out of!

Around me other patients shuffled in their seats and empty gazes established the order of consultation. In an attempt to avoid drawing attention, I found myself staring at the grubby ceiling above. It never ceases to amaze me how some creatures simply defy the law of gravity by being able to walk upside down along a surface without falling. There must have been twenty or thirty of the fore-mentioned creatures just “hanging out” on that ceiling. After a while, my neck began to ache and I was forced to lower my head and risk eye contact with somebody else. The inevitable occurred, and passing glances with the lady sitting opposite, we agreed silently that we were going to be waiting for some time.

The process in which one goes through to see a Nepali doctor is seems to be very similar to the rules of the road in Nepal – Quite simply, they are not specific! I watched carefully and joined what I thought was the end of the queue. One by one, the patients waiting entered the consulting room as one would expect, and it was just about my turn! Then, something rather unexpected happened.

I saw the family come up the stairs. My initial observations would tell me that the family unit consisted of mother, father, child and grandmother. Maybe visiting the doctor in Nepal was a family occasion, but my thoughts were quickly stilted as the young boy was marched past the queue into the consulting room by his mother. My theory about queuing had just been entirely thwarted! I began to feel rather territorial, which for being in a foreign country, was quite a strange predicament to be in!

I sidled towards the open door-way of the consulting room in an attempt to peer around the corner to see where the fire was! As far as I could determine, the case was not an emergency. I must have however exuded a look of disdain, and Grandmother, dressed in a pattered, orange saree drew herself up tall (Well, as tall as she could, as she was the same height as myself), and turned to face me head-on. She wore one of those looks upon her face which seemed to say “And what are you going to do about it?” So I returned the facial gesture which summised “Nothing, I’m a foreigner, you’re a local and I know my place!”

My escorts on this trip were the mothers of the couple I was staying with in Kathmandu, and they looked on with anticipation with regard to my progress in the queue. It wouldn’t be long before it got dark, and unlike the onset of night in the UK, darkness sweeps in rapidly in Nepal. I didn’t much like the idea of walking back through Patan in the dark, and presumed that my escorts felt the same, so I was relieved when finally I stepped through the door of the consulting room.

In the chair before me sat a rather rotund gentleman, dressed in a purple shirt and grey trousers. Immediately he had assumed that I was British, and proceeded to talk at length about the different cities in the UK he had visited. After a check over, the diagnosis was that I had been bitten by an insect (Though even with my lack of medical knowledge, I could have diagnosed that myself!) and a rather potent cocktail of antibiotics, antihistamine and anti-venom drugs was prescribed. I think I will be trying as far as possible to avoid being outside at dusk over the next few weeks!