Food and hygiene

You can tell I had too much time on my hands today by the number of tweets/posts. I'm aware that there is a wide age range of people who are following my rambling drivel. I suspect it is somewhere between 7 to 80+. So I suspect that the primary school teachers at the Duchy School in Bradninch and St Catherine's in Heathfield, both in Devon, may well have had some tricky explaining to do! So sorry.

Protein to date has been limited to cheese, eggs, tuna and some chicken. So it was with great relish that this evening we all tucked into a yak burger with mushroom sauce together with chips and steamed vegetables. Pasang had told us at lunchtime that a yak leg was due to be delivered during the afternoon and the lodge owners had done a tremendous job butchering it into such a good meal. Adam's now got a seriously high benchmark to reach!

It was also slightly surreal as we were also watching a replay of the Tottenham Swansea match via satellite tv.

Talking of food brings me onto the subject of hygiene. I do hope you've eaten before you read this! It's no wonder so many travellers succumb to upset stomachs, including myself, as hygiene levels are so much lower than at home . Ok so the lodges we are staying in have a porcelain toilet but it's very rare for it to be connected to any water. It's emptied by dipping a small receptacle or jug into a large bucket of water to manually flush it. The transfer of bacteria from just this one action must be tremendous and that's before you've touched the latch or lock! No toilet paper is allowed down the toilet so this is deposited into another bucket just to the side of the water bucket! Often there is a wash hand basin outside the toilet and whilst there is a tap the water supply is intermittent. We all use a hand gel before all meals and after going to the toilet. I suspect this only has a limited effect as having seen inside the kitchens your local Environmental Health Officer would have said establishment closed down immediately. I've also quickly learnt to clean my teeth without any water. I know it sounds very grim and I'm not wishing to pass judgement as the Nepalese suffer none of these problems. It is just part of the experience. All I can say is things are substantially better here in Nepal than Tibet!