What a journey!

What a couple of eventful days it has been trying to get to Nepal. It has been quite an ordeal for everyone and the project hasn’t even started!

Our major group of travellers arrived on Saturday morning at Sydney airport hoping to get on our original flights to Kathmandu. A recent incident at Kathmandu airport where a Turkish Airlines flight skidded off the runway cause major chaos and days of cancelled flights. There was plenty of waiting and reshuffling involved but wefinallylanded (an amazingly we were on only the third flight to land at Kathmandu airport after it offically reopened) at 2:00am – 27 hours after first meeting at the airport.

The team have crawled into bed for a few hours sleep at 5.30am.Volunteering in Nepal has always been challenging but the fact that the team has even arrived this year in Nepal was a miracle in itself. A huge thank you to China Southern Airlines who did their utmost to get us here – they put three flights on overnight as soon as the airport reopened.

There are a few team members still stranded at other airports. We are currently missing Harry Lam, Ting-Ting Liu, Dinah Davis, Rhonda Bignell, Christine Cain, Trudy Killeen-Snelson and Cherie Quintano.They should hopefully all arrive over the next couple of days.

Ting-Ting recently posted on Facebook “We are finally off the plane – almost five hours after landing! Now waiting for baggage – it’s complete chaos and a mad house! Looks like it might be a few hours before we collect them. A few planes before us all still waiting!…I am not sure how we are going to find out luggage, if ever… they are putting them in random piles, no idea which airline is where. Conveyor belts are not working and bags are being off loaded manually.” Apparently some people have been waiting over 6 hours for their baggage” Good luck Ting Ting and we hope you join us soon!

The team have unpacked at the hospital this afternoon and are now at the Himalayan Horizon Hotel. We received a very warm welcome from the hotel staff. We have a big couple of days ahead with assesments and surgery starting tomorrow. Stay tuned for more!