Driving along the Georgian Military Highway, leaving behind me the world heritage site of the castle of Ananuri, and heading North towards the town of Stepantsminda, I had to cross the over 2000m high Jvari Pass, where the green meadows of an Alpine plateau offers an ideal pasture for large herds of sheep. Crossing the …
Author Archives: The Blue Vet
Mt Kazbeg and the night at Jonny’s court
Not for the first time, I had to throw common sense over board and break all the rules. I was standing at an altitude of 3200m above sea level at the bottom of the Gergeti glacier in the Georgian part of the Caucasus, not far from the border to Russia, about to do something really …
Berat
The sun had not even risen behind the towering Tomorri mountains far in the East, when I crossed the town square of Berat, Albania’s “White City”. A small gang of large, but benign stray dogs was happy to see me and a couple of them came running towards me in the hope for some …
Tirana….the return
Abdominal wounds had been opened and closed for the last 8 hours and the sharps containers beside the operating tables were starting to fill with used needles and scalpel blades….. I was coming to the end of my demonstrations of common suturing techniques and despite my feeble attempts to engage my students with the application …
Coffee in the Garden of Dreams
“One moment in annihilation’s waste, one moment of the well of life to taste – the stars are setting, and the caravan starts for the dawn of nothing – Oh, make haste !” Once again I was enjoying a quiet moment at the “Garden of Dreams” – one of my favourite places in Kathmandu. Sitting …
The ghats and the Chunchun Baba
I was coming to the end of my journey to Nepal and my boots were bearing the marks of over 300 kms of rugged mountain paths, of the exposure to snow and ice and of getting drenched during downpours and river crossings in the Manaslu and Annapurna regions. They had been caked in mudd and …
Sun rise at Boudhanath
It was surprisingly easy, finding a cab at 5 AM in Thamel and with the exception of the discomfort of riding in a car with a completely worn suspension, my short jouney to the magnificent stupa at Boudhanath went very smoothly. Nepal is predominantly a Hindu country, but especially in the mountainous North, there is …
What makes a wildlife hospital a wildlife hospital ?……
Despite the best preparations for your travels, it is unavoidable that you sometimes come across something completely unexpected…. This is what happened to me, when I was standing in front of the impressive gates of the eye catching wildlife hospital at the head quarters of Chitwan National Park in Sauraha. I had never heard of …
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The watch tower
When the sun sets at Chitwan National Park in the low lands of Nepal, it is strictly forbidden and also certainly not advisable to set foot in a jungle where well over 100 tigers, a similar number of leopards, some wild elephants and over 20% of the world’s population of Asian rhinos are roaming free. …
Meeting the magical Dr Joshi
The year had just turn to 2081 and the New Year celebrations were still ongoing, when I travelled to Baktapur in the Kathmandu valley. Nepal is in so many ways different from the rest of the world, and this includes the Bikram Sambat calendar, which is roughly 57 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar…. Baktapur …
The Blue Vet Diary 