1968

Jan was Jan Harper, a Home Economics professor on leave from Southern Illinois University. We first met her in Cairo where she was with the Ford Foundation. In Katmandu, I think, she was with the U.S. A.I.D. program. She arranged for us and our traveling partners, Ralph and Lillie Douglas, to park our vans in her apartment compound.

In the afternoon, Jan took us to the Mission hospital run by the Flemings about whom a book has been written. He is an ornithologist and has written a book about the birds of Nepal. She is an M.D. but both are quite old now and probably don't help much with the work of the hospital. Rachel Wolfe, a hostess, took us around. The hospital was established by the Flemings and by another family by the name of Miller. They rented this old palace and for a while lived on the third floor with a common kitchen. It is now operated by 28 church denominations and 14 countries finance it, but money is always in short supply .

One of their financial problems when we were there was that many hippies, drugged young people came in for treatment when they became sick, and couldn't pay for their care.

Private rooms rent for $10 a day all inclusive, but most patients are in big wards which were the ballroom or reception rooms, and they have free service. Most of them do not eat hospital fare, but the families usually live in cubicles near the hospital and prepare food for their sick. The hospital staff also lives on the grounds, but Miss Wolfe said that the accommodations for the single people was very miserable. This hospital is newer than Ludianna and others we have seen, but it is not as good. The rooms and equipment seem very minimum, and with no heat in the whole building. It never gets very cold here, and this week has been about as cold as it ever gets. They say it never snows in the valley although there is snow on the surrounding mountains.

Jan dropped Lillie and me off at the Soaltee Hotel, supposedly owned by the King's brother, and we each had a haircut, shampoo and set. This was the best shop I have been in for many a moon, maybe even since Rome. It was all in pink and gray, and very much like the attractive ones at home. The equipment was clean and modern, and although the

operators wore sarees, they also wore white jackets on top of the sarees. Only one operator worked on me, no separate shampooer, or assistant so there was only one tip. Altogether it cost me 30 rupees which is $3.00. That is plenty expensive, but still less than a shampoo and set would cost at home.

Our husbands and Jan and the Fagnans, another American couple, arrived soon after for dinner at the hotel. We went into the Japanese room which was charming with stones and pebbles inset on the floor, and plain wooden plank type tables. The dinner was quite expensive, two meals on the menu being $2.50 and the sukiyaki was $3.00. My $2.50 dinner was fried shrimp but not much else. We were also served tea, but no sugar. The sukiyaki was cooked right on the table in front of us. Meat sliced very thin, green onion tops, green spinach, thin noodles, sugar, vinegar, and may be a soy sauce were put into a greased pan. When cooked, it was put into a bowl on top of a raw egg. That's what had discouraged me from ordering it.

"I've had better sukiyaki" was Burt's report.

So ended another day of our fantastic trip around the world.