Wayne Olorenshaw entertained Rotarians with his travels on a motorbike trek in Nepal with wife Claire last October.
Travelling again with RAMS Adventures who organised their previous trip to the Himalayas, they arrived in Katmandu to acclimatise and see something of the city before setting out on Lee Enfield motorbikes which had been adjusted with fuel injected carburetors to cope with the altitude. The same could not be done for Wayne & Claire, who admitted to being fatigued from time to time,
The country had been damaged by an earthquake in 1998, and heavy rains made the “roads” tracks at best very difficult to navigate. At one point a fall meant Claire had to go to a local hospital, where she was x rayed, tended to by a radiologist and doctor called out just for her, and stitched up for the princely sum of £13.40!
Wayne showed wonderful photos of rural Nepal which benefits from tourism and the people seemed well enough off, although with tales of whole hotels having slipped off the mountainside – it was a precipitous existence!
Gorges and steep hillsides falling away to canyons and waterfalls, with distant views of Mount Everest, and glimpses of wildlife and small children with their goats made for an entertaining meeting.
We were joined for lunch by Yoshi Budiyanto from the Rotary Club of Kyrene, Phoenix, Arizona who was visiting Warwick, accompanied by his wife and father in law . Fortunately Yoshi works in IT and was able to get Wayne’s presentation (on Apple) to talk to the clubs projector after some technical wizardry! Yoshi is President Elect of a small club in the process of “reversing” into the parent club, so he will be the 101st Club President there. He has only been a Rotarian for 18 months but experienced a Group Study Exchange and ? Interact before that. It was great to have the chance to share our experiences.
Here is Yoshi, and wife and child with President Dick Dixon
