The Hotel on the Roof of the World by Alec le Sueur Page A

around flower beds of grass and litter filled the grounds of an austere, cement-rendered building painted in a sickly shade of ‘garlic grass’. A group of lamentable beggars surrounded the main door, their filthy hands tugging at the clothing of anyone entering or leaving the building, until they received some small change. Two monks sat against the entrance chanting from a pile of woodblock printed prayers. A cardboard shoe box lay in front of them for donations. Whenever they saw a patient or a relative approaching they would speed up their chants and gesture towards the box.
    Passing through the open glass door, it was some comfort to be hit by the smell of antiseptic, or disinfectant, or whatever that all-pervading hospital smell is. I wondered if a concentrated dose of it could be injected into Mr Pong’s stomach.
    The inside walls were painted in a paler shade of sickly green up to the halfway line, and then whitewashed to the ceiling. The grey tiled floor was littered with surgical debris. Two doctors leant against a wall in the foyer, cigarettes in hand.
    We were ushered along a dingy corridor to a dimly lit room which contained a table covered with a dirty sheet and shelves lined with glass jars. There were two chairs and a bicycle. We waited for a nurse to arrive.
    Clouds of dust rolled along the corridor, followed by a Tibetan lady who was attempting to sweep the hallway filth into a tin can which had been cut in half and nailed onto the end of a stick. It appeared that she was a nurse of some kind, as when she saw us, she came into the room, wiped her hands on her dusty coat and looked around the jars of surgical appliances to find the one containing needles.
    I asked Tashi to inform the lady that I had already had all my tests both in Paris and in Hong Kong so that there was really no need for any more. Tashi said ‘Yes’ to me and spoke to the nurse in Tibetan. She nodded. Smiling, she approached me with a large needle she had found in one of the jars. She made a poking gesture, smiled and nodded again to me. I told Tashi that it wasn’t anything to do with a lack of confidence in their health system – it was just that I had already had all the tests I needed. Tashi again said something in Tibetan to the nurse. She laughed and wiped the needle on her sleeve to demonstrate that it was clean.
    I was saved momentarily by the interruption of a dog running into the room. It had picked up something out of the dustpan and was looking for a quiet corner where it could stay undisturbed and chew its find. Our nurse chased it from the room, brandishing my needle at it and shouting at the two cigarette-smoking doctors as the dog ran past, tail between its legs and prize between its teeth.
    Foolishly I consented to the blood test, but only when the nurse had found another needle in a sealed packet. For all future examinations I took a supply of my own needles bought in the West.
    After a drop of blood was collected from my ear lobe, Tashi and I were taken to the X-ray room. Heavy doors marked ‘Danger – Radiation’ stood wide open, and to my surprise I found the room filled with patients queuing up in front of the X-ray machine. Flashes of X-rays went off around the room as pregnant women, nomads and small children lined up expectantly in front of this modern technology. It seems that someone had lost the operating handbook – where it clearly states that you should stand behind the lead shield. After a single chest X-ray I was taken to a further examination room.
    An elderly nomad from northern Tibet was seated by a low table, with a contraption for testing eyesight on his head. He wore a long sheepskin chuba , with the fur innermost and the rough cut skin on the outside to face the elements. The trailing edge of the chuba was finished with an inch-wide hem of brightly coloured braid. He looked up at us as we entered the room and smiled a toothless grin as a greeting. I tried