Once I arrived back in Kathmandu, I asked my taxi driver about the earthquake and was promptly told everything had gone back to normal.
As we drove further, people were going about their businesses, shops, restaurants and guests houses were all open and traffic clogged up the roads.
It was a stark contrast from the images projected around the world two-and-a-half-months after the earthquake struck.
Piles of rubble, cracked and potholed roads and crumbled buildings did exist, but that can be normal in the rural area I was in, as I was not staying in the centre of Kathmandu which took the brunt of the earthquake.
What was different, were small clusters of tents and makeshift accommodation under tarpaulin, held up by rope or sticks of bamboo.
My first port of call was Swayambhunath, the Monkey Temple, and instantly I noticed the spire on the top of the white stupa took a hit in the earthquake and was supported by bamboo scaffolding as restoration works got underway.
As the taxi driver told me, it was business as usual as Buddhist worshippers and Tibetan refugees completed koras, a circumnavigation of a sacred place or site, around the stupa while praying.
My next stage in my visit to Nepal is the journey to Besisahar, 180km north-west of Kathmandu, to work for the Society for Community Development Nepal (SOCOD).
With my background as an adult nurse, I was well suited to help the organisation and I am now about to find out how I can help and support a local non-government organisation and what difference my short time there will do.
