Step Into My Shoes..

December, 2018 Whenever a year would start to come to a close, I couldn't wait for the new year to begin already. I couldn't wait for all the pending things that I could start doing again, I couldn't wait for all the new things that I could introduce to my life. There would be joy for all the prospect of new beginnings, as well as there would be relief that this "wretched year is finally over". Close a Chapter | Turn a New Page | Start all Over Again   | Right the Wrong | Move on This time, I have decided to take a different route. The route of being thankful. 2018 was an eventful year and I am very much grateful for all the things it didn't give me, the things it granted me, the people it allowed me to meet - however fleetingly, the people it made me part with, the blessed respite it bestowed upon me and the frenzied busyness that followed, the plans after plans after plans it disallowed and the wonderful places it took me, the failures...

(Disclaimer: Not in Annapurna Area anymore) October 28th, 2018 I woke up at 6 in the morning with the sound of a faint knocking somewhere in the room. It sounded like rain but not quite. I looked outside my window just to be sure - it was clear outside. The sound continued on for a while; I tried avoiding it as much as I could but the sound wouldn't stop. I realised the source of the sound was from the window on the side of my friend's bed. I drew the curtains open to find a little bird pecking at the glass. And the funny thing is that even after it noticed me noticing it, it didn't stop. It kept on pecking until we decided we couldn't go back to sleep anymore. We didn't have the heart to shoo it away, so we let it do its thing. We were told that we would be picked up from the hotel at 9:30 am, so we got ready and went out for breakfast at 8:45 am. We went to the same cafe we had gone the previous night and ordered tea and sandwich. It was just after ...

October 26th, 2018 We woke up for the last morning at Dobato. Breakfast was normal - roti, tarkari, boiled egg, tea. Honestly speaking, we were getting bored of it by then. I tried changing my breakfast to a western one, but the hotel dai said breads were hard to get by and we should've informed them earlier. Too bad we were busy resting our exhausted bodies. After viewing the morning sun hit the Himalayas from so close for one last time, we started off towards our next destination - Ghorepani.  We had to descend from 3426 m to 2874 m, but descending in the mountains doesn't necessarily mean just going down. It is an adventure full of walking downhill, climbing and sometimes treading on a straight path. Sometimes when we would get tired of all the walking, we would just look at Ghorepani, which we could see from most of the path we were walking on, we would always joke, if only there was this bridge between here and there (Ghorepani). I mean how ...

Continued.. The instructions weren't very clear but we were in a great hurry to go somewhere, do something, climb a mountain! For about an hour, all we did was walk either downhill or straight with zero difficulty and remember, we were travelling light. At the end of the first hour, we reached a place which was like the base of the mountain that we were going to have to climb. We had only just reached there that it kinda started snowing. At first, we weren't sure what was happening. We had seen cloud forming at the tip of the mountain but we were definitely not expecting it to snow this far down. But lives don't work alongside our expectations. Some of us hesitated but the rest wanted to carry on. So majority won and up we went.  It wasn't the first time for some of us to witness snowfall, but immediately after we started walking, we sighted a danphe - the national bird of Nepal, definitely a first time for all of us. It felt like a good sig...

For the umpteenth time in my life, I have cheated death, again. Okay, may be I am being a little too dramatic. I am an adventurous person but I don't go and seek to partake in risky activities like jumping off a cliff, climbing a steep mountain, walking into the unknown in a failing daylight when it's snowing - but in retrospect, I have done all that in the past week. Let me elaborate. A week ago, I left Kathmandu with four people with the intention to trek to Khopra Ridge and come back with some good instagrammable pictures. I did come back with many great pictures but also I am glad to have come back with greater stories to tell. Normally, when I travel, I am on the driving seat. I decide where we go, when we go, how we go and every such things. I like being in control and knowing what's coming. Many a times, plans have succeeded and I have come back content. This time, however, I had been designated the passenger seat from where I couldn't even see where we...

Ah Kathmandu, five years I lived away from you and five years later you look exactly the same and yet you feel different, like a lover I left in pursuit of another. You're still dusty, may be more. You're still crowded, may be more. You're still chaos. Still scary. Still lovely. You fill me with memories and yet you make me want to escape again. For the first few weeks, I never left the company of my family. I never went anywhere unaccompanied. I grew up in Kathmandu and yet I had to be reintroduced to many places and habits. The second I stepped out of the comfort of my home, I had to remember to put on a mask, both for the pollution and for coping with this sudden change in lifestyle. I had to mask my disgust at the condition of the roads, I had to mask my surprise at my sister's warning about being careless about my phone and my zip-less bag, I had to mask my fright at the leering men at every corner, I had to mask my discomfort at the ease with which...

Sakela is a festival celebrated by the Rai people of Nepal. This festival is celebrated two times a year. Once during the Baisakh Purnima (which is the full moon during the months of April/May) and another during the full moon day of Mangsir (months of November/December). I am not a Rai but I am close to a few Rai people in Sydney and that's enough of an excuse to participate in this fabulous festivity. Last time I had been a part of this festival, it was 4 years ago. I was new still in the city and I was awkward. I still am awkward but this time I was ready. I had never really paid attention to Sakela back home. I just knew that a bunch of people danced around something with the sounds of "Saye dhole saye, arko dhole khai". I don't even know what that means. Yet. And last time I attended, I had even forgotten they danced. So before I could gather my bearings, people had already started dancing and while I was debating with myself whether I should join, the ...