Ahead of social media, we invite you to share our recent journey through the Nepali Himalayas over the next three weeks. We will post our daily journal from this adventure (mostly from my perspective, though I will add entries from different kids to round out the perspective) and end with a video of it all (fingers crossed). Thank you for witnessing this special adventure. Signing-up for email updates on our website might be the easiest way to access the content for this series. Enjoy!

—-

May 29, 2019: Why Now?

It is surreal to be back in Nepal after 19 years. I was both terrified and excited to come back—terrified to taint my precious memories of our 30+ day trek of the Annapurna circuit; and so excited to revisit this special place.

During the second quarter of our yearlong global adventure, we spent time in the Andes mountains. In particular, the charm and simplicity of the remote areas of Peru and Bolivia took Kapil and I back to our Nepali memories and I believe solidified our emotional connection to South America. As we immersed ourselves in the culture of the indigenous people of the Andes, we couldn’t help but think how much the culture, the people, and the landscape looked and felt like what we experienced in Nepal. In mentioning this to different locals, we discovered a creation story that drew on the concept of earthly duality between the both the Himalayas (masculine) and the Andes (feminine) as focal points of the world.

This was the page of the book that referenced the Andes and Himalayas that was so interesting to me that I was compelled to take a picture of the page back in November 2018!

Nepal wasn’t even in the original globetrotting plan. Sure, we began reminiscing about our Nepali days, but now we had little legs to worry about. We tucked our thoughts at the back of our minds, to be revisited when we dared to dream our next big 10-year dream. Yet, a few months after Peru, the kids surprised us with their elevated skill and will in trekking the famous “W” trek in Patagonia. Nepal came back on the radar with full force.

We had purposely left 1/2 of the year unplanned so that we could gauge the kids’ reaction to our pace of travel and make adjustments as needed. The facts that our spirits were high and our newly traveled legs were so strong, coupled with the clarity that we might not get “weeks” to come and trek for a long time to come, made this the perfect opportunity to trek the Himalayas again.

We reached out to UCSF’s Wildlands Program (the group we had traveled to Nepal with, when we were in college) and began our internet searches. Our quick cyber scans lead us to the harsh reality that the Annapurna circuit had completely changed. The planned road construction to China, that we learned about back then, had manifested and resulted in roads all the way up to some of the more remote parts of the circuit. The increased accessibility meant more tourists, development, and trash.

We decided to try a different and undeveloped part of Nepal—Manaslu—and now being here in Nepal, I am so glad we did.

I’ll have to add a scan of the hardcopy photo of a similar pose in 2000 when we get home!

The “College Restaurant” Moment in Nepal

Kathmandu felt equal parts familiar and foreign. The airport was slightly expanded, but the immigration counter was housed in the original brick building. Upon exiting the airport, we were greeted with the same type of orange marigold flower garlands, but the short 6km drive to Thamel was a rude awakening. The roadways were very congested and I could taste the air pollution. My heart sank into my stomach as I saw pedestrians walking alongside the many construction projects and street trash with face masks on...this was not how I remembered Kathmandu.

We chose to stay at the same hotel as last time, Kathmandu Guest House (KGH). Even back then, I remember it being basic but charming. I have an image in my head of eating morning breakfast and drinking tea in the front courtyard among the mix of other college students and hippie 50-somethings. Now, we were entering the newly constructed reception as nearly 40-somethings, with three kids in tow!

KGH was just as basic as I remember, though this time, we had our own ensuite bathrooms. The renovated hotel premises, that now boasted a larger courtyard and a buffet breakfast, was still somehow charming and ideally located in the heart of the cleaner and car-free, Thamel.

This is all superficial stuff that toyed with my head and my heart. It was like a college restaurant. The one you loved because the food was Ah-Mazing and the price was just enough “splurge” for the college budget. It’s the one you will always rave about when reminiscing about your college days, but one day, when you are trying to relive that time, you will visit as an adult...an adult with different tastes, more experience, and a bigger budget. Has the restaurant quality gone down? While you ponder this question and ask the young waiter (who just turned 21) about your favorite dish that you don’t see on the menu (or maybe a hot sauce you would like with your meal), he will politely remind you (with a “ma’am”) that when you were in college he was three years old. Suddenly, it will dawn on you that maybe the restaurant hasn’t changed after all, but YOU have.

So Nepal for me was like that college restaurant, only it changed our lives (talk about a high bar). I was a college kid when I traveled for the first time with my best friend/boyfriend for a study abroad program. I had fought for my parents to allow my attendance and had worked odd hours at a second job to pay for my trip.

Side Note: My second job was at a telemarketing company selling free home foreclosure information, which was shutdown years later by the FBI for its shadiness! My only saving grace for my own morality was that I worked in the customer support department and was reprimanded for returning too many subscriptions.

Once I made it to Nepal that first time, I was infatuated by everyone and everything. I met like-minded adventurers in the program and relished my independence (both emotionally and physically—as there were no phone lines, let alone cell signal, for regular communication with my parents). Needless to say, my return to Nepal made me acutely aware of every experience, so that I could figure out whether it was me or Nepal who had done most of the changing over these last 19 years.

Shortly after we left Nepal, in 2003, there was a tragic mass murder within the royal family which created political instability. From about 2003-06, the Maoist rebels, along with popular demand, successfully demoted the monarchy and made Nepal a Republic, complete with elections, new leadership (prime minister, parliament, and president), and a new constitution (which took three years to write and ratify).

During our time away, Nepal’s population grew ~26% (from 23.7m to 29.9m) with much of the increase was within Kathmandu. Nepal also saw three earthquakes (the largest of which was April 25, 2015 where 8,922 deaths are currently accounted for) in that time, devastating monuments and homes. The increase in population and natural disasters, coupled with the desire to appease the populous for elections, meant new development and roads.

For the most part, the locals still lobby hard for road development because it means easier travel, accessibility for better healthcare and education, and more opportunity, even in the remote villages high in the Himalayas. I remember years ago when I was conversing with a village elder on the Annapurna circuit and told him my wish for the road from Nepal to China to not happen because then everything would change in the mountains. He looked at me kindly and in a combination of Hindi and Nepali, he replied, “so you want us to stay less advanced so that you Americans can vacation here?”

The only problem with increased accessibility and traffic, is an increase in inorganic goods—goods for consumption and for sale, and partial goods left behind. Quite simply, with more development and people, came more trash...and in Kathmandu (and I’m told now on the Annapurna circuit and even on the summit of Mount Everest), you see it everywhere.

Kapil’s in-law relative, Khushal, lives in Nepal. He started a private company, called Doko Recyclers, to be a part of creating solutions to Nepal’s trash crisis, which translates into 1,435 tons per day or 524,000 tons per year of municipal solid waste generation in Nepal (reported by the Asian Development Bank in 2012). Today, Nepal ships the majority of its trash to India every year. Nepal does not have any recycling plants and most Nepalis have a culture of littering/trashing everything (without separating recyclables), both because there are always people to pilfer through the trash for sellable recyclables (mainly glass bottles, paper, and cardboard) and because previously with organics, littering didn’t pose a long-term problem (especially higher in the mountains).

All of this is to say, in 19 years, Nepal has changed. I too have changed (I’d like to think for the better), but the memory of our life-changing experience was enough to lure us back. Manaslu is one of the last inaccessible routes until the road to Tibet is completed. What better time to make new memories with our kids in this magical place, than now?