Kathmandu

Nepal FINAL CHAPTER: Departures

Daniel 17 Comments

Wow! One year and 111 chapters later, I’m done with this project!! What a ride. Thanks everyone for coming along with me on this journey. I’ve appreciated each and every reader more than you can know. I’ll drop some more in-depth thoughts about the process and what’s next for me next week, but for now, just enjoy the closing chapter of this story.

And if you’re new here, I guess you can read the whole story now, start to finish, right here.

**

I awoke early on my final day in Nepal.

Some animal instinct warned me of impending change.

Sunlight was streaming onto my pallet-like bed in my room at the Annapurna Guesthouse. Dust shimmered in the sunbeam, leading the air an ethereal solidity. It looked like I could reach across the room and pluck the sunbeam straight out of the sky. It was a strangely beautiful sight.

Dust was inescapable in this city. Already, after only two days back in Kathmandu, my cough had come back.  It would linger with me long after I returned home, a half-welcome reminder the damages wandering could inflict on a person.

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Nepal 29: Bus From Kathmandu to Pokhara

Daniel 30 Comments
Bus From Kathmandu to Pokhara

The bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara takes eight hours.

It travels a distance of 126 miles (203 kilometers).

Why does it take eight hours to travel 120 miles?

That’s a simple answer: the roads in Nepal terrible, the drivers are worse, and the whole dance takes place smack in the middle of the most mountainous terrain that exists on planet Earth.

Watching out the window for all eight hours of the trip, I had a front-row ticket to his terror.

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Nepal 26: Smoking Alone

Daniel 2 Comments

[The featured image will make sense if you read the whole entry. Photo was taken in Feb 2014, two years before I was in Nepal. If you are new to this story, I suggest starting at chapter 1].

When I returned to my room, the gratitude turned to sadness.

The high had faded, and I was alone again.

I sat down at the smoking table, slumping in the chair. I laid the joint down, and looked across the tiny table. A second chair sat empty.  No one to smoke with.

I checked my email.

An Austrian company, Runtastic, was trying to recruit me.

We had been going back and forth ever since I lost my job in Bali, sending work samples and writing pieces, discussing the logistics of potentially moving to Austria, obtaining a red-white-red card, learning German. It was an exciting opportunity which had colored the tail end of my trip; an optimistic pallor hanging over a cold and dreary month in Taipei.

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