Travel. Adventure. Journey. Kathmandu. Nepal.
The Journey to Nepal — Arrival
Part two of my two and half months on the roof of the world
I’ve always been a fan of space operatic films. From Star Wars to Interstellar, the idea of being a pioneer into the unknown and pushing the boundaries of the human experience have always captivated me.
Amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic, my travel to Nepal in March 2021 gave me my own sense of my pioneering. No flying through Europe, as the borders were closed. Fill out countless convoluted pre-arrival forms. Take multiple COVID tests, monitor COVID spreads in case border restrictions arose, and, most importantly, mask on the entire way from leaving the car in Philadelphia to arriving at my guesthouse room in Kathmandu.
That being said, travelling 7,600mi from Philadelphia to Kathmandu, a mere 3% the distance from Earth to The Moon, I couldn’t help but feel like an astronaut headed To The Stars, Ad Astra.
My travel to Nepal even mirrored a staged rocket launch.
My flight stages were:
Stage 1: Philadelphia, USA — 2hr30m — > Chicago, USA. Layover: 3hr30m
Stage 2: Chicago, USA — 13hr05m — > Doha, Qatar. Layover: 45m
Stage 3: Doha, Qatar — 4hr10m — > Kathmandu, Nepal.
Stage One was completed when I landed in Chicago. While waiting to make the journey across the Atlantic, my mind kept running through fantastic scenarios of my soon-to-be life in Nepal. What would it be like? How would my team be? Could I do it? Would I make it? Is this right? The mind loves the malleability of thought brought to life by the inevitable unknown.
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Aside from flight staff in hazmat suits and masks, Stage Two of the journey otherwise felt normal as the flight was fully packed (so much for social distance). 13 hours to Doha, Qatar, is a long time to be on a plane. But miraculously, out of utter emotional exhaustion, I slept most of it.
I had a forty-five-minute layover between landing in Doha and getting on my plane to Kathmandu. This all appeared sound on paper. Surely the airlines had run this route many times before which ensured their confidence in such a short connection. Furthermore, with low air traffic in the skies due to the pandemic, we must be sure to arrive on time, if not earlier…
We arrived fifteen minutes late.
I was automatically booked on the next flight to Kathmandu, twelve hours later…connection missed. On the outside, I was mildly relieved. This delay would give me time to rest and arrive in Kathmandu in the morning as opposed to after midnight, as originally scheduled. However, on the inside, my soul was a bit crushed. Another delay. Was Nepal ever going to happen?
I wandered the airport for hours, walking, waiting.
Shortly before departure, I was able to connect with some of my other teammates flying in from Europe who were scheduled to be on the same flight to Kathmandu. Meeting them, while exciting, felt like I had been living on a desert island and was having visitors come see me. Relieving, nonetheless.
Finally, the time came for Stage Three to commence…
It was a packed flight, full of people as well as the Nepali language. The Nepali man next to me told me how the hundreds of Nepali dialects can make it incredibly difficult for Nepali people to understand one another. He demonstrated with the Nepali man next to him and they were barely able to understand one another save for a few common phrases and words. So foreign to me.
Now, with the doors locked and shut, it hit me more than ever. Once in Nepal, there’d be no easy and feasible way for me to return for the next three months. This was it. The final stage of my travel was about to begin. The deep breath before the plunge. The feelings kept welling inside me and suddenly shattered the glass case surrounding my heart. I ran to the bathroom and broke down in tears. I just lost it. It hurt so much but I still could not figure out why.
I was bound for a year-long program that I understood to be “my path”. This Outdoor Instructor Program would give me the tools necessary to build a life of my own through training on how to create twelve-week travel itineraries for larger groups of people. This was the education I longed for.
My Outdoor Instructor Program would be broken into three semesters, 1st doing this 3-month Adventure Guide Program in Nepal, 2nd going to Iceland for three months, two weeks after returning from Nepal, to learn how to build and aid in an Adventure Guide Program, and 3rd attending an Adventure Guide Program as an assistant instructor in New Zealand for three months, a month after returning from Iceland.
As I had left my professional life of nine years for this, my goal was to complete my program in a year, back-to-back, uninterrupted…a true gap year.
There were already rumblings that my envisioned future may not pan out as timely as I had hoped for. But, at the time, all was set and greenlit. The only thing was that I began to wonder if this was the correct path in its entirety.
I recomposed myself, returned to my seat, both physically and within myself, and finished a book I had been reading for many months, Michael Singer’s “The Untethered Soul”.
Serendipitously, I read the following passage from it:
“In truth, pain is the price of freedom. And the moment you are willing to pay that price, you will no longer be afraid. The moment you are not afraid of the pain, you’ll be able to face all of life’s situations without fear.” — Michael Singer, The Untethered Soul
I hadn’t yet realized it. But I was paying my price for Freedom.
An excerpt from my journal on that flight reads:
“I can’t place a finger, or fingers, on all of the emotions I’ve been feeling over the past week. There’s excitement, yearning, eagerness, gratitude, but then there is also fear and doubt. The last of course are figments of the mind clinging to the comfort of my past. This experience is an evolution that my mind has no choice but to go along with and adapt to. I cry, and the tears I shed are for my old self as I continue to follow my truth.”
Landing during the day, from the plane, I expected to see a vast city in the valley of Kathmandu with the roof of the world, the mighty Himalayas, towering in the distance. Instead, I saw countless multicolored little structures that quickly faded out of eyesight due to the sheer amount of dust and smog blanketing the city. No roof of the world, at least not for a while.
After thirty-six hours of travel, I had arrived. Day One had begun.
The dopamine rush through my bloodstream came instantaneously as I took my first step off the plane. My heartbeat quickened and my eyes dilated with the light of the Nepali sun beaming into them. With tears long gone, my eyes scanned every finite detail, taking in this fresh new world. The thrill of travel had returned.
Greeting us was a “Welcome To Nepal” sign with a golden statue of a deity genuflecting with hands together as the angular Nepali Flag fluttered above. Namaste.
Social Distance quickly became a thing of the past as the sea of humanity that flooded out of the plane pulled us in its current and into the airport.
The Pre-Arrival Form, which granted entry into Nepal and was an anxiety-inducing byzantine process to complete, was quickly grabbed and tossed into a pile on the ground outside the airport. I’m still not sure if the staff ever looked at it…
After an informal immigration process, we moved to get our bags. Prior to Nepal I spent six years working in Times Square, New York City, and I can confidently say the density of humans in the Tribhuvan Airport Baggage Claim could give it a run for its money! Sensory Overload is an understatement after a year of harsh quarantining and social distancing.
With our bags in hand and SIM cards purchased, we hopped into our little van to make our way to the Pacific Guesthouse to begin our seven-day quarantine with the rest of the team.
I wrote in my journal:
“Cars, trucks, busses, scooters, motorcycles, bicycles, people, cows, chickens, and everything in-between going in 40 different directions…all on the road!”
That is the scene as one drives through Kathmandu. A mix of dust-filled paved and dirt roads intersecting in whichever way makes sense.
My eyes grew big at the electrical poles. Each pole marked a great convergence of hundreds of wires passing through them, almost as if ivy on a tree and then moving onto the next. As we drove, I thought: Where does the electricity go? Do they all work? Are they even safe?
Seeing all the traffic, in all modes of transport, crossing this way and that… l thought, again: Where are the traffic lights? How is this all working? What is going on!?
And yet, despite all my concerns, it all worked. Everything flowed in chaotic harmony. I was bearing witness to the capital of a developing country blazing its way on the fiery pursuit of growth, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of comradery.
As I was mesmerized looking out my window at a pen with goats and sheep, on a tiny dirt road, I heard our driver say, “We’ve Arrived!”
To be continued…
This is the continuation of my series: The Journey to Nepal — Ad Astra
Special thanks to Robert Kyte for editing support.
You can see more of my journey on Instagram here
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