Back Home

I can't believe I am back. After a 5.5hr flight, 6hr transit, 14hr transatlantic flight, 1hr waiting on line to go through customs, and a 2hr drive , I am finally home. Everything looks "new and shiny" but feels old at the same time, comforting with a rosy glow. I noticed things I never did before, appreciated things I used to take for granted. I am ecstatic just to take a long hot shower and curl up in my warm comfy bed.

I'm sure I will face some re-entry shock re-adjusting to life here but if Nepal has taught me anything, it is to breathe, relax and take things one at a time as they come. I'll handle the rest after I tackle this jet lag.

Awakening

Back on the road Friday morning, finally reached Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. Lots of countries have built their own Buddhist temples on this sacred ground.

Before calling it a day, we drove to the Nepal-India border to check out the Sonauli Bazaar.

    

Going outside of Kathmandu never ceases to humble me. Even though the Lumbini compound is beautiful (with the help of foreign aid), the areas around it are very poor.

Saturday morning, we woke up at 5am to head home in the densest fog I've ever seen. It was like traveling into nothingness. Shadows of men walking and riding bicycles were all that could be seen. The rickshaws weren't out yet but we saw a few ox carts.

 

This was rural farmlands, but the roads were thousands of times better than city roads - "Nepal's highway." This is the same route that is used to ship goods from India to Kathmandu. 

The sun finally rose. I chuckled to myself as I saw a chicken rush to cross the road before we passed.

  

This is my 6th time traveling this mountain road. It's still beautiful but now staring at the rapids, all I think about is Bernoulli's law, playing out physics and bio problems in my head. Science is beautiful. I have had an incredible time on this international co-op and while I will miss Nepal, I think I am ready to get back to school and finish up my last semester. I could not be more excited to start medical school and the next chapter of my life.

some bad luck

Ever had an incredibly unlucky day, where just about everything seemed to go wrong? Today was one of those days.

I didn’t sleep well so packing in the morning was no fun, rushed to take a cold shower and get ready. Being my clumsy self, I fell UP the stairs. We were leaving for Lumbini today and I didn’t want to be late. I scarfed down some food and threw my things in the car. At my aunt’s house, we waited for the driver and finally headed out around noon. If you ever want to go somewhere decently far away, leave early in the morning.

We got stuck in the normal traffic jam in Kathmandu so it took a while to get out of the city. We picked up some speed for about an hour until we hit another jam. It seemed pretty normal; it’s usually stop and go, especially if a car broke down or there was an accident – traffic bottleneck because the roads are narrow. Twenty minutes pass by and we’ve only moved a few inches so the driver goes to see what’s going on… Turns out there was a political protest blocking the road. The government had just captured the leader of a youth communist group and protesters would not allow anyone to pass the road block until he was set free. This was the main road out of Kathmandu so it was a big deal. We were towards the front of the line, if we had left even 15min earlier, we would have passed through no problem. So here we were for two hours until the police came by to sort things out.

 

Back on the road not even a half hour and a tire blows out. Someone threw a long nail on to the road and it punctured our tire – good thing we have a spare… the driver quickly changed the spare and we were back on our way. We drove slowly, looking for places that would repair the tire on the way. We must have stopped at a dozen places before we got it fixed. 

Not too long afterwards, we get a second flat tire, only this time it was getting dark and we didn’t have the right lug for the job. Thankfully we were not too far away from the next town, my cousin walked to the nearest shop to ask for help and the rest of us had some tea and waited.

Deflated upon our bad luck and nightfall, we decided to stay in the nearest city a few kilometers away instead of driving all the way to Lumbini. It’s not safe to travel at night.