From the category archives:

Nepal

Yoga by the lake in Pokhara

May 29, 2011 Nepal
Yoga retreat in Pokhara, Nepal

‘This is it,’ my taxi driver said. He pointed up a steep gravel hill and a path that disappeared into a clump of trees. His car was unable to go any further. From here, I had to walk.

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Celebrating Diwali in Kathmandu

May 22, 2011 Destinations
Celebrating Diwali, the festival of lights, in Kathmandu

I arrived in Kathmandu right before Diwali, a five-day festival of light. It’s the reason I stayed in Kathmandu for ten days – public holidays during the celebrations meant the processing of my Indian visa was to take much longer than usual. One of the most important festivals on the Hindu calendar, Diwali is almost [...]

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Harvest time in Bhaktapur

May 17, 2011 Destinations
Harvest time in Bhaktapur, Nepal

Dodging buses belching exhaust and minivans careening up the hill and out of the bus park, it looked like trying to take local transport to the ancient city of Bhaktapur instead of hiring an expensive taxi was going to get my friend and I killed.

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My room in Kathmandu

May 15, 2011 Destinations
My room in...Kathmandu

When I arrived in Kathmandu from Tibet, my first order of business was to organise my Indian visa. Actually no. That’s a lie. My first order of business was to eat pizza and drink beer. The Indian visa came second. Once the first order of business was out of the way, I quickly discovered it [...]

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An evening at Boudhanath Stupa

May 10, 2011 Buddhism
Visiting Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu

As evening fell on my first afternoon in Nepal, I felt for a moment like I was back in Tibet. Caught on a tide of jostling pilgrims, I was pulled forward by the crowd, some of them murmuring mantras like om mani padme hum and swinging their hand-held prayer wheels. I could smell butter lamps [...]

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Getting drunk on the road to Kathmandu

May 8, 2011 Destinations
Getting drunk on the road to Kathmandu

Have you ever had one of those absolutely perfect travel days? The kind that you wish you could go back and do over again, in exactly the same way? I had one of those days when I crossed the China/Nepal border, on the road to Kathmandu from Tibet. And it was all because I was [...]

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