Choosing Nepal

Why choose Nepal you may ask?
Well to be frank I cannot say that I myself chose Nepal. In some funny way you can say that fate chose Nepal for me. You see, I was 19 and enjoying my gap year: I had just returned from Spain where I had completed my education as a guide and I was excited to finally go in February. Needless to say it left me furious when I one day got the call that I would not be going to Portugal as a guide in February. Too few guests had booked and therefore I would have to wait additional two month before I could get started. That's when I decided to do something about it: I most definitely didn't want to stay in Denmark and I had always loved Asia. Ever since me and my family went there for three month in 2005 visiting India, Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar I had been longing to get back. It so happened that I found a Danish volunteer project in Nepal and I decided to go. My family advised me strongly against going and I myself only knew that Nepal was close to India where I was adopted from.
Many times did I think about backing out and it did not help when I was told I had to take a bus in order to buy bananas. Luckily, I was too stubborn to change my mind so I went and it was the best decision I have ever made, it has changed my life.

Getting on the plane - jam, jam!

There I was in Kastrup airport nervously glancing around for my traveling comrades whom I had only met once before. Most of them had been joined to the project for some time and had had meeting before I even returned from Spain. However, in order for you to grasp the shocker of someone like me going to Nepal there are some things you should know. The thing is that I’m an a+ student who always had a plan, I’ve always known exactly what I wanted to study, where I wanted to study it and what it took to get in. Furthermore, my parents would properly describe me as somewhat of a snob, I did have a tendency of being so focused on where I was heading, what my place in society would be, that everything else just seemed less important. I am grateful to report that that is no longer the case and we can properly thank Nepal because otherwise there would have been a good chance of me becoming an evil genius longing for world domination.  Anyway - let’s get back on track – I only took a gap year for practical reasons. I knew I wanted to travel so better to do it when not having any rent. Though, I had no doubt that it must be no more than one year only because why on Earth would I delay my studies furthermore, the one thing that mattered? Funny thing is, that after Nepal I thought about taking three gap years all because of I found love. Okay, getting back on track, there I was in the airport: A determined, gifted, snob looking for the people who would be joining me for my two month of adventure in Nepal. We would be spending one week in the capital city, Kathmandu, with some basic planning and training before venturing to the hotter Madi in the south. I eventually found my comrades including the boy whom I would share a nepali family with – and we would also work together, that was the plan anyway. We flew from Kastrup to Istanbul from where we continued to Nepal. We arrived early in the morning nepali time and waited in a line to apply for visa. It seemed as though the officers attending the visa had a competition as to which one of them could cough the most in our face and I would not be surprised if my guy would be the winner. The luggage is thrown on the floor and then you go collect yours – but don’t let the temptation run away with you – because there is an officer waiting for you to check if the luggage truly is yours. After him however nothing hinders you from walking out the door into the polluted air of Kathmandu.