The first trip to Nepal
I've wanted to go to Nepal for years, I've always been attracted to this culture, I've always loved it.
For many years, all that remained was longing, until one day my well-travelled girlfriends discovered an incredibly cheap flight ticket to Kathmandu, although the price was that it took almost two days to get there with several transfers. Still, I was looking forward to this trip with great excitement, fulfilling my old dream.
At first, I was scared to death when I saw the traffic in Nepal, but after this first shock, I already thought the chaos, which is invisible to a European person who is constantly flowing, was funny.
Since I, unlike my friends, insisted on living next to the Boudhanath stupa, we spent the first two days separately.
Families fleeing from Tibet moved around the stupa, and there are many monasteries, so it was clear that I wanted to live here.
I did almost nothing but walk around until late at night, spinning the prayer wheels.
I was so happy to be there!
Since my girlfriends always want to know every detail of the given country, after two days we rented a car with a driver and set off to the most interesting parts of the whole country.
First, we headed to the Chitwan National Park, where we did the jungle tour on the back of an elephant, it was a great experience, the elephants were very sweet.
Unfortunately, we didn't see a tiger on the tour, which I would have liked, but we did meet a hippopotamus.
The next day we went on a crocodile viewing tour on the river. Contrary to what I imagined, the boat was so narrow that I wondered what I was going to do if a crocodile attacked us.
I prayed that we wouldn't meet one, because if I knew in advance how narrow and dangerous this little boat was, I wouldn't have ventured on it. Fortunately, I managed to survive the trip, but never again!
Leaving Chitwan, we went to Pokhara, which is one of the most popular starting points for hikers.
I never wanted to climb a mountain, but seeing the many enthusiastic climbers, I was seized with an incomprehensible desire for mountains.
This desire remained, but I will tell you about it in another story...
Before we went back to Kathmandu, we stopped at Lumbini, the birthplace of the historical Buddha (Shakyamuni), where Queen Maya gave birth to her child while clinging to a tree.
When we got back to Kathmandu, we visited the Durbar Square, which was still standing then and has since been destroyed due to the earthquake.
We returned home after a week with a heavy heart, but full of experiences.
A mala and a Buddha statue were already resting in my backpack.
