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Jan 29 2018 Saturday Village picnic My new Saturday habit is to go to the Farmers Market at Le Sherpa, north of the city. To indulge in all this fresh vegetables and exciting food (read: Momo's) is just a perfect start of the weekend. This Saturday just gone, my dear friend Nima met up with me at the market which was really nice. I was glad that he had the time for me as he is nowadays the Hon. Member of Province Parliament , or Mr Congress Man as I call him. I think that is pretty cool, he is the only person I know in a parliament, and I am sure he will do a lot of good for his province. This particular Saturday, he wanted to go to a village in his province for a picnic, he told me to come along. Last time Nima told me to come along was in 2016. I ended up in a jeep with my sleeping bag and 5h later on disco roads as they are called, I was in his village Sermathang up in the mountains in Helambu region. As it happened, it was Nepali New Years Eve and I ended up celebratin...

20th Jan, 2018 Today it is Saturday and my first real weekend in Kathmandu. I did what I normally do and had a (small) sleep-in, and then off to the Farmer's market in the northern part of the city. My friend Urgen invited me as he is there every weekend selling Momo's and as Momo's have become my guilty pleasure, I thought I had to go and at least check those out..  I arrived to this place booming of expats, fresh produce from various places around the country displayed everywhere, food stalls with Momo's, Pakistani food, Lebanese food.etc etc. lots of different cheeses like Brie made by Nepali products and sold by, yes of course, a Frenchman! What is not to love about this place? I got a nice coffee to start off with and started to walk around the stalls to check out all these various things. Honey, spices, chocolate.. Everything was there . After a couple of hours and yes, a plate of  Urgen's excellent Momo's, served in a bowl made of lea...

The first couple of weeks have now passed of my sabbatical and I am starting to find my feet, even if they are sore from all the walking around Kathmandu Valley. I will rewind to Friday the 12th when I moved into my first apartment that I had found on Airbnb.  A pretty cheap place, its own kitchen, bedroom etc, for quite little money. But I started to realize why when I got there. It was very dark, cold and smelled of gas and "fridge", you know that typical smell of an old fridge. I tried to close the kitchen door but it didn't work. The flat was extremely cold so I was grateful that I had brought my sleeping bag, as there were not much to sleep under otherwise  The TV was one of the really old ones, and I had to hit it sometimes to make it work and the result was a very bad picture. Somewhat a comical situation, but not always. Some moments were pretty sad and I started to wonder what I was doing. But a house you can change, so I started looking for a new place...

Traveling is a huge interest of mine, to the point where it sometimes feels like getting on a bus when boarding a flight. The world has become so small as its so easy to get everywhere and every country is adapting to the global travelers and we can eat our home food on the other side of the globe. Same, same but different is very often the case and we start to want to explore more as, at least I, want to see more local and different things. That is not the case in Nepal, it never gets boring. This place throws me every time. Lets have a throw back to last week's adventure in western Nepal, Pokhara. Last week we went to the lovely resort Pokhara. This is where the Nepali people also go on holiday as its far away from the dust and commotion in Kathmandu. The lake, the tranquility, the people.. the sunrise and sunset over the mountains always take my breath away, every time. H, me and Little P about to board Yeti Airways to Pokhara It is a 25 min flight to Pokhar...

January 14, Patan, Nepal Today I had a very special experience, I am so impressed by this initiative! I went to a place called Seeing Hands, which is a social enterprise where they employ and train blind/visually impaired people as masseuses and masseurs. Fantastic idea, creating opportunities and providing great service. Such a great idea and it made me so happy to read about this project so I instantly went there and booked 1h massage. And he was very good, he found all the million knots in my back and worked on them.. and the cost was £14 incl tip.. I can see that my back will get much better with this service on my doorstep. And I am even more happy to support such a great business - very well done to the person with that idea. This made me think a lot, there are endless opportunities out there even if some of us cant see them, literally, but they are there.  Photos from Seeing Hands website www.seeinghandsnepal.org/  Its now getting into the evening and I am g...

January 8th, Kathmandu, Nepal After a very late landing last night into Kathmandu from Delhi, a much quieter flight than the previous one, I checked in at my so far favorite hotel in Kathmandu, Tibet International. The hotel is located in the north east part of the city, Boudha. Quite near the airport, but most importantly its next door to the Boudhanath Stupa, the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside of Tibet. I simply love this place, especially at night when the monks and other people are walking around the stupa saying their prayers. It is such an atmosphere, and it even makes me rather emotional. I feel very naked and transparent in this place, I cant hide my inner self and that is hard but very good as it needs to get out in the open. Not only once have I cried in this place, just by the atmosphere and the impression it has on me. And I know that is a good thing. This journey I am making is not just because I love the mountains and trekking in this place, it has a very s...

January 7th, New Delhi, India. After the rather horrendous arrival to Delhi, the evening was the total opposite when meeting H's loving family and having a late dinner in the hotel. That made me calm down quite a bit and I was looking forward to a good night sleep and what the morning would bring. I had planned to meet my ex-colleague and good friend Rashi who moved back to Delhi about 6 months ago and I was so happy to see her smiling face when she got out of her car outside my hotel. Let me tell you about this fab lady - she is 28 years old, smaller than many but such a big person. She is very intelligent, fun independent, drives around in her car and horns at anyone she likes, drives like a queen and knows her way around the local areas. I guess this is normal for anyone local, but I know her as the sweet lovely girl I was working with in London, and couldn't imagine the same girl owning Delhi like this. Good on you girl! I was given an awesome sight seeing aro...

Namaste from Nepal. I have to backtrack a bit as a lot has happened since I left London for my new adventure of a sabbatical in Nepal. My spiritual home away from home. After leaving London, me and my love H had two wonderful days in Bahrain where we enjoyed some "Lala land", and we took off to New Delhi to meet his family who had flown in from South Africa to join us onward to Nepal. We were both very happy to get on the flight to Delhi, but this flight turned out to be the worst we have been on ever. .  We were sitting in economy class quite in the front of the cabin, and we instantly noticed this very irate and arrogant man in the first row behind business class, only a couple of rows in front of us so very hard to miss. He was calling for the stewardess every 2 minutes and had numerous strange requests.  As we started the flight, the man was clearly not taking no for an answer and the crew tried to manage him as good as possible. It started to g...