Why Nepal?

Surasak Mahasukon

"He told me it was a must for him to visit Nepal before he died because he had dreams of good dreams that he was born a Nepalese in his past life! And that was 8 years ago !"

Lots of people whom I know were so much surprised when I told them I was planning to visit Nepal for a month. After that, hundreds of questions were plunging in: Where on earth is it exactly? What is the weather like there? Is it a developed country? What do most people do for a living? What type of food do people eat? What language do they speak? Aren’t you afraid of Maoist? Will you be so sure that you are safe enough to travel in that country? And many more. Frankly speaking, I told them I just didn’t have any clue, but one thing I was so sure of – I believed in people. So I thought I would be alright during my trip there. And I was absolutely right. 

As a person who’s fond of traveling like me, of course I have heard a lot about Nepal. However, I started to have a close look at this country when I had a chance to talk with one of my former students at Phetchaburi Rajabhat University. He told me it was a must for him to visit Nepal before he died because he had dreams of good dreams that he was born a Nepalese in his past life! And that was 8 years ago!

My great opportunity came just last year when Facebook started to be so popular all around the globe. I did have a great chance to make friends all over the world because corresponding with friends was also one of my hobbies. Therefore, I began to select some great friends from Nepal and keep in touch with them. My main reasons were to get more information about Nepal in general: its cultures & tradition, its people & their way of life and so on. After connecting with some of them for almost a year I then decided to take a trip to this dream land of mine. Fortunately, 3 best Thai friends of mine who used to travel abroad with me so many times asked if they could join this wonderful journey. Moreover, two of them had already visited Nepal 7 years ago. And with the great help from my Nepali friends, our trip was successfully arranged from March 2 to 30, 2012.

My first journey to Nepal with Nepal Airlines was a pleasant one despite the two-hour delay. As soon as we arrived in Kathmandu, we were all very warm welcome by 2 superb Nepali friends who had reserved reasonable price accommodations for us during our entire trip. They even arranged transportation to take us sightseeing and did guide us to many different places of interest as well. Furthermore, they also managed the great connections with other good Nepali friends of mine so that we never ever had any difficulties travelling from place to place even once.

We all had such great opportunities to spend some time with the Nepali families so that we could learn lots of things directly from the local people. This made us feel like home and we all became part of the family right from the start. We found that almost all Nepali people we met and made friends with were so kind, generous and helpful. Even though they were so poor, they would try their best to make us so comfortable staying with them and respected us as honored guests. They prepared us the traditional meals, showed us how to eat it in a Nepali way and even taught us to do the Nepali folk dance. They also provided us with all their best sleeping gears in order to keep us warm the whole night through. To give something in return we all prepared them some Thai dishes and even shared some traditional Thai dances with them as well. So we all had a great time together.

Then came the time of the departure, I could not believe that we became so close within a very short time that leaving them was much more like going away from family members. It was a really hard time and we all felt so difficult to say good bye. We saw tears coming from their eyes that made us feel even worse. By the time they came to hug and wish us a pleasant journey back home, we all felt their hugs were so tight and warm with pure affection. It was so hard to draw back tears to see them waved at us till they disappeared as the bus took us slowly away from them.

Since those 3 Thai friends of mine had something to do back home in Thailand, they left Nepal on March 19. Then it was time for me to roam around the country on my own. Almost everywhere I went, people seemed to be so friendly and very helpful especially those who were in the villages far away from big cities. Life there was so simple. Villagers tended to live on what they had and blended themselves well together with the surroundings. Most of them grew their own vegetables either in their front or backyards. They raised cows or buffaloes for milk and task force, chickens for meat and eggs. Most women went out in the forest during the daytime to collect dry branches for firewood and also gathered some leaves from the shrubs & grass for their cattle. Women not only did the hard work in the fields, they also got the work around the house done as well. They prepared meals, did the washing up, washed clothes of family members’ and raised children. I was really touched to see those women having meals after they were done from treating all the guests and their men. I found that life of Nepali women were so very hard indeed.

I also had a great opportunity to visit some schools both while there were lots of students and teachers busy with their classes and some time with no one around due to holidays. Most of the classes were so simple with a blackboard in front of the room and rows of tables and chairs for students. To my surprise, the space between the blackboard and the students in the first row was so narrow. So those students who sat in the front needed to look up at their teacher at all times. Most students were eager to learn new things. Therefore when they had a visitor like me, they were so curious to ask about me and my country. I was so touched when I saw some students coming for a tutorial class at my friend’s house one night in spite of the load shedding hours. To my big surprise, they switched on the torchlight they brought along and started their lessons under the dim light. When I talked with them after their class was over, I found that all of them needed to walk so many miles up and down the hills to their school and also took the same distance for their return journey back home every single day! I would want those lazy students in Thailand experience this incident. I was quite certain that if they had to do the same thing as Nepali students did, they would want to concentrate on their study more than they used to.

One month in Nepal gave me lots and lots of interesting things to add up in my sweet memories. Moreover, it provided me time to be with myself in order that I could think of some things I’d already done, others that I was doing and those that I was supposed to do. But above all, there were the generosity & great hospitality of the Nepali people that invited me to go back to Nepal over and over again. Namaste Nepal.