Nepal

A lot of people go to Nepal and fall in love. Not in the romantic sense, but with the country itself; its people, it's culture, it's natural beauty.  I didn't love Nepal. Not in the way that I loved other places like Vietnam and maybe Thailand. I couldn't love the caste system which still weighs heavily on the culture, nor the food, which I found to be a run-down, less diverse version of Indian cuisine, nor the buzz-kill 10pm curfew. But Nepal definitely has its charms and I would absolutely go back to enjoy more trekking in the Himalayas (which was the most amazing thing I had ever done) and to feel good about my tourist dollars supporting a nation figuratively amputated by natural and political disasters (which, by the way, might be more help to Nepal in the coming years than any foreign aid that's given to the government there).

Though it was a grim state when we left, our first three and a half weeks in Nepal were, on the whole, glorious. I finished my last post just after arriving for the first time in Pokhara, where we spent almost a week slowly preparing for our trek of the Annapurna Circuit, but

Chillin in Pokhara, lakeside

mostly just hanging out around Phewa lake and on sunny restaurant patios. Shortly thereafter, we left for the trailhead, myself triumphantly equipped with secondhand gear acquired serendipitously from a lovely lady named Colleen who had just finished her trek in the Annapurnas. I was delighted to have met her because not only did she have the same size feet and general build as me (meaning I got all the gear I needed from her for a fraction of the regular price), but she turned out to have a winning personality that turned us into fast friends. When we returned from our trek, she was back in Pokhara too and we ended up working together to acquire supplies to fill a bus full of aid for earthquake-hit Gorkha region. Most of the people we met along the trek were on a set itinerary dictating the number of days they wanted to take to complete the circuit, or half of it at least, usually ranging from 14-19 days, but we went without a timetable, opting to listen to our bodies instead, taking rest days or half days when we felt like it and not worrying about falling behind schedule. This was our first long-distance trek, so we were excited to get started but, on the bus leaving Pokhara, excitement turned to desperation as we bumped along, trying to avoid getting puked on by several car-sick Nepali people who got crammed into the aisle of the already full bus shortly after departure. Fortunately, that was the last bus ride we had to endure for over two weeks, and it was quickly followed by the joy of spending many beautiful days trekking through the Himalayas.

THE CIRCUIT TREK

I loved those trekking days dearly. It was so nice to wake up and go to bed in a different town each day, with the satisfaction of knowing that my own two feet had carried me the

whole way. Our typical daily routine had the perfect balance between challenge and leisure - wake up at around seven, eat a hearty breakfast of muesli with hot milk or pancakes, pack up and then set off for the next town around 9:30am. After breaking for a snack of trail mix or chocolate bars (decadent energy for hiking - and cheap!), usually we'd stop for lunch at about 12:30 or one, and if we felt like continuing on (which more than once we didn't) we'd typically end our day at around 4:00pm. We stayed in guesthouses overnight, which were simple, rudimentary wood and brick houses, colourfully painted on the outside, often furnished with hand-made furniture and plywood walls on the inside. Those were homey, cozy times we spent in the guesthouses before and after our daily hikes. My favourite area was always the common room/kitchen, especially if it had a wood-burning stove heating it, which all the trekkers, guides, porters and the guesthouse family would sit around and chat about their day, where they came from, etc. We met interesting people from all over the world doing the circuit - France, Holland, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Spain, Norway, Russia, US, China, Japan, lots of Israelis and more. We all

had stories to share about our lives before the trek, as well as ample tales of surprises that met us while on the trail. Some of our most memorable days before crossing the pass were when we were sidetracked by gorgeous locations or crazy happenings such as nearby avalanches and landslides (sometimes right across our path) forcing us to stop early for the day, a super aggressive, snapping dog on a chain blocking our path that bit Cameron's leg (luckily it just bruised him without breaking the skin), a girl down and nearly passed out from altitude sickness on the side of the path while one of her friends ran down to hire a horse to bring her to a doctor, and of course witnessing the beautiful and fascinating change from tropical to temperate to coniferous to alpine ecology, always amidst a backdrop of increasingly impressive Himalayan peaks.

Avalanche on the other side of the river

A landslide which occurred the day before blocking our trail. Luckily it was an easy climb over.

The view from the top of the Pass

Getting there.. single file hiking at 6am.

Reaching the pass itself was definitely the highlight of the trip, and a day I'll never forget. It was our 11th day on the trail, and we were up at 3am  - even earlier than anticipated thanks to a noisy troupe of Slovakians. We bundled ourselves up and were on our way by 4am, making it up the short but very steep path to High Camp (about 2km almost straight up in one hour, in the dark), the last lodge before the pass. Climbing up that radical slope at super high altitude in -28C before breakfast was the hardest portion of the trek in my mind. Even though I knew it was short, my body was not used to such exertion at altitude, and without fuel it was difficult to go more than five steps without a short rest. After briefly losing the path during our scramble up in the dark with only one headlamp to guide us, we made it to High Camp (4833m), where we warmed our toes and fuelled up with the best trekking breakfast (or at least fastest consumed one) ever, before setting off, along with about 150 people we saw hitting the narrow trail at different times before the

sunrise.  It took about 3 hours of slogging (in cold, damp shoes), often behind a slow train of single file trekkers huffing from the stain of the altitude , but at 8:40am on April 19, we finally made it to the pass at 5416m, the top of the Annapurna Circuit, also called Thorung La (to give you an idea of how high we got, Pokhara's altitude near the lake where we stayed was 742m. Meaning, we climbed over 4,600m in 10 days.) There was an absolutely jovial feeling up there in the thin, crisp mountain air. Everyone was whooping and hugging each other as they snapped photos of themselves with their comrades.  It was interesting to see the different ways that people commemorated the moment; some unrolled banners and grouped up for their snapshot, couples, bros and friends hugged and kissed, one guy posed with a pint sized stuffed bunny, a couple of spaniards took their shirts off and posed with their Gorkha Beers, and one of the Israeli guys was tossing an arm length, star-shaped banner in the air like a pizza chef tossing the dough.

8:45 am: TADAA! We made it!

After getting our photo in front of the Thorung La sign and all the prayer flags (a Nepali commemorative tradition) strung up next to it, Cameron and I retreated from the crowd to share some celebratory Oreos and trail mix, and watched the trailing trekkers arrive, exhausted and elated, at their goal.

After about an hour, we decided it was time to get in the growing queue on the trail for descent. Over more than three and a half hours and 1200m of altitude, we toed it down the steep mountainside, our shoes pulling up with a sucking noise for the majority of our steps as the trail down was more often than not reduced to icy mud by the combination of spring snow melt and and heavy traffic of Trekkers. Poor Cameron spent more time on his butt and hands than on his feet during our descent because he was trekking in his running shoes, which were useless on the slick, melting snow and soggy, mud-logged trails. Often, he forewent the trail in favour of a quick and wet slide off the side into the low valley several meters below, where he could walk back to the winding trail ahead and scout out his next slide down. On and on we went like that under the hot midday sun, getting more and more burnt by the reflecting sun on the snow, despite reapplying sunscreen every hour, until we finally reached an oasis of teahouse

Teahouse in Charabu,  the entrance to the Mustang

patios in Charabu at the base of the mountain. We had lunch with a young, smiley Slovenian guy while we dried our sopping shoes and socks in the sun. It was almost 8 hours since our first stop that morning at High Camp, and we had long since run out of water, so while we rested we guzzled back as much as we could to get our bodies ready for the last leg of our long hiking day. Luckily, after that, it was an easy, breezy 45 minute walk across mostly flat terrain to Muktinath. It was on this path that I was stopped dead in my tracks by the sight of a brownish-white horse marvellously sporting a blonde moustache above his horsey lips.  When we made it to the Bob Marley Hotel in Muktinath, where a number of our acquaintances from the trek were staying,  the first order of business was a nice, long hot shower, followed by some much needed laundry and then relaxing. The next day just happened to be 4/20 - ol' Bob's unofficial birthday - so in his honor we stayed an extra day at the hotel and celebrated before saying goodbye to our friends there as many were ending their trek early and hiring a jeep down to Pokhara or a village closer to the end of the circuit so that they could save time before their flight out.  Though we weren't on a timeline, the next day we had to make it to Jomsom. Again, our money situation was dire.  Contrary to what we'd heard, there was no ATM in Muktinath and we realized after paying for our room and food bill before leaving that our budgeting had been flawed and as a result we didn't even have enough money left over to buy a single meal or bottle of water for ourselves that day. So we set off for the 5 and a half hour trek to Jomsom with no food but thankfully had a few water purifying tabs left over so we at least had 3L of clean water to make it through til we got to the Jomsom ATM.
Our trek that day brought us up a steep Mustang desert mountain to the Lubra pass, where we found a pile of about 200 stones, each commemorating something for the trekker who placed it there. Recently, Cameron's mom had mentioned to him that if he saw one of these structures, it would be nice if he placed one for his grandfather, who passed away in December. Dutifully, he found a stone and wrote a lovely and colourful dedication to both of his grandparents, who are finally reunited after more than five years apart. He wrote "lots of

hugs and kisses" as a recognition of the paramount value they passed onto their children and grandchildren - unbounded love and affection. Watching Cameron begin his, I went and found a nice stone too and wrote on it for my Oma, who departed this earth in January 2014. I put part of her favourite Bible quote on it, "the Lord is my rock". She had such a strong faith, even after experiencing so much hardship in her life, so I was instantly sure that's what she would've liked to see best.  The exercise stirred some strong emotions for both of us and smarted at the wound of missing home, but it felt good to be able to honour our grandparents in our own special way.

Nothing brightens a somber day like the arrival of new life. After making it down from the pass,  we were approaching the town of Lubra, when we heard an odd sound, almost like a whining cat but not as drawn out, and came across a man carrying not one but three

Cameron with one of the kids

newborn kids (not humans - the goat variety) - two were in his otherwise empty backpack and another hung in the crook of his arm.  And of course we got to hold one of them as we fell into step with the man, who turned out to be a Nepali resident of the US, just home for a visit to check on his family and the hotel he was having built in his village. We walked and talked with him for at least 45 minutes but I don't remember too much about the guy because I was too busy freaking out about how cute and delicate and new the goat was - It's feet had hardly touched the ground yet! it was literally born just two hours before I held it.  Precious.

CUE PART TWO: MOUNTAIN BIKING MADNESS

Two and a half hours later we made it to Jomsom where, at long last, we rejoiced in finding an ATM, water and the most delicious samosas we'd had since India. A couple days later we contacted a bike shop and had a pair of mountain bikes flown up to us from Pokhara so we could begin our two-wheeled adventure out of the Annapurna region. We took three days (with lots of ups and downs in between) to make it to Beni, the town where we'd catch a bus over a steep pass to

Assembling the bikes

bring us close to Pokhara. About a half an hour after we began cycling out of Jomsom that first day, the skies opened up and wind and rain started to pour over us. Not entirely confident in taking on the trails such conditions, I pulled over. But Cameron, the mountain bike junkie, was optimistic and eager to continue since we'd barely gotten started and it was already 1pm by this time. Not really wanting to spend another night in Jomsom, I grudgingly agreed and we pulled on our rain ponchos. The rain intensity died down pretty quickly but we battled through heavy wind and very rocky trails (sometimes boulders) for most of the day. And then Cameron fell. Twice, in like 2 hours; once narrowly avoiding smashing his left elbow on a rock. (He later attributed this to poorly adjusted suspension.)  So it was a tricky start, but by 4:00 the weather cleared up and a few hours later we were greeted at our lodge at the end of a long day with a crew of jovial, boisterous greying German gents, celebrating a birthday with many a beer. They'd already had a few by the time we rolled in at 7:00pm and as we stepped in the door they roared a joyful welcome to us as if they'd long been awaiting our arrival to the party.

Day two started out great, knowing that it would all be down hill, but took a turn when opted for the hiking trail on the other side of the river instead of the road. Though parts of it were fun or manageable on the bike, we ended up spending three trying hours carrying our bikes and dropping curses across boulders, up stone staircases, and down rocky drops the other side before finally making it to a bridge where we could cross back over to the road. From there, we quickly sailed down to the town of Tatopani. There could not have been a better evening destination for us on this day than that place, because before even finding a lodge for the night, the first thing we did when we got to Tatopani was melt away all our aches and tensions in the glorious natural hot springs, where we were served beer and popcorn in the hot pools. Hallelujah! 

THE GREAT QUAKE
The last day of our journey round the Annapurna Circuit was April 25th, and we generously redeemed ourselves from the previous day's trials. It had rained heavily the night before so when we took to the road, we did a lot of weaving to avoid the pond-size puddles that appeared in the gravel road before us.  After about an hour we gave into the futility of trying to stay dry because there was always a bigger puddle coming up that spanned the entire width of the road, ready to drench us. The adrenaline grabbed ahold of me and didn't let go, even when a rogue tree branch grabbed and tossed me while going top speed along the shallow edge of a puddle. Even with the minefield of puddles, we were flying, way faster than the occasional jeeps and busses we saw and it was SO much fun! We were covered in mud (no blood) and grinning ear to ear by the time we made it to Beni at lunchtime. But just as we pulled into the bus station where we wanted to get a 3-hour ride to the top of the last range before biking down to Pokhara, we were greeted by throngs of scared-looking locals running downhill on an adjacent street, and towards the open bus park ahead of us. Confused, we pulled over to ask what the commotion was all about and just as the response came, it was underscored by a low rumble and hundreds of screams as the four story building across the street began to rattle and shake, lasting about 20 seconds. This, we realized, was the second big tremor of what became known locally as the Great Earthquake, the worst to hit earthquake-prone Nepal in over 80 years. Because we had been passing through a relatively undeveloped and unpopulated part of Beni town on our bikes we hadn't felt the initial quake hit, but when we did, we were very fortunate to already be in an open space, away from any tall buildings (only one of which fell in Beni while we were there, but we didn't see it). There was one more tremor while we were eating lunch, but it was small and we were hungry so it didn't bother us much, or the other people in the restaurant for that matter. We carried on with the rest of our journey pretty undisturbed by the event.  It wasn't until three hours later when our bus was stopped for 45 minutes in a traffic jam stemming from a landslide on the highway that we even began to feel the magnitude of what had struck Nepal. We heard and saw little on the bus though and proceeded to have an awesome time after being dropped off with our bikes near the top of Sarangkot mountain overlooking Phewa Lake and Pokhara, sailing down the luxurious paved, winding road at top speed, leading us back into the city and to the end of our mountain adventure.
As I said, in the hours following the initial strike, we had little understanding of the magnitude of the tragedy that had just stuck the heart of the country, just a few hundred kilometres away. It wasn't until we arrived back at our hotel in Pokhara and saw the dozens of people crowded around the TV that we realized what we'd felt earlier wasn't just a disturbance but a full on disaster. As more information came in the next couple days about the extent of destruction and challenges posed by the fumbling government and remoteness of the hardest hit areas, we knew that we were in a unique position to help provide immediate relief to the victims, but we weren't sure how to go about it. So we asked around and heard about a local non-profit paragliding company operated by some foreigners and Nepalis who where mobilizing jeep loads of supplies and personnel to drive and then hike out to a remote area of the neighbouring Gorkha region, which was the reported epicentre of the quake.  But what we found when we showed up at their small, overcrowded office was

Tourist waiting around to help with relief

that they already had dozens of people ready and willing to lend a helping hand, but just a few days in, the core crew already looked haggardly overworked and under-managed; the volunteer response was more than they were able to utilize, and as a result there was a growing crowd of volunteers just standing outside the office, waiting to be asked to help. It was apparent that this wasn't the right place for us to contribute so we turned around and began playing with the idea of heading up our own effort. Why not? We were in the second biggest city in Nepal, where there were many supplies available and a lot of people, Nepali and otherwise who could point us in the right direction as to where we could buy bulk at a fair or even discounted price, and help us arrange a location and a jeep for transportation. As long as we had the money, there wasn't much stopping us.

DIY AID  PROJECT

That evening we sent out an appeal to our friends and family back home asking for donations. The funds began pouring in just the next day, and we soon gathered up a small

Our friend Colleen dropping off and taking stock
of all the supplies we purchased.

group of volunteers, some of whom had done their own fundraising, who were interested in joining up with us. We were informed of a village in need by a Nepali man named Hom, whom we'd met after sitting in on a meeting of tourists like ourselves, interested in helping out, and a social welfare committee run by some local guesthouse owners. Hom was a member so the committee and cut like a typical Nepali man approaching his forties, with a powerful belly and a quick, beaming smile that showed all his teeth. When he introduced himself to the group at the meeting, he shyly stumbled over his English, but his shining gaze around the room and bounce in his heels communicated for him how excited and eager he was to be apart of a meaningful project like this. When we told him of our intentions, and desire to find an appropriate location to deliver to, he told us he had been contacted on Facebook by a young man named Prakash from a village in the district of Bungkot whose village had been rocked by the earthquake. Apparently some 60 homes had been destroyed, and though they were ok for food, they desperately needed tarps, blankets and other hard goods to carry them through the coming monsoons. They weren't very far from the regional transportation hub town of Gorkha, but hadn't received any aid yet because the village belonged to a very low caste. Despite its legal abolishment years ago, the caste system is still very ingrained in Nepal's culture and governance. Because people tend to take care of those in their own caste or make offerings to the more powerful in higher castes, of what little aid resources are given by the corruption-ridden government, a small fraction of it ever makes its way to the marginalized lower castes. Considering that this village was unlikely to get any significant form of support from its government, we thought this would make for a very suitable location for the supplies we were able to purchase and give directly with using our donation money. So we got mobilized, purchased a tonne of stuff, and ended up filling more than a jeep load, thus a local minibus was arranged to haul all of it, us, our 3 foreign friends Angie, Dave and Joel, plus Hom and two of his buddies up to Bungkot. We left at 7am and arrived in Bungkot at around 1pm after stopping in Gorkha for lunch and to meet our contact, Prakash. 

BRINGING AID TO GORKHA, THE INAUGURAL TRIP
When we met Prakash, he was wearing skinny jeans, and a denim shirt over a graphic t-shirt. He was medium height, good looking and sported a youthful moustache above his bright, white smile and chatted amiably with the confidence of any 22 year old university student you might meet in a liberal arts university in Canada. Prakash was one of the luckier young men in his village. He was smart and worked hard in school, and along with his friend Prem (a tall, quiet and heavy-set young man who we also met), had gotten the chance to go to University in Kathmandu. But unlike Prem, he spoke English fairly well and so he was the spokesperson for our visit. We didn't speak much about the village. On our drive up there from Gorkha as he peppered us with questions about ourselves, life in Canada, and western pop culture. Upon our arrival and before we unloaded our supplies, we asked Prakash to give us a tour of the village so that we could have a first hand look at the damage and meet the families who our aid would be impacting. The state of the village took us by surprise. Not because it was so ravaged, but rather because its homes appeared to have sustained

View from the bus on the drive up to Bungkot

relatively minor damage, particularly when compared to many of the homes we'd just seen along the highway on our way up to Bungkot. After passing through Gorkha and up through the mountains to reach this village, we had passed dozens of homes which were either completely or partially obliterated by the earthquake; several were reduced to nothing but a pile of rubble and a lone standing doorframe. What we saw in the first fifteen minutes of our tour with Prakash (in which we asked him to show us the worst hit homes first) however, was mostly large cracks and sagging brick walls of homes whose interiors had been stripped of all their possessions and moved into nearby structurally sound homes, sheds, or barns. It was unanimous amongst our group that what we saw was not at all in line with what we'd been led to believe based on Hom's communications with Prakash. We could see that there were families displaced from their homes, but none were sleeping without shelter, and it by glancing into the packed sheds and barns next to the empty homes, it appeared that no one had lost any of their possessions. So, even though we could see disappointment on the faces of Prakash and his community members, we decided that we weren't going to be distributing all of the supplies we brought to their village. What we did was we gave them a portion of our blankets and tarps, as well as some tools that they could use to erect temporary shelters to last until the end of monsoon season, and then either repair or demolish and rebuild their damaged homes.  When Cameron informed Prakash of the decision, he was noticeably upset at not receiving the whole bus load and earnestly appealed for more. Cameron explained that we had seen the state of their neighbouring village on our drive in, where there were beds set up on the side of the road and houses flattened, and we simply couldn't justify giving all our help to his village when his neighbours clearly needed it more. Luckily, we had brought a lot of tools with us and gave them a good portion of those because they would be key to helping the community help itself to recover from the earthquake. When he continued pleading, ignoring our concern for the other village, downplaying the tools and fixating on the piles of blankets and tarps he could still see on our bus, it was clear that Prakash wasn't of a mind of empowering his people, but was instead seeking to maximize a handout. He was looking at our resources not as relief aid, but as material commodity to be used as currency. We understood his disappointment but felt no pity when, as just as we were starting to board the bus to leave, we watched a second aid truck, packed with food, tarps and other donations, pull up to the village. They had received the same desperate call from Prakash's friend Prem, and were just as surprised as we were at the incongruency between what they saw and what they'd been told the situation was in the village. With that we said goodbye and good luck to Prakash, Prem and the community and wasted no more time in making it to the next two neighbouring villages to distribute the rest of our supplies.

Another aid truck (right) arrives in Bungkot just as
we are about to leave.

Twenty minutes later, we were touring through dozens of homes that had collapsed in like a bad soufflé, unsalvageable furniture and possessions peeking out under piles of dust and debris, and a couple of threadbare tarps sheltering an extended family of thirty. There were many children and women, but a clear minority of young men as many Nepali husbands are away seeking comparatively lucrative work abroad, often in the Middle East, to support their families.  When we reached the third and final village of the day, we deposited the remainder and bulk of the supplies we brought there because     

At night, these villagers were sleeping by the side of
the road on these straw mats before we arrived. 

they represented a larger population and we sensed that they were more organized as a community. There we found two young men who spoke English, and though they had experienced great loss, they told us they knew they were be better off than some neighbouring communities we hadn't seen yet. They invited us for tea so we accepted, we sat down and answered their many questions about where we came from and how we began this project, and talked about how they planned to distribute the emergency aid we gave them to the families who needed it most and would divide the tools up amongst groups of neighbours to share. After finishing our

After: this supersize tarp we deliverd gave
shelter to around thirty people.

tea, we emptied the bus, took some photos, exchanged emails and facebook names, then started the six hour journey back to Pokhara just before sunset. And just like they promised, a couple days later we saw pictures on Facebook of the supplies being distributed among various families in the surrounding community. In the end, our first little aid project didn't go quite the way we had planned, but we learned a great lesson, and felt we made it a successful, worthwhile mission.

On our second stop of the day, a man shows us the devastation to his and his
 brother's houses caused by the earthquake

On our third and final stop of the day, we deposited a
large portion of our supplies with these well-organized community members. 

MORE HELP TO GORKHA

A few days later, we had a jeep full of supplies and a similar plan laid out to deliver more supplies to other villages north of Gorkha in need of aid. This time we had a smaller vehicle and fewer people accompanying us; just Cameron and I, a driver, and a Nepali friend named Dave to help with translating. We left early for Gorkha, again arriving around noon to meet with a contact there named Dipika, who was working with a Czech NGO there called People in Need, and would advise us on a village or group of villages where our supplies were most urgently needed. In talking with Dipika and her colleagues, we were able to trust that the information they shared with us about a handful of communities they'd contacted was vetted and without bias because they had independent observers on the ground in several remote areas reporting back to them, and they showed us the information they collected was assessed and scored on a basis of severity of need. They told us about a community in the far northern reaches of Gorkha was in need of aid but was blocked in by a landslide on the only highway to their area. Their group, Together with Gorkha (find them on Facebook), had recently been able to secure a helicopter to get to them, but hadn't yet assembled the supplies, so they suggested if we were looking for a location for our supplies to have the quickest and biggest impact, that this would be it. So although it wasn't the direct, personal relief distribution we had in mind where we could take pictures and get a first hand look at the community impact of our efforts, we were confident that sending our supplies on their helicopter would ensure that the donations we had collected went to the place where it was most needed, in the most timely manner. After they assured us they would keep in touch and report back to us with pictures once the distribution was completed, we dropped off our supplies in their storage facility,  exchanged emails and Facebooks, then confidently shook hands and concluded our delivery and aid project there in Gorkha. (Days later we found out about the American helicopter that went down in the mountains near Gorkha and the delivery was delayed by several weeks after that, but a few days ago we got word that they finally reached Chhekampar Village and were distributed, as a part of a larger delivery, among the 237 households there which were destroyed there by the earthquake. Hooray!) 

KATHMANDU
Days later, we arrived in Kathmandu, a couple days ahead of our flight out of Nepal and shortly after another big earthquake shook the nation. This time it was a 7.3 magnitude and its epicentre was north of Kathmandu, close to Mount Everest. Once again, we were fortunate that we barely felt it in the moment and were not in any real peril, as we were on a moving bus, about an hour west of Kathmandu. The driver pulled us over briefly at around 1:00pm in a small town and as I sleepily stared out the window, I caught sight of some rebar poking out the top of an unfinished 4-storey building waving to and fro like a pool noodle. Less than 30 seconds later it was over, and our bus promptly resumed its journey.  About ten minutes before we would have made it to our scheduled  station in Kathmandu, our driver informed us this was the end of the road for us due to a building collapse blocking the road about 3 kilometres from the bus station. About two blocks ahead of the scene of the collapse, we stepped off the bus with our backpacks into the dusty and chaotic street. As we attempted to find our way to the well-known backpackers ghetto called Thamel, I saw throngs of people sitting on the side of the road or standing in the middle of the street as trucks full of police and military officers rumbled by as well as people on motorcycles. There was a huge crowd gathered in the area of the collapsed building, watching as soldiers and a couple back hoe operators worked to clear the debris. It felt incredibly surreal to be on the ground in the close aftermath of such a catastrophic event; the sensations of the moment created such a curious experience that it's difficult to put words to. It wasn't scary, or even that chaotic besides the traffic complications.  My thoughts were all over the place, wondering everything from were there people trapped in this building in front of us?  about how our flight would be affected in a couple days to how much more crippling this would be to Nepal, to all those people who were already struggling to find some s? Judging by the relatively quiet, subdued energy amongst the onlookers, I like to think that everyone got out in time and no one was seriously hurt or killed by the tremor there, but who knows. The people we tried asking didn't know much as they has just shown up like us, and it was more than two hours after the earthquake.

Since this was the second big earthquake to hit the city in less than a month, nobody was taking any chances by staying indoors, and as we wandered off to bypass the crash site, I noticed that 99% of businesses had rolled down their shutters facing the narrow streets we were walked along. It was an eery feeling to be on deserted streets of the famously overcrowded capital in broad daylight; certainly a far cry from what we expected before arriving in Kathmandu, which we were told was close to back to normal. Eventually we made it to a hotel restaurant that had remained open after the quake and were able to connect to wifi to figure out where the heck we were in proximity to the backpackers hostel that we wanted to find. Luckily, we weren't too far and soon got ourselves checked in to a solidly-built guesthouse, where we survived two wall-rattling, heart palpitation-inducing midnight tremors and somehow still managed to get a good night's sleep. The next day we woke to similarly quiet streets and few cafes open, so we spent a pretty heartbreaking day of sightseeing, or rather wandering through the remains of what once were the sights of Kathmandu, including the  crumbling Garden of Dreams and absolutely demolished UNESCO World Heritage site of Durbar Square.  This plaza area sits in front of the old royal palace of the former Kathmandu kingdom and was dotted with large and beautifully crafted wood and brick temples dating back to the 14th century, but several of them were either full collapsed or looked like they were about to. The hardest part was seeing all the families living outside in the neighbourhood squares, crowded under a few tarps, looking listless, bored, hot and tired in the midday heat. The best part of the day though was when Cameron darted into a corner store and emerged with two big bags of candy and started handing it out to all the kids we saw. We were rid of it all within about a half an hour and it might not have made everyones day that we handed it out to, but it certainly made our day to see the bright smiles on kids faces as we handed them the sweets, and definitely lightened the somber mood that seemed to hang in the air around every corner.

CONCLUDING A SIGNIFICANT CHAPTER

I woke the following morning a hesitant knot in my stomach. As we waited to board our flight that would eventually bring us to Istanbul, I watched as civilians, military, airport, and NGO personnel milled about the terminals, inside as some were boarding flights back to their home countries, and outside as others touched down with their teams and cargo holds full of aid supplies.  I saw a gigantic four-cylinder Hercules military aircraft with the Government of Canada logo on it sitting on the tarmac, politely waiting its turn to takeoff back to our shared homeland. My heart swelled at the sight, but it was heavy in my chest like a water balloon. I'd been in Nepal for six weeks - longer than any country we've been to since leaving China - and I felt tied to it. Like the way you might with a stranger after you've experienced something really intense and scary together. The earthquake knocked them out. And just when they started to get up off the floor, another one came and brought them back down to their knees. We were there standing ringside for a historic blow to Nepal and stood by to lend a hand, but now, so soon we were leaving it behind and something just felt wrong about that.  Even though I was excited to begin a new stage in our adventure and see more of the world, a part of me felt guilty for leaving... but thankfully this part was muted a bit when I got to talk to my parents on the phone for a while, to hear them voice their pride in me and relief that my flight was on schedule to take me away from the danger and desperation of this disaster and that much closer to coming home to them.
 

As the plane began to taxi toward the runway I tried to focus on the positives of our time in Nepal and what we'd been able to accomplish. We had taken on a lot of responsibility by collecting funds from our friends and family, and did our best to make sure that they went towards the most efficient and effective aid distribution scheme we could. Instead of passing the buck off for other volunteer groups to manage, we chose to head up our own project in order to maintain direct oversight and control over the spending of those funds and we were able to ensure that they made the greatest impact possible. We'd set a goal for ourselves based on the response we got, and although the execution didn't go quite how we expected it to, in the end I'd say we definitely achieved what we set out to do in the beginning; turn money from our community in Canada as quickly and efficiently as possible into emergency aid and deliver it those Nepalis who need it. I can say with confidence that there was no motive of 'disaster tourism' to be found in our efforts, because if there was, we wouldn't have given over our supplies to be helicoptered in by another party.  Though it would have been nice to meet more of the faces our aid impacted, I believe all of the decisions we made, including being critical and trusting of the right people, led to a fair and equitable distribution process that put the proper supplies into the hands which needed it the most. I'm proud of us for moving beyond simply talking and 'tsk'ing about the tragedy to actively attempting to lessen the suffering of our Nepali neighbours; of how we were able to turn sympathy into effective action which had a visible, positive impact on the lives of disadvantaged people. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and we made the most of it, for ourselves and for you guys - our friends who generously supported us in this endeavour and enabled us to do more than we even thought possible. 

Leaving Nepal, we took away a lot more than we went in with.  The inestimable experience we gained at a time during which the country was set back by several years feels solemn, but we strove to contribute back as much as we could muster. We challenged ourselves to be bigger than our typical "small fish in a big ocean" backpacker roles and, with a little help from our friends, we did it :)