Nepal

Before I started this long traveling journey, I wrote a list of the places I most wanted to see in the world and Nepal was number one. Due to a small trekking season (in either the spring or fall) and needing to make the most of a continent once I was already there, it took almost two years for me to finally make it to Nepal. Of course I spent time in Kathmandu and Pokhara, but the real reason I was there was for the villages.

I watched a documentary called “Mad Honey” a few years ago and was enthralled as I saw the tiny Himalayan villages. The documentary is about Nepalese men that harvest honey from bees that pollinate poisonous flowers. This honey boosts your immune system if you take the right amount, it is hallucinogenic if you take a little bit extra, and deadly if you take too much. Believe it or not, it wasn’t the hallucinogenic honey that peaked my interest about Nepal. It was seeing the locals that made their own clothes by spinning yak wool into yarn. I have an affinity for cultures that have not yet been completely hypnotized by modern day technology. That is what brought me to the Hunter Gatherers of Namibia and it was the exact same desire that whispered in my ear that I needed to be in Nepal.