“Colossal was the view. Behind me lay myriad foothills all soaring high and jostling with each other for a front seat; at their feet were lush humid jungles and beyond lay the vast alluvial plains of northern India. Yet before me stood a proud and eerily beautiful mountain named Ama Dablam. A fearful enigmatic giant that rises snow-capped to the heavens resolute and adamant in her eons. I was in utter awe.”
As the author, feeling restless amid the world of Berlin Internet Tätigkeiten, heads to Nepal in search of Gods, a mountain, tigers, golden saris, and dreams of a forgotten future....
Note: The difficulty has been not in writing to interface the wealth of experience gained on my journey through Nepal, but in shaping it in a way that conveys as much of the personal odyssey that it was. It was a at times shuddering, at times heavenly, journey and I seek to do it justice.
When the journey took place, Nepal was in the throes of a civil war between the Maoists (stemming from the neglected rural poor) and the then ruling oligarchy. Thankfully, a Peace Agreement was reached at the end of 2006. With that in mind, most of the dangerous situations in these travel writings — the frantic civilian / military convoy runs, the general paranoia, the gun in my face after curfew, and the early-morning slaying of the municipal official — were a result of that People's War and such risks are no longer present.
Paul.
