TOMORROW!

Tomorrow. This all becomes reality tomorrow.
Tomorrow I will be flying off on the journey of a lifetime. My flight is early evening tomorrow and my route is Toronto-New Jersey-New Delhi-Kathmandu. There is a 10 hour overnight layover in New Delhi before catching a 6:30am flight into Kathmandu on the morning of October 2nd.
Life has been a whirlwind for weeks leading up to this moment. Now I sit amongst my things and try to put order to the chaos that is packing for this journey. Three months in Nepal followed by Thailand, and hopefully Vietnam and Cambodia. Nepal is the purpose of this journey and the rest is some sweet add-ons like catching up with my sister Theresa for Christmas who will be teaching in Bangkok and the potential to keep on trucking.

In keeping up with Outward Bound form here is an outline for my first 48 hours in Kathmandu.
As mentioned in an early post I was offered an amazing opportunity to consult on behalf of my longtime friend Kate Wannan who is the Executive Director of Eco-librium Adventures http://www.eco-libriumadventures.com/. Kate has put me in contact with John Child from Friends in High Places (FIHP) http://www.fihp.com/ and we will be meeting upon arrival into Kathmandu.  Kate and John are in the beginning stages of becoming potential business partners and I am consulting on Kate's behalf. Someone from FIHP will be meeting me at the airport and bringing me into town and setting me up with a place to stay. From there John will tour me around the city and take me sightseeing and talk about some of the background of the country, the tourism business and his company, and then I am off on a short trek through the company. The first trek will be a short trek in the Annapurna Region called Poon Hill. This is a majestic five day trek to an elevation of 10,000 ft that offers a brilliant 360 degree view of the Himalayan massifs including Dhulagiri range and Annapurna range sunrise in the valley.

View of Annapurna's from Poon Hill. Not too shabby.
 

So definitely more to post about my meetings with John and FIHP. They are hosting me for the duration of my time with them so I will most likely have lots to write about after a pretty fantastic start to my journey's.

Stay tuned.
Until then ... last post from Canada!

A.

18 days

Things are starting to come together. I arrived in Toronto to check on the status of my passport update to find out that my photos were denied!! So just fast-tracked another application and should have the updated passport by the 24th! Talk about cutting it close. Fingers crossed that this all works out.

It never ceases to amaze me the connection we have to each other and to the world. Just by reaching out by word of mouth I have been able to collect valuable information about friends and friends of friends who have travelled to this tiny corner of the world. I am speaking with the mother of a man who is from my hometown who moved to Kathmandu five years ago to study philosophy at the U of Kathmandu and has since become a monk and has devoted his life to being in Nepal and continuing his studies. I will be meeting him at some point during my travels and hopefully be connected through him to some powerful volunteer opportunities.

Most recently my friend Kate, owner and operator of Eco-librium Adventures http://www.eco-libriumadventures.com/, caught wind of my journey and has been in contact with a company over there whose operational philosophy is similar to that of her company and she has asked me to be a representative on her behalf and meet the folks on the ground and get a sneek peak at their operation. Eco-Librium Adventures is an eco-tour company dedicated to bringing new worlds and cultures to you in a sustainable and harmonious manner. The philosophy behind Eco-librium Sustainable Adventures is that responsible tourism experiences can and should help bring balance into the world.  Should be interesting ... more to follow.

I have reconnected as well with a good family friend Cathy Anne who has spent a lot of time in Nepal mountaineering and trekking over the last 20 years. I was fortunate enough 8 or 9 years ago to meet Dawa, a sherpa from Nepal, who was staying with her family in Canmore and working over here for the summer to supplement his income as a sherpa with the hopes of one day opening a teahouse in Nepal. According to a recent conversation, he has been able to do this and operates his teahouse along the Everest Base Camp trek in Lhasa I believe. The connection to Nepal for Cathy-Anne is a deep one and I look forward to more conversations and guidance from her. She also has another friend who is porter who she recommended I hire while I trek the Annapurna Circuit as this is service provides much needed work for the locals.

So things are unfolding ... I have no direct itinerary just a basic sense of what I want to get up too while I am in Nepal. More details to follow as this journey begins ... 18 days to go.