nepal

The Chinese say that there is no scenery in your home town. They__e right. Being in another place heightens the senses, allows you to see more, enjoy more, take delight in small things; it makes life richer. You feel more alive, less cocooned.

Travel is the discovery of truth; an affirmation of the promise that human kind is far more beautiful than it is flawed. With each trip comes a new optimism that where there is despair and hardship, there are ideas and people just waiting to be energized, to be empowered, to make a difference for good.

_ everything was fresh, green and particularly beautiful. Afternoon light, filtering between remnants of monsoon clouds, picked out gullies and spot-lit patches of forest and scrub on the convoluted ridges of the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Or, after a rainstorm, wisps of clouds clung to the trees as if scared to let go. Behind, himals peeked out shyly between the clouds.

The stupa is a white dome with a conical stone tower emerging from its center. There are two eyes painted on the tower, the all seeing eyes of Buddha. They're purple, and look a little sinister, like an Old Testament Buddha.

The mountains were so wild and so stark and so very beautiful that I wanted to cry. I breathed in another wonderful moment to keep safe in my heart.

Meandering cows, tenacious bicyclers, belching taxis, rickshaws, fearless pedestrians and the occasional mobile __igarette and sweets_ stand all fought our taxi for room on the narrow two-lane road turned local byway.

I ended up in the back seat of a chicken truck__ cab heading through beautiful scenery and disastrous roads to my hotel. About an hour later, we stopped to sell a few hundred of the chickens to a butcher shop.

You bring fresh eyes, Matt. For us, something crazy may happen, and we all say 'Oh my' at the time, but the next week some new crazy thing happens that wipes the memory clean. And we go on to the next. La-di-da. I guess we just forgot about that other incident until now."- spoken by Sara, the missionary doctor, to Matt.(from The Sacrament of the Goddess, 2014)

If walking into the responsibility of caring for eighteen children was difficult, walking out on that responsibility was almost impossible. The children had become a constant presence, little spinning tops that splattered joy onto everyone they bumped into.

It is hard to write it in words that I can read, that re-establishes the fact that has been haunting me for the past one year.

But whenever tragedy strikes, one is left either to die or with a plethora of ifs and buts to ponder over.

I am no enemy of Nepal being a fully literate society. It is a good thing for society and the nation as a whole.

I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. Take on a lawyer!

In Nepal, the quality of conversation is much more important than accuracy of the content. Maybe we get overexcited about information in England?

We found a smooth inviting boulder under a vast banyan tree, and sat in companionable silence. There unexpectedly, on that rock, I saw the secret of contentment. True happiness is only ever possible if you have been unhappy. And there, at that moment, I couldn__ remember the last time I had felt so peaceful. It wouldn__ have been possible for me to take in any more happiness. Moti turned to me and smiled as if she knew. I realised then that this moment and this wonderful feeling would sustain me for a long, long time.

You can take a my body out of Nepal but you can never take my soul and Heart from a Nepal .

a Nepali outlook, pace and philosophy had prevented us being swamped by our problems. In Nepal it was easier to take life day by day.

He wasn't a great man, but he had a great life.