Holi in Kathmandu.

On Sunday the 28th, I was awoken at 8am by mayhem in the streets. I looked out the fifth-floor window of my bedroom, and was met with the sight of rooftops full of crazed children pelting water balloons at every passersby.

Holi, the festival of colors, is an impish affair.


I went to the roof of my guesthouse, rolled up my sleeves, borrowed some balloons from a Nepalese girl in my building, and together we took aim at the rascals who had been shooting at us all morning.


Water balloons were just the beginning. Later in the day, the children brought out colored powders of every hue - green, blue, yellow, red - mixed it with water, filled up balloons and shot them with water guns. Only the truly insane would venture outside their buildings.


Nobody was safe. Especially targeted were females, the well-dressed, and foreigners who weren't aware of the date. The mischief wasn't confined to just throwing water, but also approaching strangers and directly smearing colored powder all over their clothes and faces.


Holi is also the day for adults to get stoned out of their minds. Bhang, made from the leaves and buds of cannabis, is traditionally mixed into drinks and food starting early in the morning. When I peeked outside at 10am, there were men stumbling around everywhere and some who had already overdone themselves and passed out on the streets.


It was like a warzone out there. All the shops were closed and dark, and the streets were empty except for young boys, dirtied and garishly colored, all yelling and launching water bombs at each other.


By late afternoon, the chaos subsided and I walked towards Durbar Square, the 'downtown' area of Kathmandu. In the middle of the square was a tall pole, decorated with layers upon layers of colorful ribbons. The pole was erected when the week-long celebrations of Holi began, essentially giving kids the green light for practicing their aim a few days before all hell broke loose on this day.


It is easy to forget that Holi is not only a day for children. It is foremost a significant religious festival for Hindus, and is celebrated by people from all religions in Nepal. The story behind Holi is that of a young man named Prahlad, whose devotion to Lord Vishnu miraculously helps him to escape the fires that the demoness Holika set around him.

I sat in Durbar Square for a long time waiting for the ceremonial burning of the pole which was to take place later that night, and which is meant to celebrate Prahlad's escape. Fire is the central theme of Holi.

The square was bustling with activity, even more so than usual.

All around the square were stands where people could purchase offerings, including incense, ghee, flowers, and small ritual fire lamps as shown here. Cow dung lay around in piles, perhaps waiting to be burned in the bonfire later that night.

Here, hordes of women came with spools of string and wove them around this structure in the middle. I still don't know what the significance of this action was, but I saw that the structure was burned later on.

The most concentrated hub of activity was around the base of the pole of ribbons, where a long line of women dressed in their best red saris (red being the color of celebration) put down plates of offerings in a large pile.

Finally, around 7:30pm, the pole was taken down and a great bonfire was started. The smoke was too much for me, so I observed from afar the burning of all the ribbons. There was a mad scramble to snatch the ribbons from the pole before they went into the fire, as it is said to be extremely lucky to get one. A friend from my guesthouse managed to save me a piece, and I still wear it around my wrist.

And with the burning of the pole, Holi was officially over. It was both good fun and a colorful cultural experience, and I was happy to have spent it in Nepal.

Flying over Pokhara.

The day after returning from the Poon Hill trek, I boarded a jeep with a couple of Russians and drove up to the viewpoint of Sarangkot. A little while later, we strapped ourselves in to a huge fabric wing, and leaped off over the Pokhara valley.

It has been my dream for a few years now to experience flying, and lucky for me, Nepal turned out to be a great place to try it. The weather on that morning was sunny and clear, with excellent visibility of the snow-covered peaks looming off in the distance.

Preparations at Sarangkot, with the Annapurnas in the background.

Wearing my harness was like wearing a turtle shell. It consisted of a little cupped seat that I could lean back into during flight, and was attached to my guide's harness as well as to the wing.

Getting strapped in to my harness/seat.

The launch was the most exciting part. When Rajik, my guide, had lifted the wing up from the ground, he yelled to me "Go! Run!" and we began moving towards the edge of the cliff. Then all of a sudden - whoosh - the ground dropped from beneath me, and I could only see my feet dangling above the valley, 1000 meters below.

Yes, the views were grand and all, but for all I cared, we could have been flying over a dump. It was exhilarating enough simply to be in the air, not to mention sailing at eye level with hawks and other large birds. The ride was smooth, with Rajik behind me doing all the work. Our maximum altitude was 2000 meters.

Taken while paragliding. Lift-off point far below. See the mountains floating on the clouds?

Rajik's knowledge of the English language seemed confined to paragliding-related words. One time I tried making conversation, but he replied only with a terse "No talk. I'm busy adjust thermal current." The other sentence he said was, "When I in Moscow and cannot fly, I become like crazy!"

Rajik and me, flying over Pokhara.

Here's a video made during flight. Ignore the fact that I look like a giddy 12-year-old, and check out that view!

After 45 minutes of being in the air, my stomach began to churn, which meant that I had to reluctantly turn down Rajik's proposition for "acrobatics". Around that time, we began our descent. Ten feet off the ground, I got out of my harness/seat so that I'd land standing up, but I fell over anyway. Even so, the landing was surprisingly gentle.

Next up, hang-gliding? Or learning how to paraglide solo?

Trekking in the western Himalayas.

Last Friday morning, my Sherpa guide Ganesh picked me up from my hotel and we took an eight-hour long busride to Pokhara, 200km west of Kathmandu. The city is the jumping off point for excursions into the Annapurna Conservation Area, which belong to the Himalayas.

The plan: four days on a circuit through the mountains, up to the viewpoint of Poon Hill, famous for its views of the looming Annapurna peaks.

Day 1: Ganesh and I hopped a local bus, which took us on a 2-hour ride to the town of Nayapul. From there, it was a short half-hour's walk to the trailhead at Birethanti. After eating a huge lunch of dhal bhaat, the first of many over the next days, we started the route.

Locally-made buffalo cheese in Birethani. I snacked on a wedge of these by the fire later up in Gorephani.

The first two hours of walking were pleasant and easy. We walked over streams, rickety bridges, and flat fields, with colorful glimpses of village life.


After that, the route began to climb. And climb and climb, relentlessly, unforgivingly. I dragged myself up, step by laborious step, stopping every few minutes to find my breath before continuing again. Ganesh was so patient with my sorry state.

Up and up and up, with hardly a few feet of flat ground anywhere.

The steepest section came right before our stop at the town of Ulleri, making a climactic ending to the day. Hiking in Nepal is unique in that villages dot the mountainsides the entire way up. For this reason, camping is almost unheard of, even for the hardy. Every hour or so, we'd arrive at a small town with lodges (or teahouse, as they call them) and restaurants run by locals. They were always clean, the dhal bhaats were always delicious, and the hospitality was always warm.

A typical town with plenty of accommodation.

A happy arrival at Ulleri for the night.

Day 2: Since we covered more ground on Day 1 than originally planned, we had a short day today of only three hours of walking. Again with the relentless uphill steps, though they were markedly gentler climbs than yesterday.

Dhal baat, which comes in a different form everywhere.

We reached the town of Gorephani at noon. I befriended an American couple, and we whiled away the rest of the day around the fire in our teahouse.

Interesting tidbit: some of the lodges had internet access. Imagine, up at 3000 meters! Ganesh told me that there's even internet at 5500 meters at Everest Base Camp. Just can't get away from it these days.

Day 3: This was the big morning. I stumbled out of bed with a wake-up call of 5am, grabbed my headlamp, and we joined a train of other fellow trekkers for the 45 minute climb up to our destination of Poon Hill. When we reached the top, at 3210 meters, it was still pitch-dark outside. I picked a spot, sat down, and waited for the sun to come up and illuminate this:

Annapurna South on the left. Mt Dhaulagiri on the right.

First rays of sunlight coming over Annapurna South.

Macchapucchare ('Fish Tail') peak on the left.

Close-up of Mt Dhaulagiri.

Just to prove that this was real!

I'll let those pictures speak for themselves. I'll just say that it was unreal. It was like one of those perfect images that you see in glossy travel magazines, the ones that you just glance over and immediately forget about because it's hard to imagine that anything that pristine could possibly exist in real life.

Well, it does, and here's a panorama video of it:

Walking from Poon Hill back into Gorephani at around 7am.

When we left Gorephani after breakfast, we ascended for a little while longer. The clouds were just settling in.

Porters carrying their loads, sharing our path.

My awesome guide Ganesh and I, at the highest point of our trek.

Meghan and Galen, the American couple I befriended along the way.

A peek at the Annapurnas through the thick clouds.

Then the descent began. We walked through snow for hours.

Spring is coming. Flowers poked out through the snow.

As the elevation decreased, we entered into thick rhododendron forest. The red blossoms were everywhere. They formed a red sheet over the trees and lined the footpath for miles.


By the end of the day, we had walked about eight hours, a solid five of which were downhill. We spent the night at the town of Ghandruk. Ascents pain the heart; descents pain the legs. I could feel the soreness building up as I went to sleep.

Day 4: I awoke not being able to move my lower body, and was worried about the final descent back into Birethanti. Thankfully, the soreness went away as we started walking, which is fortunate, because if we went any faster than we did today, we'd be jogging. We reached the end of our journey by noon.


The visibility up on Poon Hill was breathtaking, Ganesh was a fantastic hiking companion, and the feeling of being back inside nature was incredible. A truly memorable four days in the Himalayas.