Lost in a ‘random forest’, then meet this Nepali kid.
I wish I could do more spontaneous travelling in the past.
I didn’t know that I still need a trekking permit to go to Australia Base Camp from Pokhara city. This meant half of my plan was cancelled, and the first time in my travelling life I was in a spontaneous status for 5 days.
My airbnb host — Tulsi — recommended me to go there in an unofficial way (bypass mountain, no need trekking permit), the red line.
On a sunny day 26 July, I started following the red route at 8.30 a.m. Now, I thought I underestimated the difficulty in this way. It was too hilly, lots of stones, but the landscape was so fresh with some suspension bridges.
This was really a long path. In the last hour before I could find a place to stay, I had a feeling as I was the only survival being on the Earth. I was alone, thirsty, hungry, and exhausted (Imagine carrying 3-kg bag for 10 hours). There were no houses, no villages.
I guessed if I shouted a karaoke song at that time, there is still no chance village residents can hear me. So, I kept going, going, and going. At least we try, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. I was finally seeing a utility pole. This was a sign of people living there. I was motivated to keep going to the village, and I reached there at 6 p.m (view from the village), then rented a room for an overnight stay.
On the next day 27 July, I continued my path to Tamagi village. The first-half way was quite smooth, however, challenges started coming after a while. All the main path was covered by spiderwebs, tree branches and leaves. This seemed there had been no human steps in this way for a long time. I was confused and couldn’t recognize where I should put the next step ( I didn’t have a walking stick though).
After a few successful attempts stepping, I finally fell down. Luckily, both hands still could hold a large branch. With all near-death mentality, I managed to return back. It was 11 a.m, but it looked like 5 p.m. I was lost in the forest, and in the dark. At that moment, my thought was: “My life was more important, gave up the plan”. Nevertheless, after passing for a while, the returning path seemed not easy at all if I didn’t carefully pay attention and well memorize (thanks god, I saw the memory benefit after long-term training with meditation).
Returning to the starting point, the first thing I did is to rest, of course. I went back to the same house that I stayed on the previous day, and asked for a rent. I took off my shoes and pants, and this was happening.
I spent 2 days of rest, then decided to back to Pokhara. The homestay gave me a warm goodbye with flowers for luck.
There were two days left before I need to go to the airport. I knew that I couldn’t make it for Australia Base Camp, but there was still one important checkpoint in my list, Dhampus village. I needed to fasten the plan as Dhampus village’s also quite far from Pokhara (and Nepal road system is still underdeveloped). Then, I took the motorcycle and arrived there at 2 p.m, then met this 12-year old guy (and his younger siblings).
I couldn’t remember his name (their names are not really familiar with me). But he spoke English very fluently (maybe better than I do, and I was very surprised). I stopped the motor for some minutes, saw him and asked (I didn’t remember every detail but here was the main conversation):
“Excuse me, do you know the way to Dhampus village?”
“This is the Dhampus village, I can help you to tour the village. But first, what’s your name?”
“Linh. You?”
“(He said his name but I couldn’t remember.). And do you have any friends in Nepal”
“Nope. Just know some acquaintances”.
“Can I be your first Nepali friend?”
“Sure. Perfect”.
Then we shook hands, and he guided me around the village. This was our conversation during the tour:
(Him): “Do you know some hardware architecture in the computer?”
(I stare): “What? You really know about this? Why? I’m not really from computer engineer or something like that?”
(Him): “Our school computers have some hardware problems, and I was trying to fix that”.
“Wow”….
(Him): “I want to become a scientist in the future so that I could help Nepali. I have some science book and do you want to visit my home and see”.
(stare second time): “Wow. Ok, sure. Let’s go”
This is his home (under the bat cave)
And the book he reads every day.
I said to him: “Man, I believe you can be an important person for Nepal in the future. That’s amazing for me. Here is some money I hope I could support you, sorry but I do not have much money at this time. But keep going anyway. People like you really inspire me to do science”.
Then after some more small talks, I took a selfie with him, gave him my phone number (of course I didn’t expect he call me) and said goodbye before too late for the return to Pokhara.
I still had one more free day in Nepal. Another idea was coming: paragliding to overcome aerophobia.
A few weeks ago, he used his father’s phone to call me.
