Kathmandu welcomed me with drizzly rain, moldy and musty air, and deafening noise. Behind the darkness, an unknown world was shaping up with narrow streets, barely paved roads, houses reminiscing a construction zone and among all of that – people who called this place ‘home’.
Over the next first few days I was in trance. A tumult and rain mixed with nostalgia. Each breath in was filling up my lungs and my mind with dust and mystical sense of the unknown. Each breath out was releasing bitterness trapped deep inside of me. Every sense was triggered and equally stimulated. The fog misted over the smoke of the street bonfires, ashes of cremated bodies and shadows of the city hugged in a drizzle. Absolutely transcendent. I was not sure how I should feel about all of it. Torn apart between the rising excitement of an awaiting adventure, the ‘misery on demand’ and feeling somehow guilty leaving my life behind, I was absorbing it all.