This is Chapter 2 in a blog series. If you’re new to the series, visit the series homepage for the full table of contents.

Nepal Day -3, (April 22, 2019)

I wake up at 4:45 in the morning and it’s time to leave. I say goodbye to dad with a tight embrace and the words: I love you. Their Scottish-terrier Scout has slept with me every night on the Japanese futon since I’ve been home the past five months and I pet him goodbye before mom drives me to the airport. She says dad is sad I’m leaving, that he’s gotten used to me being there. I sensed it in his hug and will miss him more. She says she loves me and to shine my light. I tell her I will before giving her a smooch and walking into the sliding glass doors of the airport and away from the life I’ve lived for the last four years. At least this time, I’ve been here before, so I know what to expect.

Kind of…

Scout waiting for me to get in bed, ha.

Dad with his Scottie, Scout.

I approach a kiosk and panic soon after. The machine won’t scan my boarding pass. A woman sees me and tells me this is Southwest and you’re Delta and points me further on down the way toward the big Delta sign. I shake my head, thank her and check my bag with success.

Hours later, the plane arrives in Atlanta. My thumb is to the air and my backpack stacked atop my back when Bradley pulls over and scoops me. We embrace and spend the rest of the day catching up, running errands, prepping for the hike ahead, and fit in many games of cornhole plus an hour sit before evening. Bradley and I meditate twice a day, each for one hour, and intend to keep this practice going for the journey and beyond. Maybe others will be inspired to sit with us, if only for a few minutes…

At dinner, Bradley’s mom mentions she’s not sure how much more “growth” she can take from Bradley. I laugh and Bradley nods.

We feast on veggies, cashew milk ice cream and play Codenames, a fun word game before watching the Jungles episode of Our Planet. My eyelids are beginning to shut mid-show but I force them open until the credits roll and head to bed in the guest room. It’s going to be a big day tomorrow. We will soon embark to the Far East to be in nature and hopefully, discover more about our human nature.

Nepal Day -2 (April 23, 2019)

Today is the day we depart, but not till much later around 7 PM, so we run errands, get everything in line, and I start drawing on my daypack with Bradley’s colored markers.

A masterpiece, mid-mastery. Updates to come.

We play frisbee out the front of the house in the mid-day heat, sun blaring, and stop when we begin to sweat, a kind gesture to our future plane-mates.

It’s almost time to head to the airport and we stop by T.J. Max where Bradley gets toothpaste and I find some spray deodorant. I open my armpits and let the mist fly. Another kind gesture. Bradley’s mom buys each of us a neck pillow for the plane ride and we leave smiling.

We are joined by Bradley’s dad, Kris, for a last supper at Zoës kitchen. After polishing off some veggie rice, we embark to the airport.

Shoot, Bradley says as we are ten minutes down the highway.

What?! Bradley’s mom asks. She turns around sharply and glares at Bradley, eyes flooded with concern.

I left my fanny at the restaurant, he says.

The fanny holds most of his prized possessions including his passport, which is not to be lost. The car flips a U-ey and we head back at ten miles an hour faster. He dials the restaurant and the phone rings for what feel like timeless minutes.

They pick up on the other end, and when asked, she says they have it. Everyone exhales a sigh of relief, Bradley gets a healthy scolding from mom and we’re back on our way with some early lessons learned. Fannies, in general, should not be removed from our fannies.

When we arrive at the Atlanta airport, Bradley and his parents have an emotional goodbye and it’s difficult for them to leave each other. I’ve already had my moment in leaving my own parents behind and seeing this again with Bradley, Kim and Kris makes me a bit sad. Finally, they tear from each other’s arms and after repeating the same lines—“I’ll miss you”, “I love you”, “stay safe”—we enter through the sliding glass doors of the Atlanta airport.

The cool blast of the AC splashes our face and we get in line to check our bags. A man a few spots ahead of us in line must have close to 10 suitcases. We ponder how on earth someone could be attached to so many things, but realize the relativity of it all and the unknown context. An ultra-light hiker might be equally as judgmental of our packs, we think. We get the rare chance to weigh both our bags at the airport scales—12.4kg for me and 15kg for Bradley (27 and 33 lbs). It’s almost twice as heavy as our packs from the trail four years ago, but we figured international travel requires some additional items, including some luxury ones too.

Bags checked and we go through airport security. It’s Orwellian as a woman from homeland security robotically utters the phrases: “if you see something, say something.” Bradley says he sees lots of somethings and wonders who he should tell.

Airport security proceeds to take my picture and my toothpaste. I’m disappointed because Bradley gets to keep his and also somehow avoids the picture requirement. We talk about how he dodged the system and how they got me good. Bradley is also pleased he circumvented the massive, walk-through X-ray machine which does “gnarly” things to the body. I laugh and nod.

Our first flight to Doha is 14 hours long with a 9 hour layover and the second is another 5 hours to Katmandú. We wait at our gate for the first flight and notice how we are now the racial minority as I guess not many white people fly to Doha. It doesn’t matter but is something I notice and it feels humbling and foreign before the plane leaves the ground.

The plane boards and Bradley and I sit next to each other, having bought the tickets together. I’m in the middle seat and Bradley’s got window. The man on the aisle seat is Indian and there’s a small communication gap, which becomes a theme over the next few of days.

As the plane takes off, we start the 14 hour flight with a “plane sit,” an hour meditation set with the timer app on my phone. There’s a lot of change, pulsing in my head and belly rumblings. As I feel the timer buzzing between our seats, I smile. I feel like I let go of a few things and wish myself, my family, friends and Bradley well.

We pop on the tele embedded into the chair before our faces. My TV is janky and only one earbud works. This doesn’t stop me. We watch Mortal Engines and so far it’s a pretty terrible movie. Our flight attendant is charming and foreign and smiles at us. We grin and she feeds us a veggie meal with a small chocolate dessert. We bust out some pistachios, dried coconut and trail mix as the rest of the movie plays out. When it finally ends, we look at each other and shake our heads. The shortcomings, the lack of character development, the busy-ness of all the failed themes—it’s all discussed before it’s time to sleep.

I reach for my phone. Bradley sent me some binaural beats yesterday—long tracks of music that play through the two earbuds at two different wavelengths to sync the brain’s theta waves, or something. I like it but this feeling is short-lived as a child sitting directly behind us erupts into a tortured frenzy, a mixure of screams, cries and wails. The other child proceeds to kick the backs of our seats. Bradley and I glance at each other. It is a challenge, but with binurial beats now flowing into my brain, we put our skills to the test. Meditation allows me some moments of peace amid the chaos but his cries grow louder, the mother is yelling, and I’m afraid someone is soon going to get really pissed any moment now. Despite my worries, everyone seems to let it play out as it is. The kid’s cries seem forced and I have a feeling this cannot last, that he’ll surely sap himself of this emotional energy at some point. 45 minutes later, the child erupts with one last desperate shriek before collapsing into sleep. My mind can rest. The plane feels lighter and I’m grateful for meditation and binaural beats.

I shut my eyes and sleep into the next day. We will soon be arriving in Asia.

Nepal Day -1 (April 24, 2019)

It’s bright outside the plane window and I’m so lost among the time changes that I have no idea what time is when I wake. Somehow it’s 12pm and it’s another three hours until we reach Doha. We’re fed some brunch and decide we will watch another movie, Mary Queen of Scotland. It’s a solid movie and I’m a fan of the actresses but I’m tired and fall asleep an hour into it.

The plane lands softly and perfectly and we deboard. We now have nine hours to kill before our next flight, so we begin.

Bradley inspecting the airport’s structural support system.

The Doha airport is luxurious, made of marbled floors, sleek lighting and modern artwork scattered about the terminals. I feel like I’ve jumped five and a half years into the future.

We ask one of the attendants what he thinks about the large, yellow teddy bear sitting in the middle of the airport. It’s… decoration, he says. We laugh and continue on.

Flexin’ with the Doha Bear.

As we wander about the airport, we glimpse signs for what Doha airport calls “lounges”. The lounges seem luxurious and beckon our attention but each requires riding an escalator guarded by an attendant. We try to get in multiple times but are consistently denied because of… personal financial restrictions. We are economy and the lounges are for first- and business-class only. The first woman tries her best not to make us feel too bad and smiles at our continued attempts. As we leave, we wonder if she could be charmed but seek greener grasses from other lounges. Next, we told by a different attendant, and to our great surprise, that we are Sapphire members and can access one of the lounges. He points us back to where we came. Thrilled with this new information, we return to the first woman to relay the good word. She smiles politely and says that no, she’s sorry, we are not Sapphire. We have a good laugh over whether or not she’s absolutely sure of this but eventually leave her be. Threes a charm, so we try one last lounge, but front the first moment I stepped toward the glass doors, I knew there was no chance. He kindly shakes his head and at the very least, it’s incredible the friendliness of the airport staff.

Lots of time remains and we spend much time finding a solid “quiet room”—dark, silent rooms with laid back chairs—and set up our home base.

Signage for the quiet room. Shhhhh…

Bradley stays behind as I go to drop some children off at school. There’s an attendant there and he looks overly happy to see me. I walk into the stall and right as I’m about to shut the door, he stops me and asks if I want a clean toilet.

Sure, I say.

He walks in, sprays the toilet, wipes it down, and lays down a trifecta of teepee on the seat before smiling and ushering me in. I realize I am now indebted to tipping him and doubt I have any reasonable bills. I do my business and he makes sure to track me down and wave me over to a specific sink, and hands me some paper towels. I tip him $5 as it’s all I have and feel okay about this understanding I had never dispatched in such high fashion before.

I meet Bradley back up in the quiet room and proceed to connect to WiFi and write this entry from the past couple days. I think we will execute a sit soon, practice movement, and board our flight to Nepal when the time comes.

Adventures await…

Nepal Day -1, Part II

The sit is executed and we emerge with clean minds and hurt bottoms because we used our flimsy head pillows as seat cushions. There’s a bit more time to kill in Doha Airport as the next few hours will feature gate changes, delays included. Our flight leaves at 1am and it’s around 9pm. Plenty of time to peruse the food court in search of grub.

We eat a veggie rice dish and wonder why we didn’t table-dive as a full slice of pizza, a plate of lasagne and some salmon lay abandoned on the nearby table. We shake our heads and make a mental note for next time. Satiated, and with fruit-juice smoothies in hand, we head down to terminal A and record a 20-min video about our trip’s intentions. Onlookers remain curious why we’re doing such a thing and when it’s over, its time to head to our gate’s waiting room.

An old woman with silver hair sitting there is from South Carolina. Despite her old age, she exudes infinite energy, and begins to chat with Bradley. She’s working alongside a Body Healer for the next twelve days in Nepal and speaks of her recent break-through experience in learning how to feel. Before this, she says, she rarely felt at all and remained miserable for much of her life. I smile at her change, feel happiness for her newfound livelihood and laugh as she talks endlessly. She’s passionate about the Zodiac and labels Bradley with his respective sign’s (Ares) characteristics: stubborn, intelligent and fiercely independent. We nod at her diagnosis although I find the model limiting and impractical to place someone in such a box without any surrounding context. Can any event be separate from its context? Perhaps this is also the appeal of the model, it’s flexibility to serve as useful as any given person wants to find it.

Our group is called to board the plane and Bradley and I decide on a movie called Searching about a father searching for his missing daughter. It ends up a brilliant and original flick as the entire story is told through laptop screens, Internet searches, FaceTimes and camera footage. After an emotionally charged ending, I sleep and the plane flies nearer to our destination—Katmandú.

I hope you enjoyed the read. If you did, please share it with a close friend and consider following the journey:

Wishing you well.

Love,

David

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PSS — You can purchase my hiking memoir, The Trail Provides, on Amazon today.

Read the next chapter in the Nepal Series: