Himalayan shadow-play

My photo scholarship 2010 entry

Nepal | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

“Thank-you for your kind-ness in Nepal!” sing-songs the Sherpa in broken English as he deftly tosses my duffle bag, almost a third of my body weight, into the van in exchange for 5 US dollars. The driver hydroplanes me through ethereal smog and cloaked incense ... past whirring prayer wheels, multicolour flutters of prayer flags, stone Buddhist stupas and guttural chants of “Om Mani Padme Hum”. We swoosh past barricades of armed guards, free-roaming cows, markets of hemp and gemstones, barefoot young girls swaddled with babies, men counterbalanced by second-hand refrigerators and an incessant cacophony of car horns. It is approaching dusk and I lull deliriously into the cracked leather seat as the van winds precariously up the cliff-edge. The Kathmandu street sounds fade as the Himalayan shadow-play looms. I have just turned twenty-five and I am here with a group of Australians for a three-week charity trek, to raise money to restore sight to thousands of rural Nepalese via cataract surgery. Inwardly, though, I am here to find myself - somewhere between the tropical rice paddies, the temperate rhododendron forests and the snowy alpine peaks that penetrate the heavens. Stars luminesce and I imagine that I can hear the falling wet shards as they stick to my face, stinging my skin. I liked the sound of time passing, that day. That was March 2006. It is now 2010 and I am turning thirty on the 5th of December, the first day of this dream trip to the Kingdom of Bhutan. I am eking out a passionless existence in an engineering job while applying for a PhD in travel writing. It seems that I am still trying to find myself. As an amateur photographer, I seek the skills to complement my career of choice as a freelance travel writer. This trip would certainly put me one step closer.