No, I’m just kidding. Sort of. Not really.

Nepal has left me pretty much speechless. If you know me, you know this is a challenging feat. I’m a tough crowd to please, but this place’s raw beauty, picturesque villages, National Geographic-worthy old folks, and (thankfully) non-fried food was twenty times more incredible than I ever dreamed. I can’t even write a normal, bordering-on-sarcastic post this time! I wanted to visit remote villages, photograph natives, see the Himalayas, and go trekking and all, but it wasn’t in the plans, felt touristy, and wouldn’t be a good choice for my still-bummy knee. But by some stroke of luck, I did all that and more the anti-tourist way. I traveled with an established Indian-French photographer (from Couchsurfing, of course) who was doing a documentary on Tibetan exiles. We explored Nepal together, and I’m still too speechless to write a real post on the country. Beauty? Try a 6-hour motorcycle drive through massive mountains and terraced crops spiraling hundreds of layers down valleys. Cooking lesson? Too touristy. Try hiking into the mountains, picking “jungle fruits,” being taught how to cook by the local math teacher and cook, then cooking them lunch. Trekking? Too expensive. Try going with your Tibetan friend’s nomadic sister up a huge series of mountains–with 4 porters, 16 cows, and a yak–to move to new pasture. I’ve already said too much, and really, I can’t put into words how much Nepal blew my mind. The scenery was so stunning that I was unable to capture it and instead tried to document the lives of these Tibetan refugees and Nepali tribes. Hopefully some of my photos will help give a hint to life here.