National Geographic Expeditions 2019

Well, I can’t believe it has already been a year! I am delighted to be co-leading another trip to Nepal with National Geographic Student Expeditions. Kiki Baxter (my co-leader) and I have a smaller group of students for this trip and I can’t wait to see what this year brings. We look forward to seeing old friends, like Sonam and Karma from the Small World Nepal to Neel with TEAM NEPAL. I was also delighted to recently speak with someone I have admired for years, Ben Ayers of the dZi Foundation about navigating the role westerners adopt in developing countries. Ben has worked in Nepal for decades and is an inspiration in his community-based approach to development work in this incredible country. Over the course of this next trip, I will be featuring the writing of some of our incredible students (like below) or you can follow along here.

Today was our first full day in Nepal. We started early, after having a breakfast of pancakes, with a walk to the Boudhanath Stupa, a Buddhist site, where our guide explained the significance of the area and the meanings behind the eyes and nose depicted on the stupa.

After that we learned about thangka, a Buddhist style of art, and we each painted a thangka-inspired picture of Mt. Everest.

After packing up our art, we rode to the “Monkey Temple” or Swayambhunath Stupa. The 365 steps that got us to the temple were tiring, but the view and experience made it worthwhile. The Monkey Temple, true to its name, had many monkeys that wandered around the temple and occasionally climbed the statues. The temple itself was gold painted at the top and really beautiful.

We finally we got back to the hotel and are currently preparing for our ride to rural Nepal tomorrow. Our first day in Nepal was incredible and we are looking forward to the rest of our time here!

— Fiona R.