Nepal

Day 1, Filippa Schwarz

The plan for the first day of Nepal was to drive all the way from Kathmandu to the camping site with a little 3 hour stop to go white water rafting. We were all slightly apprehensive of the 7 hour drive that was awaiting us, but we packed our bags, had breakfast, and got onto the bus. After about 2 hours and 45 minutes, we all started getting a bit restless on the bus but nevertheless we persevered all the way to lunch (with a few stops to stretch our legs in between). Then finally after another extremely long 15 minutes we arrived at the white water rafting site. Getting into the place involved driving our bus down such a steep road, so steep that it took us a good minute driving down a 5 meter slope. Once we had had our lunch, we were given wetsuits - putting these on were an experience to itselfand then headed down with our paddles, helmets, and life jackets to the river where we got spread into groups. White water rafting and working together as a team in order to not topple over was not exactly our forte, but we managed quite well, except Hannah and Omar who both fell out of the boats in still water.

As we were in teams on the rafts, of course there was the race to be the fastest boat out of all. I can say that it was my team that won, but then again, I am a bit biased. Towards the end of the rafting, the rapids had ended, and we were all allowed to jump into the water. There we were, about 25 kids and a couple teachers, in the water, freezing so much that our lips were blue and letting the current of the river take us to the end point of the excursion. Once we got out of the river, which was slightly difficult given the slippery sand, we got changed and had a small snack before getting back onto the bus and heading to the camp site. After another 3 hours, we arrived at the campsite, were given our bags, and settled in before having dinner.

Day 2, Ramzi Tabanji

After having rested well in the hotel, we all filled up considerably well from the breakfast buffet in preparation for a demanding day ahead. Following a 3-hour bus ride, which included lots of shopping and bathroom breaks, we arrived at the site of our first event of the trip, which was the highly anticipated white-water rafting. We took some time to rest, wake our legs from long periods of sitting, and grab a very well-cooked lunch before struggling our way into uncomfortably tight wetsuits and helmets. Dressing for the occasion had gotten everybody excited for the day ahead, and after being briefed on the safety procedures and rules of rafting, we all scurried into 4 teams, eager to paddle down the river. The ride started off loud and energetic, however after a pathetically short 15 minutes of paddling, everyone had already exerted most of their energy. Each team would have to work in unison to make sure they could orient their rafts properly without any crashes or people falling off, even though Omar and Hannah clearly didn’t get the memo.

After close to 3 hours of arduous rafting, all 4 teams ditched their boats to jump into the water, only to realize what a mistake we had made when we were all shivering intensely 5 minutes later. The journey ended with a crowd of smiling faces ready to rinse and change into dry clothes, before sitting down for another 3 hours on the bus ride back to the hotel. The day, while fun, exacted a heavy toll, leaving everybody eager to have a camp-made dinner. This yearning for food was very quickly replaced by disgust after seeing the crowds of bugs diving into our soup, making it difficult to eat. However, we still managed to fill up on whatever we could, leading us into an early night’s sleep, prepared to wake up the next day wellrested for our first day of work.

Day 3, Hannah Khan

Now firmly ensconced in verdant Chitwan National Park, our core service objective and raison d'être for being in Nepal, was the main agenda of the day.

We were here to help build a ‘biogas chamber’ for a rural family to use as their sustainable energy supply, and day three marked the beginning of this incredible endeavour!

Woken by a morning chorus of insects and animals energised by a warming sun, we enjoyed our first ‘al fresco’ breakfast at the campsite, fuelling ourselves for a day of digging, carting, and carrying.

We enjoyed a swift 5km cycle ride into town to the site of the biogas chamber in front of a family home where we were warmly welcomed by the locals as they invited us onto their farm. Following a project briefing on how we would spend the next few days building the chamber, we were motivated to quickly get to work.

Under the guidance of a skilled mason, community members and the Mountain Quests team, four of us started digging out the base of the chamber, a 8 feet diameter hole, around 6 feet deep. The rest of us formed an assembly line to move bricks, stones and building materials to the other side of the farm. Everyone was on an emotional high, whilst we knew that the day would be physically challenging, it would also be a lifelong memory to savour. We gladly rolled up our sleeves and put our best-efforts forward, working efficiently throughout the day culminating in an elated feeling of accomplishment at the end of the day.

Enjoying the cycle back to the campsite, we rested for a while then got ready for the evening programme, a rare and valuable opportunity to immerse ourselves in local rural Nepali culture. We visited the homes of our local hosts and sat down to a traditional meal with them. We learned about the cooking methods and ingredients in Nepalese cuisine, and even got to try our hand at cooking with mixed results! A truly unforgettable experience, filled with laughter, cultural exchange, community building and service, creating memories to be cherished forever.

By now, the sun had set, and the daytime animals had passed the baton to a lively night chorus. A dark sky free of urban light pollution had now enveloped us. We wished good night to our hosts and made our way back to the campsite with excited anticipation of what Day 4 would bring!

Day 4, Alexis Schwarz

Today was our second day of working at the Biogas Chamber. We got up quite early, everyone was excited to see what today would entail. We ate quite a full breakfast because we knew we would have to fuel up on energy for the long day that would await us. We got up on our bikes and drove the 20minutes to the bio gas chamber, by now we had gotten familiar with the route, with our campsite and with the Biogas chamber site. We got to enjoy the scenery from our bikes instead of cautiously looking down at the ground to evade large rocks. Once we arrived at the site, we saw that the Mason had already smoothed out the 6 feet deep hole, once it was flat we felt a sense of accomplishment that we did all that in one day. But we knew how much work we still had left. So, we got to working. Today was mainly about making cement and creating that cemented base layer for the chamber. During one of our breaks, we went to look at a rice plantation farm and we were able to walk through one of the fields, being very careful not to fall off the path. Once we had finished our work, we biked all the way back to our campsite for a much deserved lunch. We were all very determined to eat our lunches as quickly as possible because we would be heading to the safari afterwards. This was one of the activities we had been looking forward to the most. We hopped on our safari buses and headed to the Chitwan National Park. The safari took around 4 hours in which we learned that they had 128 tigers out of the 355 living in Nepal and that the two main elephants Durbe and Ronaldo had killed a total of 60 people. We were determined to see rhinos, elephants, and hopefully tigers. In my group, we spent about the first three hours stopping and looking at wild chickens, which was very interesting, we had stopped counting after 55.

In the last hour, we struck the goldmine. Mr. Russell spotted the first rhino which stood at about a five metre distance from our truck. It was absolutely incredible as it made its way over the road behind our truck and then disappeared into the forest again. The second rhino was spotted soon thereafter, hiding in the tall Elephant Grass. About ten minutes later we encountered a sloth bear. We had been so shocked because we had not at all expected a bear to turn up in Nepal, but there it was an adult sloth bear. Apparently, it had had an existential crisis (as our tour guide said) because he did not once notice us in the ten minutes we were watching him. We drove back home, extremely proud of us beating every other group in terms of which animals we had seen. Although the others had seen monkeys, we had won with the bear, no question. So, we had reached the end of the day and drove all the way back home to the campsite. We were all so elated yet exhausted at the long day behind us.

Day 5, Ibrahim Sharaf

Day 5 was the last day we spent on working on the biogas chamber, all that was left for us to do was to help the masons build the concrete dome. As a team we worked tirelessly to shovel up gravel and sand, transport them and mix them to create the concrete. Although we faced a few obstacles such as efficiently transporting the buckets, we overcame this by collaborating to create a work chain to pass the buckets down in an orderly manner. After returning to the campsite from the biogas chamber we prepared ourselves for a relaxing canoe ride along the river of Chitwan national park. On our journey we had encountered many animals living in the national park such as the crocodiles lying in the bottom of the river as well as the elephants stomping around the park.

We then arrived at the Chitwan elephant breeding center where we learnt a lot more about the types of elephants living in the national park and saw many other animals. Following on we were greeted back to the campsite with a surprise, as it was our final night in Chitwan the entire village had come to perform a traditional dance for us. After watching the perplexing dance we spent the rest of our night singing and dancing to traditional Nepalese songs and having a great final night in Chitwan.

Day 6, Ethan Lee

On day 6 of the Nepal trip it was time to leave Chitwan and go back to Kathmandu. In the morning, we woke up late and had some breakfast. We packed our belongings and cleaned up out tent. It was important that we left the place as clean as when we first arrived. We put our bags in the middle of the camp and when it was time to leave we boarded the bus and drove back o Kathmandu. Although the ride back was very long, the scenery was splendid and we were able stop a few times to have breaks. When we arrived back to Kathmandu, we checked in and put our things down in the hotel and left for dinner. After dinner in the restaurant, we had a party and played music and danced. We then went back to the hotel and retired for the day.

Day 7, Joseph Mansour

On our last day in Nepal we woke up at around 7:30. We all ate breakfast and rounded up our bags in the lobby of the hotel. After all bags were accounted for, we boarded the bus which made its way towards one of the largest Buddhist worship sites in Nepal, the Budda Stuppa. Kunal (our guide) gave us a run down of the site and the rules of the market surrounding it. Once the explanation was done we entered a shop which on the second floor had a studio where there was a painting school. Most people ended up buying a painting, We then had about 2 hours to go around the market and buy souvenirs. Once our time was up we headed up to a rooftop terrace which had a view of the Stuppa for lunch. Once we were done eating we made our way back to the bus and drove to the airport. The airport and flight were uneventful however everyone was happy to see their family once we landed in Dubai.