Let me take you on a journey; a sneak peak into my lovely life in Nepal. We’ll start with some tourism, after all I want to explore everything! With a mini taxi and my good friend Anne we drive all the way to Bouddha (40min in traffic in Kathmandu). A small fee to pay and we enter this holy massive stupa Bouddhanat. The energy changes from rapid Kathmandu into a secret sanctuary where the white and gold stupa cuts the clear blue sky and the millions of flags move in the wind. It almost gave the illusion of breathing in the fresh air on a spring morning. I named it my favorite place in Kathmandu. It felt happy and peaceful. People came here from all over the country and from a bench we watched as the old lady walked around with her bean necklace for prayers in het hands.

From this spring morning we went to a dark misty morning. The temple Pashupatinath is open for public and the place where people are cremated. The grey temples during sunset turned into dark mysterious buildings and the sky was filled with smoke from the burning bodies. Being a tourist there felt inappropriate and for Nepali not at all a surprise. There where only men present during the cremation and the ashes fell into the holy river. The monkeys and dogs found their home in the temple giving the dynamics of the place another turn. We walked around for a bit, I did take a picture and then we decided to leave this temple behind.

Back to daily life as intern, and with this I mean all the fun stuff I do outside working on my awesome project in the office hahaha. Because I do the tourist stuff but I also have ‘normal’ activities. 3 Days a week I am going to Bollywood class at Y-stand Danceschool. I feel like an absolute giant there haha. The trainer is 20 years old and maybe 1,50m tall and his moves are epic! Then there is the Nepali wedding. My friends were getting married and I would also dance with the girls on their wedding which meant another two nights of Bollywood practice for a few weeks. Since I got into dancing I also decided to do this a couple of times in the club in Thamel. I was really happy cause I made some really good friends who would dance with me haha. Funfact; you’ll get kicked out of a club if you are too intimate hahaha.

Apart from all the dancing I also enjoyed cooking; My colleague and friend Asmita taught me how to make Biryani and stuffed fish. And she taught me from scratch which was great! We went to the local market and I almost felt like a local apart from the fact that all the other real locals were staring at me haha. The cooking lesson was great and so was the rum-punch and we ended up having a girls-night 😊

I’ve also done a workshop in making jewellery. The guy who taught this class wanted to keep this skill and heritage alive and decided to teach. He taught me the basics of soldering silver and I made two beautiful pieces, if I may say so haha.

The rest of my days are filled with a bit of shopping, hanging out with friends, reading a book, enjoying the sun at my favourite coffee place etc.