Adventures on the other side of the world
Although my roadtrip ended in September, I continued traveling for another month. I met up with a friend in Hong Kong for a couple hours, spent two weeks in Nepal, and then visited Japan for 10 days before returning home to the U.S.
If you’ve followed the blog before, you’ll know the Nepal trip came about from a serendipitous meeting with a Buddhist monk while visiting Taiwan. If you’d like to read the story about that meeting you can take a look here. One morning walk back in May eventually led to visiting the home of the tallest mountain in the world, and the birthplace of Buddha. And how grateful I am for that chance run-in with Lucky Monk. Nepal is a land of superlatives, and it was an eye-opening experience seeing the country. I witnessed true poverty…a nation struggling to develop, and at the same time I met the most hospitable people in the world. I have been truly touched by my visit to Nepal, and I know I will return someday.
My trip to Nepal has positively affected me and I started a project with the aim of giving back. My project: raising money for a small Nepali village primary school. If this sounds like something worthwhile to you, please read my story and consider making a contribution on my site:
http://www.giveforward.com/namaste-nepal
Take a look at my video slideshow below, and you might understand why I was so moved by this visit to the other side of the world.
Music credit goes to the musician Sagarmatha and his song “Sagarmatha.” (Sagarmatha is the Nepali name for Mt. Everest)
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Trip route – Summer 2010
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Joe's Roadtrip 
Joe,
This is a very moving compilation of your experience. Thanks for sharing. Your photography skills are great. Keep me posted on your project.
Thanks, Melissa. Hard to take a bad picture in Nepal when you are surrounded by such amazing natural landscapes. Thanks for your support in all of this.
Once again I am blown away by your slide show. Okay now I’ll have to add Nepal to the list after I drive to Alaska next year. I’m 50 and just getting around to all this. So my free advice to you (and remember it’s free so you get what you pay for) is do as much as you can when you can. Never put stuff off.
Also, how do you get such great night time star shots?
Thanks again for the nice words, Thomas. Yes, definitely add Nepal to your list…and thanks for the advice – I’ll try to stick with that.
Regarding the night shots, I have a digital SLR which has made it relatively simple to take the star shots. I set my camera up on a tripod and open the shutter for roughly 12-15 seconds (and sometimes turn the ISO up a bit). My best shots have come at really dark sites (like Pokhara, Nepal which experiences regular blackouts) or the American Southwest. If you don’t have a tripod it’s fine, you can just prop the camera up against a bag or stone. Do you have a DSLR?
All I can say is WOW! The spirit you captured in that short video is awe inspiring!
I have to ditto Thomas. You are amazing, Joseph!
Thanks so much, Elyse. I’m happy I could capture some of the spirit of the trip in that video. What an experience.
Hi! Joe
Your great photoes makes me miss Nepal more and more. Hope your project of helping village school will be very successful. God bless you–such a nice boy
Lucky monk
I set my camera up on a tripod and open the shutter for roughly 12-15 seconds (and sometimes turn the ISO up a bit).. My best shots have come at really dark sites (like Pokhara, Nepal which experiences regular blackouts) or the American Southwest. If you don’t have a tripod it’s fine, you can just prop the camera up against a bag or stone?
Hello Joe,
Like you said you really can see why you were so moved by your visits to the other side of the world. Its amazing with how wonderful your pictures came out. What did you use to turn it into a slide show/movie?
We are about to travel around Australia in our Motorhome with our five boys. Hope we get some gorgeous photos as we travel!! Thanks for sharing your adventures.
Cheers
Lisa