Nepal, 25 Dec 2025 to 2 Jan 2026

 We went with this small private tour called Brothers International or something. Signed up with the tour as we didnt want to crack our heads with the planning and since this was q an exotic place. The flights had long transits and it made me realise that I can no longer appreciate sacrificing sleep for lower costs. The food there was expected and similar to Indian food. Weather was cold at night. The 2 day hiking (now I cannot even remember which places we went) was extremely tough and challenging, especially so as I experienced serious back pain before the trip and the hike from Pokhara (although less than 2000m) made it worse. The scenery of mountains in the distance and throughout the hike was very very beautiful; the country is fortunate to have so much nature. I still remembered the little doggy who followed up for the more than 1hr walk, the extreme cold on top of the mountains (temperatures dropped after 2pm) and both Huimin and I were shivering under the blankets. The long and bumpy car rides and I wondered why the hell the roads were so unconnected (always with holes in the roads). The sunrise view at the temple was breath-taking, the unbelievable view of tourists doing paragliding in the mountains in front of our hotel, the simple and yet down-to-earth local bus ride up the mountain to our hotel together with the locals, spending countdown and new year,.... Before the trip we were still concerned because early in the year the riots in Kathmandu was so major that a new major hotel was burned down and we wondered if we should continue with the trip. The only shame was that the tour guide was too young and inexperienced to show us anything. My first time on Yeti (Nepal domestic flight). The country came across as sad to me, as on our first day our chat with the more experienced local guide shared with us that young people are all planning to leave the country due to the corrupted government and they no longer find any future staying in the country. This left me thinking a lot throughout the trip despite the beautiful scenery throughout. It's sad, really sad.