Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 462

My Traveling Experience to England

MY TRAVELLING EXPERIENCE BY TRAIN FROM LONDON

TO SWANSEA FOR DIFFERENT SHEDULES.

England’s railway network is one of the biggest in the world. We are the second largest nation in the world with 63000 Kilometers of rail laid. It carries passengers and goods throughout the length and breadth of the country. It is the cheapest mode of travel as compared to air travel and road transport. The railways promote tourism. It brings the people of different parts of the country closer. It helps in achieving national integration. The railways are the country’s wheels of progress and prosperity when it comes to travelling sector.

In ancient times, people used to go by bullock-carts and on horseback. It used to take months to reach a far-off place. But nowadays, railways can carry a passenger to his destination within a few hours.

This year, I decided to go to London, to watch live match of my favorites team Arsenal and apply my course of study at Barts and the London school of medicines. My secondary school friends owns a Sport shop at Swansea. I packed up my luggage and went to the London Railway Station in a taxi.

I reached the Railway Station half an hour before the start of the train. There was a long queue at the railway booking office. I was able to purchase a ticket for Swansea with great difficulty. I engaged a coolie to carry my luggage and went to Platform No. 5. There was a great rush at this platform.

Before the train could stop, passengers started boarding it. I was lucky to get a seat by the side of a window and am already hoping for that so that I can be able to buy the fruits before we left. The passengers threw their luggage inside the train through the open windows. Many passengers were trying to get in while others were trying to alight through the doors. There was a lot of pushing and jostling. A pick¬pocket deprived a person of all the money he was carrying in his pocket.

The guard of the train blew the whistle at 8.30 P.M. and waved the green flag. The train started and in a few moments picked up speed. The compartment was packed to suffocation. Some passengers had to sit down on the floor of the compartment. Others occupied the place meant for keeping the luggage. A few passengers could not find any space. They had to stand.

Our compartment had people from all walks of life-doctors, businessmen, government employees, bank employees, teachers and students. Every now and then beggars came to beg, hawkers came to sell books and magazines. One quack entered the compartment and offered a medicine which he claimed was a panacea for all ills and the man help me also in getting some apples from his colliques.

Some passengers in the compartment were very talkative. They started discussing politics. There was a heated discussion on the threat of terrorism in the country and how to combat it. Some teachers and students engaged themselves in discussing the salient features of the New Education Policy of the country. The problem of rising prices was another favorite topic.

By 9.00 P.M. most of the people in the compartment fell asleep. I could not enjoy sound sleep during the night’s journey because at every station, passengers kept coming in and going out of the compartment.

Once, I had to go to the toilet. I was shocked to find that it was very dirty. It looked as if it had not been cleaned for a number of days. The mirror in the toilet was missing. Someone had stolen even the tap. I wondered why people in country like England steal railway property.

At the Swansea Railway Station, I changed to the Taxi for Friends location. The journey from London to Swansea had to be covered by a narrow-gauge train. Though the compartments in this train were small in size, they were beautiful. This train followed the mountainous track in a zigzag manner. It passed through many tunnels and beautiful valleys. A cool breeze was blowing. The mountains were full of green trees, plants and grass. The scenery was beautiful. The one-hour journey from London to Swansea was thus very pleasant.

When I reached Swansea, I found the weather very fine. I thanked God for seeing me through; I would be away from the scorching heat of London. My Friend Abubakar had come to the railway station to receive me and move to his place.

About the Author: Sani Jibo: I am simple and easy going person who likes Reading, Chatting and travelling to unknown place.

I am 21 years old and from Katsina, Nigeria. Find me on Facebook or Twitter @Sani_J_Sani

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Myanmar: Birthday Wishes Part 2 (video)

Today is my 46th birthday, October 18, 2013. Last year, I donated my birthday to raise money for Solar Cookers. I asked friends in Myanmar to help me have 45 people say Happy Birthday to me in 45 languages!

What do I want for my birthday this year?

I would love you to BUY OUR BOOK! Traveling in Sin or share it with a friend!

WATCH: 34 Festival and Birthday Wishes Part 2, Myanmar (Burma)

October 18-20, 2012 We enjoyed the preparations for the Phaung Daw Oo Pagoda Festival and more singing birthday wishes on the Lake and all around town. I loved the chocolate banana pancake at Pancake Kingdom! I ate it for lunch twice!

George took me to Green Chili Thai restaurant for dinner. For my 45th birthday I worked with JWW to donate solar cookers to refugee families in Darfur. Thank you so much to everyone who participated. Together we collected enough money to help 50 families.

Birthday wishes from Australia, Germany, France, Myanmar, Thailand and USA! My article about the festival in print The Myanmar Times. This movie is from our 28 days in Myanmar (Burma) from September 28, 2012 to October 26, 2012 and our year TRIP in South East Asia, see all the videos from our trip.

See PART ONE here.

Traveling in Sin is a HOT NEW Release on Amazon! from Lisa Niver Rajna

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Nepal: Jubilation and Revelation

Nepal: Jubilation and Revelation on the Annapurna Circuit

We are hiking up a steep slippery path in early morning darkness when George slips, rolls over and pukes three times. With the light of my torch I see how pale and sick he is. George has been struggling with altitude sickness for the past few days and it is clear that this is as far as he can go. With the high camp near I go to find a porter to help him back down. When I return I see again how flushed and shaken George is. I feel terrible to leave him but there is little choice. I need to do the pass now. We say a hasty goodbye and George turns back, visibly relieved his trauma is over.

I go on hoping to catch up to the other trekkers but am well behind them. We have taken two hours to do a climb the others did in one. As the morning sky slowly illuminates the surrounding mountains I try to catch up. At an altitude of five thousand metres it is difficult to rush as any exertion means I am panting, reeling with my hands on my knees, leaning on my stick. I shuffle up sluggishly barely moving my feet with every step but am still forced to take regular breaks. Gasping desperately for air, my hard breathing scorches my throat.

Ten days ago we started the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal and every day we steadily moved higher, every day edging closer to the mountains we had come to find, each day better than the last. We followed a valley often wedged between a cliff and a drop to the river. We went through villages with groups of shy children acting as toll merchants demanding sweets, chocolates, school pens or balloons. We crossed suspension bridges every day, always swaying and bouncing and unnerving. We kept going, pushing on and upwards getting glimpses of looming snow-covered mountains in the far-off distance.

George, my hiking partner, and every other trekker shared in the growing excitement. We would discuss our wonder at night around the fires in the teahouses. We made friends easily, the joy of the journey easily breaking down any barriers.

Half-way to the pass we climbed through small forests with the red colours of rhododendron bushes bursting through the green. The air was particularly colder than the previous days and soon the forest thinned out, the terrain became barren and we entered the larger mountains. The changes were an encouraging sign of progress. The conversations also turned from excitement to philosophy. Traveling through its calm solitudes, so far removed from the tensions of civilization, clarity and hopefulness pervaded our thinking. We all seemed to be overwhelmed with grandiose ideas for the future. Our thoughts seemed to reflect the magnificent mountains we were passing through.

We walked alone or with others, talking a little but simply content to be moving and making our way. We ambled up and up. The only thing we needed to do was to keep moving, not necessarily at a fast pace but always to just keep moving. Then we neared the pass and a completely new challenge.

After three hours of solo toil I come upon other hikers who have been feeling very sick and nauseous and moving very slowly, even slower than me. With their spirits faltering the news of George seems to only add to their struggle. While resting we remark on the view and our inability to appreciate it in our fatigued states. We start off again, the angle of the climb is less severe than before but nevertheless we walk at a crawling pace for the next few hours up and over small hills. We keep encouraging each other and eventually after a period of quiet desperation we reach the Thorung La Pass at 5416m.

As we are taking photos clouds envelop us and the view disappears. Almost immediately it starts snowing spurring us to start our descent. We clamber down jubilantly, joyous with our achievement and that the hardest slog is over. At the steeper parts we slide down on our bums in the snow and pause at intervals to stare out into the whiteness and catch snowflakes on our tongues.

It is understandable why there is so much said of the mysticism and spiritualism of these mountains. There is a definite power to rejuvenate and invigorate, to encourage us to take on whatever the future may hold. This strength that it passes on to the trekkers is almost tangible. We are delighted with the achievement, a monumental challenge that will end up taking almost three weeks but there is something deeper we take with us too. The personal revelations, the contentment and profound feelings we have on the way.

It is easy to be inspired in these glorious mountains but the trick is to store that wisdom and then be able to call on it in times of need. The task is to retain the harmony and use its strength in the future, to carry the serenity of the Himalayas always within us.

About the Author: Matt is a drifter under the guise of going home when he finally decides what he wants to do with the rest of his life. He happily ignores the topic and keeps on drifting.

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Myanmar: Birthday Wishes (video)

Tomorrow is my 46th birthday, October 18, 2013. Last year, I donated my birthday to raise money for Solar Cookers. I asked friends in Myanmar to help me have 45 people say Happy Birthday to me in 45 languages!

What do I want for my birthday this year?

I would love you to BUY OUR BOOK! Traveling in Sin or share it with a friend!

WATCH: 33 Birthday Wishes Part 1 October 18, 2012, Myanmar (Burma) Here is Part one! Part two TOMORROW!

For October 18, 2012, my 45th birthday, I wanted to find 45 people to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY! We did find many people to participate in several languages!

We moved to the Golden Empress Hotel in room 105 for $30usd with wifi, breakfast, a terraces, a large wooden staircase, pretty ceilings and a great place for celebrating!

I enjoyed chocolate banana pancake lunch with more birthday singing. In movie 34. George took me to Green Chili Thai restaurant for dinner. For my 45th birthday I worked with JWW to donate solar cookers to refugee families in Darfur. Thank you so much to everyone who participated. Together we collected enough money to help 50 families.

This movie is from our 28 days in Myanmar (Burma) from September 28, 2012 to October 26, 2012 and our year TRIP in South East Asia, see all the videos from our trip.

Traveling in Sin is a TOP TEN Hot New Release! from Lisa Niver Rajna

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Alaska: Shimmering Still

Alaska: Shimmering Still

The light in the mountainous bowl shifted so tenderly, dusk seemed to last for most of the afternoon. After three months of being on the road, putting on my backpack for a trip into the subalpine terrain of Glacier National Park felt like a welcomed break. The hours of yellow and white road paint streaming by had coaxed me into the recesses of thought that sometimes linger a bit too long for comfort.

But wasn’t that really the biggest reason for this journey?

A quest. A simplistic lifestyle. A time in my life that would seem so long, yet be so short, all in the hope that I would come out on the other side wiser and with some kind of answer.

By the time the border of Montana was crossed, questions filled the

windshield of my perspective much faster than any answers seemed to come. I was homesick, relationship sick, identity struck, and tired. Beautiful places and experiences, people and memories had filled the days leading up to this moment – but my supposed lack of expectation had led me to a greater hope for the outcome of this trip than I ever knew.

A short hike up a horse trail, I nodded and smiled as a handful of other tourists made their way down the trail. Passing another hiker who was only making a day of the destination, Cracker Lake, I pushed my pace for a bit of distance.

“Is it worth it?” the heavy-set man would ask other hikers as he puffed up the mountain trail. I came to resent that question when I heard it asked in the wilderness: if a person didn’t want to find out, then why had they started?

This was an apt question as I wavered in my resolve to finish six months of a US road trip. All the doubt and frustration that I’d met at times in the journey’s preparation were trying to creep into my mind when I wasn’t keeping watch. If I didn’t want to find out what the path held, why had I even started?

After settling and setting up camp, Cracker Lake turned into a wild playground. The frigid turquoise water of the glacier-fed lake reflected the sky and numbed my aching feet. Glaciers held tight below the lip of the mountain bowl, trickling its ancient waters over cold stones that gathered into echoing cascades. The sun dipped low, casting a yellow-orange radiance over that jagged lip, showing off the iconic strip of lighter and darker granite that rolled along like a banner announcing “I am Glacier National Park and I know you will always recognize me.”

My eyes wandered to a mountain goat who skipped and hopped effortlessly on a seemingly vertical cliff. He picked his way around half of the bowl to meet another goat grazing on the invisible ledge plants before turning on a point and going back. This stuck me as quite the effort to simply say hello. He walked below the glow of the setting sun and everything became still – except for a shimmer in the sky.

I squinted and turned to face it, not quite able to make out the cause. The camera lens was barely strong enough to see these tiny sparkles clearly: seeds. From the next valley to the west, the wind came sweeping up and carried the cold scent of autumn. The grasses from the sunny side were exploding with seed pods ready to disperse and the wind happily caught them for the ride. They drifted up 1000 feet or more to burst across the ridgeline and into the air above me, only noticeable because of that moment of setting sun at a perfect angle.

I sat mesmerized by the rare and awesome sight. Knowing that this unique moment was a reflection of my journey as a whole, I knew that traveling the path I’d chosen was worth every moment, every emotion, every ache, and every joy… even if I didn’t find all the answers for my questions. Gratitude for the entire journey stood in the spotlight instead: time in nature, time with myself, experiencing life in its uncertainty and sweetness, and everything that made it possible in the first place.

I think of it every day and I would do it again in a moment.

About the Author: Cristen Jester is a Writer, Biologist, Life Coach, Medicine Woman, and new Mom. She resides in Nixa, Missouri, and thrives off of time with her family, the outdoors, and travel of any kind. Say hi or learn more about Cristen on her Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/cristen.jester, or her blog, Adventure + 1 at http://adventureplus1.com.

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Mozambique Swimming with Dolphins Adventure Part 2

Mozambique Swimming with Dolphins Adventure Part 1

The skipper quickly gained our trust as he effortlessly negotiated the breaking waves. When clear, he cut-off the engines so we could remove our life jackets. And we all began our eager search for dolphins, and there they were, a pod of 14 bottlenose dolphins swimming close to our boat.

Courtney, owner of Halo Gaia, entered the water first to engage the dolphins. One of them reacted for a short while, but it seemed they were still sleeping. Did you know dolphins switch off half their brain whilst they sleep? The decision was for us all to get ready and enter the water with them. The skipper manoeuvred the boat and the next moment we were in the water. Some of our group enjoyed the dolphins as they swam alongside them, my daughter and I found ourselves above the dolphins when they decided to dive deeper and we watched the pod descend below us. It was a surreal moment, in a blink of an eye they were gone, swallowed up by the inky blackness of the ocean depths. Tired after the excitement, we headed back to the boat and were hauled in one by one.



On the return journey, we stopped over a reef for a snorkel where we saw a variety of different fish and turtles. My daughter age 9, and my son age 14, thoroughly enjoyed the launches, even though they each experienced slight sea sickness on the return journey which could be likened to a rollercoaster ride. The skipper negotiates the waves and then rushes directly towards the beach with such speed that you are convinced that you will be thrown over the prow of the boat when it inevitably comes to a sudden halt. As predicted, this sudden halt does occur, yet our bodies managed to defy physics and we stayed safely in position on the boat.

The following day’s trip was less stressful as we all now knew what to expect. I mentally prepared for a rear-end attack, yet this time was pleasantly surprised that I had managed to enter the boat without a repeat of the previous day’s humiliation. Although the inevitable ungainly wobbly on the side of the rubber duck seems to be unavoidable. On this trip we saw a humped back whale in the distance. We visited a different reef. Again we were rewarded with a variety of fish. At one point my whole body became a mass of stings from the water infused with Zooplankton. Interestingly the stings continued for a while once out of the water back on the boat. It was an uncomfortable sensation rather than a painful one.



Our final evening was the perfect conclusion to an enchanting trip, a friend had brought along twelve hot air lanterns that we launched from the beach into the night sky. There we stood, in the glow of candle light, fourteen friends having grown ever closer by this shared adventure.

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#LosAngeles: See you TONIGHT October 16

SEE YOU TONIGHT at Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel 7pm
RSVP: Click here!

Please join us LIVE October 16 at Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel in Los Angeles for a travel talk! If not, join us October 23 for an  online webinar with the University of Pennsylvania on Exotic Burma!

More of our recent news:

Aloha Hawaii,  Hello Los Angeles

Our recent 5 days in Kauai were filled with hiking the Napali Coast, enjoying Waimea Canyon and driving a car! During our 5 days in Oahu, we were hosted at the Lotus Honolulu and theOutrigger Reef on the Beach . We can highly recommend these hotels and look forward to sharing photos and videos with you. We loved hiking Diamond Head (photo above), learning to Stand-Up Paddle board, Yen’s INCREDIBLE Hawaii Five-0 Tour and our rides around town with Uber.

Giant thank yous to Yen from Gogobot, Josh and Liz from Lotus Honolulu, Lisa and Malie from Park Restaurant and Tommy from Uber for the incredible reception and event! (See photo below). We had nearly forty people come to our Travel Talk Story. It was so great to meet new travel friends and share about our memoir, Traveling in Sin and our last 15months on the road. We hope to see you at one of our two upcoming events.

We chose to return to Los Angeles to be home to celebrate my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah. We are fortunate to be supported by our families in all our adventures. Next update from PANAMA!

We appreciate all of you who read our newsletters, articles, website and BOOK! Thank you to everyone for your support of our journey and all our writing. Connect with us on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest,  SlideShare ,  Twitter, and YouTube.

Happy and Safe Travels! Mahalo and Aloha!

Lisa and George (Click here to sign up for this newsletter. )

More articles to enjoy: More about our event with LACOT October 16, our final video on Myanmar leaving to Thailand!, and our site in the TOP 100 Travel blogs! WOW! The last 15months of travel have really grown our site!

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Cambodia: Back to the Heart

Cambodia: Back to the Heart of Youth Work

People have asked me “Why? Why teach abroad? You have everything at home. A support system: family, a girlfriend, a job. Why do it?”

Nowadays, with company cut-backs and layoffs, seniority is no longer a factor. It’s about the business’s survival not yours. Job security is dead. You can no longer rely on working for an employer for 20-30 years and then retiring with full benefits. The economy will eventually recover and companies are slowly starting to increase hiring. But you can’t be fooled into trusting your financial security with another seemingly-reliable company ever again. If the opportunity comes up, of course, take it, but people are learning not to rely solely on income from a job. This recession has proven that companies will not honor their end of the bargain when the going gets tough.

But why did i choose to work in Cambodia? Am I running towards something or running away from it? This really hit home when, during an interview for a teaching position, the school director explained to me that there are three different types of teachers:

-the teacher who failed back home and is seeking a fresh start;

-the teacher who is altruistic and truly wants to give back; or

-the teacher that is only interested in drinking and partying.

It was clear he was trying to size me up, but I don’t believe I fit into a specific category.

I began this journey as a way of gaining a more realistic picture of a culture rather than reading about it in a book or googling it. I wanted to see the world and return home with the satisfaction of having contributed to a community and experienced a new culture as no tourist can. So, I traveled nearly 9,000 miles to sell my brand.

Teaching abroad has allowed me to use leadership skills to conduct a class, pick up a new language (even just conversationally), build an international network and communicate across cultural barriers. Back home, my extroverted personality has always gotten me into trouble but, in Cambodia, it has been my saving grace. I’m more confident in who I am and in my abilities. I may have been selling my brand, but I am getting something much more valuable in return

Cambodia. The new Wild, Wild West.

Practically no police presence. Their transportation system is inadequate. No one practices road safety. Mothers and their infants ride on the back of motorbikes. Two, three, four people on one motorbike. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone wearing a helmet. Pedestrians step into and stroll through traffic as if there are no cars and motorbikes zooming by. They would put a professional New York City jaywalker to shame. You may spot the stray officer attempting to direct traffic but his efforts are in vain.

What is a big attraction for tourists and expatriates is the standard of living. Beers are $0.75. Well drinks are $2.50. A complete meal costs anywhere between $2.00 and $5.00. A standard room at a guesthouse, like the one I stayed at during my first week — Rory’s Guesthouse — costs $11 per night. The average rent for a one bedroom apartment is $150 per month. But these are luxuries that foreigners indulge in since a large percentage of the population live below the poverty line. Adults and children make a living on the street, begging and stealing and eating food from the trash. They don’t have social security, so a job is essential to survive. The average salary for a full time hotel employee is $95 per month. But a foreigner working as a part-time English teacher (15 hours a week) can make $150 per week. Cambodians treat foreigners very well, often better than they treat fellow Cambodians. It certainly puts one’s life back home into perspective.

My journey through Cambodian culture left a mark on my soul and created friendships that will last a lifetime. And I hope to one day revisit Cambodia. Only fear of the unknown, of abandoning the comfortable feeling of the familiar that one finds in one’s own land, stands in the way of embracing other cultures. Ultimately, by embracing another culture, you may just find your own, your self, as I did.

About the Author: Ruvane Schwartz I am 41 years old, Jewish and grew up in Brooklyn,NY . I graduated from Baruch College with a Marketing Degree but have discovered my passion for travel and trying things outside my comfort zone. I especially love Cambodia. I am sarcastic, easy going but a little neurotic. I am Jewish. Its in our DNA! Follow him at www.khromozomes.com 

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Los Angeles: Uber it! Join Gogobot, LACOT, Dave’s Travel Corner for a travel talk and Raffle Oct 16

From LACOT:  Join us at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel on October 16, at 7:00 PM. Our friends and LACOT members Lisa Niver Rajna and George Rajna are back in Los Angeles from a career break, and eager to share their story. The first 40 guests to show up for this Festival of the Pacific meet up in Los Angeles will receive drink tickets, but don’t come just for the wine!

If you’ve been to one of the LACOT meet-ups before, you know what they’re like. This one will be similar, but also with a strong focus on Lisa and George’s experience. Come connect with LA-area travel bloggers, travel writers, and members of the tourism industry. If you’ve ever daydreamed about quitting your day job to become a world wanderer-slash-travel blogger-slash-book writer, you should meet Lisa and George, because they’ve done just that. Their talk will be moderated and they’ll stick around afterwords for the usual mix-n-mingle (that’s the most fun part).

Festival of the Pacific is a celebration of travel and transformation hosted by PennClubLA, LACOT, Dave’s Travel Corner, We Said Go Travel and partnered with Gogobot.

First 10 people that are registered with www.gogobot.com that attend will get complimentary drinks on Gogobot!

The theme, “Living Without Regret: Travel, Love and Success: Make your Dreams a Reality,” is presented by the founders of We Said Go Travel, Lisa Niver Rajna and George Rajna, who will give an inside look into their long-term exotic international travel across Asia over the last fifteen months. They will share their travel expertise, read an excerpt from their new memoir, “Traveling in Sin,” and provide information about We Said Go Travel’s writing contest.

Every attendee will receive a raffle ticket — for free! –  upon entering our meeting space. The raffle includes a handful of neat travel-related prizes. For example, someone will win a great voucher for Uber, the taxi alternative. Have you heard of Uber? It’s the luxury car for hire service, a nicer ride than most taxis, and someone will win a $150 voucher for Uber use. That’s a lot of rides! People new to Uber will also receive up to $20 on their first use of the service (it’s an app, too) with a special code.

Another item in the raffle will be a night at our wonderful host hotel, the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel. Perfect for a local getaway. We also have tickets to the Skirball Cultural Center, and two vouchers for like a billion museums (well, that’s an exaggeration) for LA Museum Season. This is actually good for free admissions and gift shop discounts at over 25 Los Angeles cultural institutions including LACMA, the Getty Center, Hammer Museum, Pacific Asia Museum, the Paley Center for Media, and many more.

We’re trying to keep a closer eye on the RSVPs this time, so please go to Lisa and George’s special events page on Facebook and RSVP there. Alternatively, you can go to the PennClubLA website and RSVP there.  If you forget, no worries, just show up anyway. While we’d like to know how many people to expect, this is more of a ballpark figure.

Long story short: join us for conversation, drinks and the raffle, at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel on October 16, at 7:00 PM.

Luxe Sunset Blvd Hotel

11461 Sunset Boulevard

LA, CA 90049

(310) 476-6571

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Nepal: Dance Practise

The girls sit in a line in front of me, eagerly watching the instructor as he starts to explain the task. He walks around the open hallway in front of them carrying a handful of items that the girls know well, such as an embroidered scarf, a ceramic round water jug and a metal plate. He demonstrates the activity to the girls, “Interact with the object and feel the rhythm of the music to turn the everyday into a dance.”

We are sitting in a care home for teenage girls in the rural outskirts of the Kathmandu valley. The girls have come here from all over Nepal, removed from environments where their childhoods and innocence have come to a stop too soon. The home has offered them solace, and care and at this point in time the opportunity to fulfil every nepali girls dream, to dance on stage like a bollywood starlet. The girls listen intently to every word the instructor gives, and excitement radiates from their eyes. They have never had this chance before, and they all seek the opportunity to feel special, to feel like the women they dream of being. Earlier during the day, the girls took us on a walk through the rural village where they now live to show us their beautiful Nepal. They hold our hands, and play with our hair and ask questions to learn of another world outside of their own, one that they have only seen on American sitcoms and movies. Some have also shared their story with us, which is in stark contrast to the hollywood blockbusters discussed. Their stories bring images of dark rooms, mistreatment and yet these girls as they talk to us also emit something else, a strength, resilience and wisdom whilst reflecting on where they now find themselves and what the world awaits. Perhaps we are a sign to them that they are now in a better place, a sign that a different world has now opened up to them.

They have brought us to their dance practise. The home has organised dancers to choreograph a dance with the girls, to be performed in the heart of Kathmandu. The girls line up outside the hall everyday before the practise starts, hoping to get a seat in the front, to have a chance to perform in front of the group. We all watch as the instructor places the items around the room in front of us. He surveys the group to see who might be the first to attempt the dance, and he calls a name aloud. The chosen girl leaps to her feet and runs to the front, carefully observing each object as she walks around the room, already pointing her toes, already creating a dance, a new step forward. She chooses the water jug and immediately swings it above her head in a graceful arch before lowering it down to the ground, bending her body onto one knee with the other leg stretched out to the side. She has begun her dance, and another girl is called forward to join her and they may work together to create the steps.

Gratitude is not enough to describe how the girls feel as each stands up to take a turn, to join the dance. Their movements are guided by their past, but also by their passion to engage in this new life, this new experience. Gratitude is what I feel as I witness this before my eyes, as I realise what an honour it is to watch these girls as their hearts unfold before me.

About the Author: Sarita Slater is an avid adventurer and budding travel writer. Sarita has spent the last year traveling some of the world’s most beautiful areas. Her favourite travel destinations so far have been Antarctica, Cuba and Nepal. This article was written whilst trekking through the Annapurna region of Nepal.

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