By Lorna Paradise, twelve years old, contributing to her family travel blog.  These are her impressions of Nepal after roadschooling and spending two months in Kathmandu, Solukhumbu and the tropical lowlands.

Nepal is not a very big country. In fact, the state of Colorado is bigger than the country of Nepal. But, Colorado does not feel very big to me, because I’ve driven around a lot of it. But, to me, Nepal feels much bigger, because I’ve walked across a lot of it. And, to walk across it, you have to walk up, up, up, cross a pass, then walk down, down, down. One day we walked over a twelve thousand-foot pass, and slept at four thousand feet. I personally think that’s kind of depressing. You feel so amazing for climbing over this pass, then you sleep lower then you started.  Here is a post about trekking with kids and another about our Sherpa homestays.

Nepal is an amazing country in a lot of ways:

• Nepal is sandwiched between two giants, and has been for more than two hundred years. It’s still its own country, somehow, without a stable government.
• No matter what Nepali people have to give, they give it.
• On one side of Nepal, you have the Terai at sea level: jungle, tigers, like India. On the other side, at nine thousand feet and up, you have villagers who are extremely lucky to go to school, mountains, yaks, suspension bridges, (I can say a lot more about this area cause I went here.) But these two extremely different places are within two hundred miles of each other.
  

  We spent five nights here in Khumjung at 12,000 ft.

• Somehow the villagers live with no fruit and very little veggies. To the extent that once we get back to Kathmandu, we eat all their fruit, all their fruit juice, and all their veggies.
• the average Nepali knows 4 languages. 1)their ethnic group language,2) Nepali,3) English,4) Hindi. (For TV.)
• Somehow doctors are allowed to go on strike.
• The clothing is so colorful! Who cares about matching?
• It has a ton of World Heritage Sites!
•  It has so many cultures within its borders, all of which are celebrated with gusto ( that sounds really dumb, but I don’t know how else to say it)

We travel to China in 5 days. Nepal went by fast!! I loved it here, and now have some weird recommendations. (If you go to Namche Bazaar, stay at Nirvana Home Guest House.)

These are dzo’s (a cross between a yak and a cow). They carry the really heavy stuff to the market.

I REALLY miss friends, and things that are anything like home, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had much time to think about it. My birthday is coming up. I’ll have it in China. Somehow I don’t think it’s gonna be anything like previous birthdays… I got to go paragliding in Pokhara as an early birthday present! That was awesome! Ive never had a birthday present quite like that before.

I’m ready to travel to China, and exited to see Kai and Lucy’s reaction to the fish market that neither of them remembers. You can also read about my first impressions of Nepal.

This monkey grabbed my drink right out of my hands and then bit a hole into the bottom to drink it!