Before me stood
Annapurna South,
silent and immense,
and beside it,
Hiunchuli,
gentle yet unshaken.

Below them rests
Chomrong
a small village cradled in the arms of giants,
where rooftops glow in evening light
and every path leads upward
into wonder.

Eight years have passed,
yet the mountains still speak
as if it were my first day
and I still listen
like a beginner.

We sat across from each other for eight hours in a quiet corner of Gauri Shankar Backpackers Hostel in Pokhara – two strangers sharing silence over coffee. Then she said, ‘Hello, where are you going?’ One hour later we were shopping for a trek, and the next morning we were walking toward the Himalayas together. Sometimes life doesn’t need a long plan – just a simple hello, a brave yes, and the mountains waiting ahead.

The porters carrying a house on their backs with silent dignity.

They walk 8–12 hours a day, almost 360 days a year, for 10–12 dollars — at altitudes where even breathing is hard.

While we chase summits, they carry our journeys.

May we never forget: the real peak is humility, the real strength is theirs, and the least we can offer is respect, gratitude, and fairness.”

In the forests of Nepal, during the fading season of rhododendrons, I was blessed with a rare sighting – the Himalayan Musk Deer.

Shy. Silent. Almost invisible in the wilderness.

A guardian of the high-altitude forests, a gentle seed carrier, a vital thread in the Himalayan food chain – yet one of the most hunted and endangered beings of these mountains.