May 7, 2023 | Leave a comment life rule number one is definitivelyalways ask the surfer tryna get in your pantsif he marriedgot a gf always! Monthly Mood: Clean i think i am finally clean.—t swift I’m at the point in my Trip (five years and some) where I can spend all day, all year, looking back. Which of course defeats the point of being alive (breathing your way into the present). Let’s do it anyway—all things in moderation, they say. Precisely one year from the time of writing this post puts me at the high point of Nepal’s Annapurna circuit. The circuit was my dream hike that I put off in October 2019, and twiddled my thumbs waiting another two-and-a-half COVID years, before jumping on. Nepal, April 2022. India had freshly fined me over $800 for staying 27 months on a one-year visa. This was after the foreign affairs department spent years assuring us that we could stay until regular flights started up again. Major media outlets announced that we need not bother to even apply for visa extensions, that they don’t want us to apply. Friends who didn’t pay their penalties that ranged from $8-600 (I broke the record and was quoted that the extra topping was for “being American”) ended up getting their exit documents for free as if they were never fined in the first place, only months later. Relevant read: Does Leaving India Exist TLDR → I got out of India at a ~premium price~ because my twenties taught me to value TIME. Given Nepal’s two hiking windows per year (March-May and October-December), $800 seemed a small fare for being able to seize those April trails. Finally, my first breaths of the Nepali Himalayas! This exists! Nepal, April 2022. You better bet that I milked the daylights out of that circuit. I loitered nearly six weeks among the Annapurnas, throwing in all the works: Tilicho Lake, Ice Lake, dog-walking, bakery days… Relevant read: Ukalo Oralo TIME. News outlets now insist that independent, unguided hiking (the only way I like it) in Nepal is banned as of this April 1st. While last spring I was, to be frank, ~framed~ for “following” somebody to Nepal, to the point where I nearly believed it, now it’s clear. I was only following my path. My needs to breathe and live that circuit for weeks on end. To contrast, guides convinced their trekkers to skip Tilicho Lake. Americans who only get 14 days off a year were doing the highlights in eight days, and ill-acclimated, at that. Now the rules have changed. Now I can’t hike for two hours and stop for two days at a lodge where I’m the only guest. Where it’s not overrun by guided groups screaming for a dozens of bowls of garlic soup. Where the toilets are in a state of emergency by 7am. Now I understand why I really paid my fine and flew from Mumbai to Kathmandu, just a girl and her nerves, erupting with excitement. Now it’s clean. Vietnam, April 2023. Which brings me to looking back 10 months at the emotional shitshow that I was. Physically I was weak with an assortment of complaints (failing gut flora, flu with loss of sense of smell while being told by a physician not to bother with a mask, etc.). How mending, how restoring, a summer in Sri Lanka with a stable home and new girlfriends, round two in Nepal (the irony), and new connections and discoveries in Vietnam, have been! Relevant read: Rice and Curry and Laundry Relevant read: Never Trust an Egg Sandwich ten months older, i won’t give innow that i’m clean, i’m never gonna risk it. —t swift Sri Lanka, July 2022. While each of the last five Aprils are worthy of gushing over, of spurting tears of gratitude over (Dharamshala days, Varanasi house arrest and shaving my head, sakuras and matcha ceremonies), I give an extra gracias to the first of them. Autumn. Argentina. Young. Unaware. Questionable self-love. Too questionable. Welcomed. Warmed. A friend squad. The adventures and advice of April 2018 never stopped meaning the world to me. Que saudades. Argentina, April 2018. Relevant read: Boludeando Por La Ruta 40 But where’s the current chisme lurking? April? 2023?? I dislike saying I’m doing well / fine / good how are you, because such answers are seldom accurate. There are ups and downs within each day, yet when I say I’m doing better than ever, I mean it. For starters, imho phở tastes best at 7am and seafood after 7pm. For seconds, the inspirations ceaselessly whirring through my mind make it difficult to pick a direction of creative action, especially as an indecisive gal. Is it supposed to be the entrée now? I finally hit the waves again and feel like I’m back at day one. This is entirely not true, but it is my perception. Every time I enter the water, or lie back into an ecstasy of blue hues, I can’t believe this is my home. Some April days I do nothing but work, cook, clean, food prep, cook, and clean, never making it out the front door. I am addicted to food and cooking and I refuse to have shame in admitting that. Other April days I stay in bed plastered in front of an old Western with a hot water bag hugged to my uterus ordering pizza on my phone and plowing through a heterogeneity of chips and chocolate. Việt Nam I love the shit out of you! obsessions breadventurerawberrymassaged kale saladsboiled squidmotorcycle cuddlesalmond butterpitaya smoo bowlscleanazul da cor do marroasted almond oolong milk teaellie watson’s veto birchertwenty twenty stew*oatly baristaoat milk lattescold cupsfresh coconutsreusable strawspizza 4ps zucchini basil saucepizza 4ps four mushroomvegan bulletproof coffeeslululemonloremo laptop standhitchhiking home菊花茶chickpeas350mL french pressessuper chef wooden handle knivesnetflix & chips@elsas_wholesomelife chili sesame picklesvissot peanut buttersebamed lip defense cherryvẽ cho vui currently reading: the miracle of mindfulness by thích nhất hạnh Previous Monthly Mood: Temples Hurt My Temples Explore my full archive of Vietnam and Monthly Moods. Learn more about this round-the-world solo trip.