Ljubljana & Zagreb

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We just visited Ljubljana and Zagreb for the first time, so first things first:

Ljubljana is pronounced Loo-blee-aa-nuh. It’s the capital of Slovenia (not Slovakia; that’s Bratislava) and has fewer than 300,000 people. 

Zagreb is the capital and biggest city in Croatia, with about 700,000 people. Yet many American travelers to Croatia never go there. They typically visit Dubrovnik or someplace else along Croatia’s coast.

Both Slovenia and Croatia were part of Yugoslavia, along with Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia, which is now called North Macedonia.

If you already knew all of this, I apologize for the review. I didn’t. I knew Slovenia was the home of First Lady Melania Trump and basketball star Luka Dončić. I recognized Dubrovnik as the location for Kings Landing in Game of Thrones. I knew the name of Yugoslavia’s former leader, which was the same as one of the Jackson 5: Tito. 

Pathetic, I know, but I’ve embarked on a trip to remedy my ignorance. During the next several weeks, Champa and I will be exploring the Balkans and then traveling to Italy.

We started in Slovenia, a small gem nestled between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia. Ljubljana is green and charming, with cobbled streets, historic buildings and a castle. The city center is car-free. Boats glide along the Ljubljanica River. Bicycles ply the streets.

We watched a free outdoor showing of Jaws and then walked back late to our hotel, feeling completely safe.

We also traveled to Lake Bled, a gorgeous spot framed by mountain peaks and a hilltop castle. We walked around the lake (about 6 km) and took a boat to a small island with a historic church. We were joined there by 200 guests about to witness the marriage of two Americans, one of whose family is Slovenian. I doubt I’ll ever see a more fantastic destination wedding. 

We loved Ljubljana and Slovenia, although we weren’t there for long. We traveled next to Zagreb, a two-hour ride on FlixBus.

Zagreb is bigger, reminding us of Moldova in places with its brutalist apartments. Much more striking are its Gothic-Baroque Old Town and the grand buildings of its Lower Town, which are more Austrian and Hungarian. 

We saw the large statue of national hero Ban Josip Jelačić in the central square, with dancers beside it (top photo). We watched a canon explode at noon at Lotrščak tower and then walked inside a giant tunnel built for protection against wartime bombs.

We visited the Museum of Broken Relationships and pondered the many forms of heartbreak. 

Some sights were unexpected, such as a statue honoring the prostitutes of the city’s former red light district, which Champa is admiring in the photo, or a shop featuring Croatia as the birthplace of the men’s necktie (a dubious honor, in my opinion).

We also came across a shop selling spices and other products to the city’s growing Nepalese community, some of whom we chatted with. 

As we embark on our Balkan adventure, our initial stops in Ljubljana and Zagreb confirm something I’ve discussed previously, which is that Americans who stick to familiar destinations are missing out on some amazing places. Both cities were beautiful, fascinating and relatively inexpensive.

As Tito himself might have said, visiting them is as easy as one, two, three, and as simple as Do, Re, Mi.

Goodbye to Paper

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I can’t paper this over any longer: We’ve had reams of fun together, Paper, but now it’s over.

I used to mail about a dozen paper checks every month to pay our bills. Now several months may pass before I write even one.

My mailbox is bare except for occasional junk mail or letters. It’s no longer filled with bills, advertisements, magazines and correspondence.

My bookshelves, which once held many hundreds of books, are emptier, too. They now hold fewer than one hundred books, many of which I helped produce, received from author friends or feel an emotional attachment to. I still read extensively, as you can see in my annual “top ten” lists (such as last year’s), but I generally download books or borrow hardcovers from the library, so our shelves remain uncluttered.

Photos? Yup, those are now digital, too. I had so many photo albums that they almost reached to the ceiling if I stacked them. Then I culled and digitized them — a huge task —and moved them onto storage discs and the cloud. They’re organized in folders that enable me to find and download a desired image quickly, including from my phone. A single plastic bin, below, holds our few remaining paper photos and family mementos.

I handle my finances electronically, too, and often pay friends with Venmo and Zelle. I have paper dollars in my wallet but rarely touch them, although I often use cash abroad. My medical records are online, as are almost all of our personal records. 

Younger readers might hear all of this and respond: “Big deal, Oldster. This is how people live these days.” But it’s a huge change for people of my generation, who grew up and established habits before personal computers and the internet existed. Many of my peers still prefer paper to pixels.

Not me. I have little use for paper or snail mail. I’ve embraced the digital world — not only because it’s displacing paper options so rapidly, but because I prefer it. When I hear someone say, “I like curling up with a real book and turning the pages,” I respect their preference but still choose my Kindle, which is lighter, brighter and more comfortable. It also tracks my place in each book. I do prefer hardcovers for how they display photos and maps. As an author, I also recognize the threat this shift poses to writers and the publishing industry.

I’ve always welcomed new technology but it was my service in the Peace Corps in 2016-18 that forced me to shift completely online. When Champa and I were in Moldova, we did everything electronically, whether conducting business with our American bank, booking travel or chatting online with our family back home. We got some handouts from the Peace Corps and at our posts, but many of those were electronic, too.

After two years of living without paper, it felt normal. Ever since we returned home, it still does, and greener, too. I’m grateful to the Peace Corps for many reasons but didn’t anticipate this one.

Champa and I downsized substantially before we left for the Peace Corps, getting rid of everything except what we could fit into one upstairs storage room and the attic of our house, which we rented. We know we’ll need to downsize again whenever we finally sell our house and move to someplace smaller. Next time, though, we won’t need to get rid of so much paper. It’s already gone. 

Foreign Films, Finally

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I love both international travel and movies, so therefore I should love foreign-language films, right?

Wrong, until a few weeks ago. 

I’ve been a movie fan for as long as I can remember. One of the first articles I published, as a teenager. was an opinion piece for Newsday describing how I preferred films like The Graduate and Easy Rider that spoke to my generation.

When I got to college, I watched more movies — Deliverance, Jaws, Chinatown and others. That’s also where I began sampling foreign directors such as François Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa. As a budding cinephile, I knew I was supposed to admire their films but most of them bored me. I preferred watching Gene Hackman chase bad guys in The French Connection to a chess match with Death in a black-and-white Ingmar Bergman film I could barely understand, even with subtitles. 

I’ve watched hundreds of movies since then, almost all of them in English, with a few exceptions such as Das Boot from Germany, Life is Beautiful from Italy and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon from China. I’m not proud of this ethnocentrism, especially after studying several languages, traveling widely and serving twice in the Peace Corps, but foreign films with subtitles have felt like too much work.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve enjoyed dozens of films set in other countries, just so long as they’re in English. I’ve traveled to Italy with The Talented Mister Ripley, to India with The Namesake, to New Zealand with The Piano and to Japan with Lost in Translation. I’ll gladly watch Penélope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, just not most of her Spanish-language collaborations with Pedro Almodóvar.

Champa shares my preference. We both like dramas, comedies, musicals and other genres. Well, she dislikes action movies and we both avoid horror films. But at the end of every year, we watch as many Oscar nominees as possible, either online or at bargain matinees filled with fellow retirees who share our interest and free time. 

Recently, though, I’ve eased my aversion to foreign-language films, for two reasons.

First, I’ve gotten in the habit of using closed captioning when we watch television. I had my hearing checked and don’t need hearing aids, but I find the captions helpful. In fact, they now feel normal, whether I’m watching the news, a basketball game or, God forbid, something in another language.

Second, The New York Times recently published its ranking of the 100 best movies of the 21st century. I reviewed the list eagerly and ticked off more than 80 I’d already seen. Almost all of the remaining ones were — you guessed it — foreign films.

I’d seen their top pick, Parasite, which is in Korean, and a few other foreign films on the list, such as A Separation (in Persian), The Zone of Interest (in German) and Roma (in Spanish). The others intrigued me, though, so I resolved to change my ways and watch as many as I could. A few were online and even more were available as DVDs from my local library in Durham.

Since then, I’ve been working my way through the list and haven’t been disappointed.

The French prison film A Prophet reminded me of The Godfather, which is high praise. Sweden’s Let the Right One In was a vampire film I actually enjoyed. The Handmaiden, from South Korea, Portrait of a Lady on Fire from France and Y Tu Mamá También, from Mexico were all sexy and compelling. The Worst Person in the World, from Norway, portrayed both a single young woman and an entire generation.

I wonder whether movies will remain so popular during the next 25 years. They’re losing eyeballs to YouTube, TikTok and video games, just as newspapers gave way to smartphones and printed books are being replaced by Kindles and tablets. But that’s not my problem. Foreign films are currently thriving and I plan to keep enjoying them now that I’ve overcome my aversion to captions. 

In fact, this past weekend I went to see the new Superman film, which included scenes of his parents speaking in the language of the planet Krypton. My open-mindedness now spans the galaxies.

Most Popular Posts

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Predicting the outcome of a game or an election is child’s play compared to the uncertainty I face as a blog author. I’ve been writing this blog for a decade and still can’t predict which posts will attract the most readers. 

According to my site statistics, for example, my most successful post of the past 12 months was Stones of Remembrance, about a COVID memorial in Buenos Aires. Back in May 2024, I described the memorial, shown below, and asked why our own country has done so little to honor the million-plus Americans who died during the pandemic.

I never expected that post to build an audience over time and end up first in Google’s rankings for searches on “Argentina Covid Memorial.”

As part of this blog’s 10-year anniversary, I’m pausing my regular content to pop open the blog’s hood and share some insights about it. I’m guessing this may be especially interesting to those of you who are fellow writers, social media users or data geeks. As you’ll see, though, my guess may well be wrong.

So back to the statistics.

My second-most popular piece of the year, Amazing But False, was about tour guides in Portugal, including the one above, who kept telling me a startling story about their country’s divorce rate. I knew the story was nonsense and was amused by their obstinancy in clinging to it. On a whim, I dashed off a quick post, which now ranks higher on Google than similar stories from the BBC and elsewhere.

Third was Momos Down Under, about the delicious Nepalese dumplings we ate in Australia and New Zealand, including at the shop in Christchurch shown above. The post is Google’s top hit for “momos in Australia.” For “momos in New Zealand,” it ranks second, behind a Tripadvisor guide on the topic.

I enjoyed writing all three posts but, honestly, they meant less to me than some others, like my recent story and video about the school we helped build in Nepal. All three were just interesting things I observed while traveling.

I don’t check my traffic statistics often and haven’t discussed them here since 2017, when I reached 200 posts. I write for fun, not as a business, and have resisted inquiries about monetizing this site.

My most popular story back in 2017 remains atop my all-time list. This one isn’t a surprise. Peace Corps After 50, which I wrote while serving in Moldova, was promoted on a PBS website, above, and elsewhere. It’s been attracting views ever since, presumably from older Americans thinking about applying. Over time, it’s slipped in the Google rankings, but that’s unsurprising since Google’s algorithm favors fresher content.

Ah, the Google search engine algorithm. It’s their mysterious, ever-changing formula for ranking pages. Advertisers, political consultants and others obsess about it. I wish I still had my crack Duke University social media team available to advise me why my stories about a foreign memorial and divorce rate have done so well. Maybe it’s because they were both on niche topics where my article could stand out more than one about Middle East autocracies or even Magical Kathmandu.

Or maybe there’s another reason. If you have any insights, please share them with a comment. Don’t wait, though. Before we all know it, artificial intelligence is likely to transform the entire search engine business, which extends beyond Google.

Another measure of user interest is file downloads from a site. At the top of my site’s download list are the lyrics to Orașul Meu, the song and music video I produced with Moldovan singer Laura Bodorin. That song is still being performed in Ialoveni, the city where we created it.

Speaking of users, most of mine live in the United States, followed by Moldova, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Rounding out the top ten are Nepal, Romania, Australia, India and China. Readers in more than 150 countries have visited the site at least once.

I produce the site using the TwentyFourteen theme on WordPress.

I might now close by expressing my deep appreciation to the web designers, editors and others who work with me on the site. However, the entire operation is just me, with 384 posts so far and more to come.

Looking ahead, I hope to keep entertaining you with whatever travels, topics and musings come next, even as I acknowledge my inability to predict which posts you’ll find interesting. 

That unpredictability extends to this post. I have no idea how many people will read it. Maybe nobody. Maybe a lot. Who knows? Now that you’ve reached the end, though, I know that at least one person finished it, so maybe my odds just got a little better.

Top photo: Tram near our Airbnb in Lisbon. Photo by Karen Simon.

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Ten Years

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It’s been ten years.

One decade ago this month I walked away from a job I loved to shake up my comfortable life and try something new. 

I stepped down as the head of news and communications at Duke University, surprising my outstanding team. We’d been working together for years to respond to research discoveries, sports championships, weather emergencies, campus protests and more, as well as to the rise of social media and other dramatic changes to the media landscape. 

With Keith Lawrence at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. The photo I’m holding, signed by my colleagues, shows a sign tracking the number of days since Duke’s last scandal.

Duke sent me off with a big reception at a local theater and, as shown in the photo, an informal farewell at the Durham Bulls baseball stadium.

Less than a week later, Champa and I embarked on an 11,000-mile drive around the United States, followed by an extended trip to Nepal. That’s where the two of us met in 1977 when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, posted to the same school where she was teaching. 

Visiting the Soroca Fortress in Moldova.

Finally, after a short break, we got rid of much of our stuff, rented our house and moved to Moldova, in Eastern Europe, to begin serving together as Peace Corps Volunteers.

I chronicled our three-year adventure on this blog and in my book. Since returning to Durham in 2018, we’ve continued pursuing our “not exactly retired” lifestyle, joining a growing number of older Americans who have been redefining retirement as more than leisure — and redefining themselves in the process. 

Several news outlets profiled us as examples of this trend, which in our case has meant extensive travel, volunteering and spending time with family and a network of friends that reaches around the world.

I’ve never looked back. 

I enjoyed my career and still miss my Duke colleagues, some of whom recently lost their jobs because of federal funding cuts, but I knew it was time for a change. Just like when I graduated college and chose to backpack across Europe, Asia and Africa with a friend instead of following my classmates to graduate school, I wanted to grab life and see what else it offered.

Visiting Tallinn Town Square in Estonia.

As I’ve approached this ten-year milestone, I know how lucky I’ve been. I left my job before the Covid pandemic and current funding crisis. Champa and I finished our service in Moldova before the pandemic and war in neighboring Ukraine forced the Peace Corps to halt its operations. We’ve been fortunate with our finances, health and family responsibilities. We could have encountered some disaster while traveling abroad, or at home, but we’ve been fine.

I launched this blog to share with friends our initial drive around the United States, never expecting it to continue so long or to reach people in more than 100 countries. I’ve loved hearing from readers with questions about the Peace Corps or early retirement, or just seeking encouragement to make a leap themselves.

Some of the other older volunteers who served with us in Peace Corps Moldova.

As I’ve told them repeatedly, my message is not “join the Peace Corps!” That’s a good choice for some people but not for others, assuming they get past the rigorous application process. Rather, I’ve urged readers to be intentional about their lives, to choose instead of drift, regardless of their interests. We all have dreams, whether it’s to launch a business, start a nonprofit or master a new skill. It’s often possible to pursue that dream, even on a limited scale, while respecting the real-world complexities that come with it.

Champa and I plan to keep going as long as we can. We’re traveling more than usual now so as to remain outside the United States during its current turmoil. You’ll see soon where we’re heading next. As we approach the next election, however, and as we get older, we will reevaluate. One of the main benefits of the past ten years is how comfortable we’ve become with uncertainty and change. 

Delivering food for the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina during the pandemic.

Veering from our traditional American lives has enriched us immeasurably. These riches have come not in additional paychecks but in the people we’ve met, the places we’ve seen and the memories we’ve made, all while remaining centered with our family and friends. As we’ve learned on the road, we are far from unique in doing this. Many other older people with widely varying budgets and circumstances are also traveling off the beaten path and blazing their own trails. 

I know how privileged we are to be among them. Not everyone can do this; family obligations, finances, medical limitations and other constraints are real. But it is possible to resist letting fear or habit prevent us from living with purpose. We can choose to make room for what truly matters to us.

Visiting the new school we recently helped build in Samalbung, Nepal.

An old Peace Corps slogan says: Life is calling. How far will you go? As we wrap up our first decade of being “not exactly retired,” Champa and I are grateful for how far we’ve gone and still looking forward to whatever comes next.

Thanks for joining us on the journey.

Top photo: Resting after a camel ride in Morocco.

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Dazzling Autocracy

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Dubai and Abu Dhabi were impressive when we visited last week. Our overlap with President Trump’s trip to the region was coincidental but instructive.

Millions of people have flocked to the United Arab Emirates from around the world. They seek higher-paying jobs and better lives amid growing skylines, bustling airports, a modern metro system and luxurious shopping centers.

What they don’t find are democratic institutions. UAE’s citizens, who comprise a small percentage of the population, cannot change their government and have limited human rights.

The same is true of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which President Trump also visited last week. Thanks to their oil riches, all three nations have transformed over the past half-century from poor agrarian societies into modern global powers. Champa and I visited Qatar’s capital, Doha, two years ago, and were amazed, just as we were in the UAE.

Yet I wouldn’t want to live in any of these countries. As an American, I am unwilling to compromise my freedom to speak out, criticize the government and write an article like this one. 

I recognize my good fortune in asserting this. If I were poorer and felt no stake in the political system, my overwhelming concern might be to improve my economic situation.

The UAE exemplifies the beguiling appeal of autocracy. Its royal families can act with few constraints from courts, legislatures, reporters or protestors. They have used their extraordinary power and wealth to build schools, hospitals, roads and shopping malls, creating jobs for millions of people while enhancing their own fortunes.

You can make a similar case for China and some other nations that have prospered over the past several decades. Their leaders have immense power and can be ruthless and corrupt, but they often get things done.

In our own country, by comparison, our political system struggles to solve anything, from the price of eggs to protecting our borders. Recent successes have been limited.

It’s not just that these Mideast monarchies have so much money. Consider Bhutan, where we spent several days before flying to Dubai. It’s vastly different from the UAE — poorer, Himalayan and Buddhist. It is remote and idyllic, with a “democratic constitutional monarchy.” Yet its unelected king retains enormous influence.

Here, too, the people we met — a tiny sample — enjoy living there. Bhutan has made great strides in reducing extreme poverty. It’s currently building a “mindfulness city” that was glowingly profiled on 60 Minutes. Many of its young people have left to pursue opportunities abroad, including in the Gulf, but Bhutan has been a success story compared to many of its neighbors. We traveled there from Sri Lanka and Nepal, two fragile democracies beset by poverty and political strife.

Of course, during the past year we’ve also traveled to Portugal, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — countries with both strong democracies and healthy economies. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve visited autocracies that provide neither freedom nor prosperity. And to be clear, I am appalled by the corruption and cruelty taking hold in my own country, and by the recent attacks on science, education, diversity and other ideals central to my career.

Furthermore, I know the people I met in the UAE may have hidden what they really believe, and people everywhere are motivated by more than economics. Autocracy’s rise in our own country has many roots.

So all of this is complicated, to be sure. And, no, this trip didn’t change my mind about what I value. Yet traveling to the UAE, especially while Trump was there, made me think anew about why so many people, including fellow Americans, are willing to accept autocracy. I don’t agree with them. I think we must solve our problems ourselves, without autocrats who often make things worse. But after seeing these gleaming cities up close, I find it easier to understand why some people might make choices different from mine.

When autocracy dazzles, it’s hard to see anything else.

Rethinking Bhutan

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Bhutan has been widely hailed as the champion of “gross national happiness,” but I had my doubts.

I’ve never forgotten its mass deportation of ethnic Nepalis in the 1990s. More than 100,000 people languished for years in refugee camps. Ever since, I’ve avoided going there. Until now.

I kept hearing glowing reports from friends who visited Bhutan. There was also no denying Bhutan’s leadership in showing how a country can advance while protecting its own culture and environment.

So, this past week, I finally traveled there with Champa from Kathmandu. We arranged a quick tour with an excellent local company, visiting Thimphu, Punakha and Paro. 

And now, I have to admit it: Bhutan is pretty wonderful.

It’s like Nepal in many ways, with terraced fields and snow-capped mountains, but it’s cleaner, calmer and easier. As we drove from the airport in Paro to the capital, Thimphu, there was no trash on the road. No blaring horns. The rivers were clear. The air was pure. Everything was well-maintained. 

Many people wear Bhutan’s distinctive national dress — the kira for women and the gho for men. Every building has traditional architectural motifs. Prayer flags are everywhere. So are photos of the royal family. Bhutan’s beauty surrounds you. 

We visited many of the main tourist spots, including several dzongs, or fortified monasteries, and the breathtaking Dochula Pass, whose 108 memorial stupas frame white peaks of the Himalayas. We climbed partway up a mountain to view the Tiger’s Nest monastery, which clings to the side of a cliff (top photo).

We visited a “fertility temple” along a path whose shops feature ornamental penises. We bathed in tubs heated by hot stones, tasted the local momos and drank homemade alcohol with a Bhutanese family. 

Like I said: pretty wonderful. 

So now I’ve joined the ranks of Bhutan’s many admirers. Bhutan requires visitors to travel with a guide and imposes a hefty daily fee, so it’s more expensive than a typical trip to Nepal, which is why our own trip was short. But Bhutan is also gentler for Western visitors, especially those who haven’t experienced South Asia previously. 

Personally, I’m much more likely to return to Nepal instead of Bhutan in the future. That’s where our family is and where my heart lies. I speak Nepali and feel at home in the chaos of Kathmandu traffic and the paths of Champa’s hometown. Nepal is also a much bigger country, with a population of nearly 30 million people versus 800,000 for Bhutan. 

Yet I’m glad we finally gave Bhutan a chance and I’d recommend it to anyone wanting to explore the Himalayas. The scenery is stunning, the people are friendly and it’s fascinating to learn how this small country is charting its own development path based on gross national happiness — something we could use a lot more of ourselves back home these days. 

New School Video

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The school we helped build in Nepal is now open. (See post.) This video tells the story. Also on YouTube.

Samalbung’s New School

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The new school we’ve been helping to build in a Nepalese village has finally opened!

The local community dedicated it on April 30 in a colorful ceremony filled with dances, songs, speeches and food. We traveled there to join the celebration.

The school is more beautiful than we’d dared to dream and the community couldn’t be happier. 

The Vidhya Mandir Boarding School in the eastern village of Samalbung has 126 students, many from indigenous and marginalized groups. School fees are low and some students receive full or partial scholarships. 

The attractive two-story structure, with a lovely view of the Himalayas, is a huge improvement over the previous school, which was in terrible condition. The students now have a much brighter future. 

The two of us have spent the past year working with a team at the school to design and construct the new building. We also raised funds for the project through a GoFundMe site and direct contributions. 

We were overwhelmed by the response from family, friends, Not Exactly Retired readers, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, Friends of Nepal and others. 

Their generous contributions totaled more than $24,000, which covered a significant share of the costs. The two of us funded most of the budget. The school community prepared the site, donated money, contributed labor and supported the school in other ways, from providing wood from their trees to feeding the workers.

I’ve posted some photos here and produced a short video so you can see the new school and celebration for yourself. You can watch the video above or on YouTube.

We are grateful to everyone who opened their hearts (and wallets) to assist these young people. We extend special thanks to Santosh Khapung, Bindu Suwal, Shankar Limbu, and Pooja and Sabin Shrestha for all of their help to us during this project. 

Thank you — and enjoy the video. 

The Tea About Ilam

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Champa’s hometown of Ilam, Nepal, is bustling these days with new shops, banks, bakeries, schools, hotels and people.

But it’s still best known for tea. Lush plantations surround this town whose population now exceeds 50,000. Ilam is the heart of Nepal’s tea industry, with rolling hills, terraced plantations, and a favorable climate and soil that yield a product similar to the better-known tea of neighboring Darjeeling, India.

We traveled here several days ago, mainly to visit with family and friends. But we’ve also taken time to explore the bazaar and stroll beside the tea gardens, as you see here with our niece Mangila and some of our grandnieces and grandnephew.

After one walk, we stopped at a shop where I treated all of the kids to ice cream, something that was unavailable when I served in the Peace Corps here in the late 1970s.

There was a single bakery back then, selling only white bread. Now there are several, with display cases featuring fancy birthday cakes. This tea-growing center even has a coffee shop where you can order a cappuccino.

Something else that was unimaginable when I lived here was cheese. Now there’s a nearby cheese factory run by a Sherpa entrepreneur who learned cheese-making from Swiss experts. He makes a delicious hard cheese that we sampled and brought home to eat.

Ilam’s food scene is not the only thing that’s changed. Notably, there are now vehicles everywhere — mainly motorcycles and scooters, but also buses, jeeps, cars and auto rickshaws. I also discovered some new sights, for me at least, such as a tea garden statue honoring the Limbu ethnic group and the Bhaludhunga ecological park

At almost every turn, I’ve been reminded what a beautiful and interesting place this is. I wish more people knew about it, especially foreign visitors looking to escape Kathmandu’s craziness and discover the “real Nepal.”

Ilam is relatively easy to reach. It’s a quick flight from Kathmandu to Bhadrapur followed by a 3-4 hour jeep ride on a winding road that is in generally good condition. Good, inexpensive hotels are available. The air is clear. The view is gorgeous when there’s no fog. Monkeys await you at the temples and Ilam’s friendly people are eager to meet you, too.

You should come see for yourself, even if you’re not a tea enthusiast.

Join us on the journey.