NATURALLY NEPAL- together for tourism

How come you nepali people are always smiling and so friendly, you sing and dance like crazy, though there are difficulties in life and some culture and conservative thinking still are the barriers to development?

One of my Canadian friend, Claire had asked me, when I was in India with other 3 more nepali friends in community development Training for one month among the 24 other international participants.

She again said- Yes Crazy like height of goodness. I mean you have so much life in everything you do! And you all easily adjust and befriend with others so easily and you all smile even at difficulties. I definitely want to visit Nepal once in my life looking at you people, really. –she answered it all.

I only smiled to her and said- you are always welcome Claire.

WOW, what a great opportunity to write about my country at time when we are celebrating Nepal Tourism Year 2011 and I am given chance to speak about my homeland. If you ask me to tell only 5 main things about my country then these are the things that comes first in my mind; LUMBINI, KAPILWASTU, a birthplace of Lord Budhha, JANAKPUR- first home of goddess SITA, Mt. EVEREST- the highest mountain in the world-we call it SAGARMATHA in Nepali, KATHMANDU-BHAKTAPUR-LALITPUR- cities of temples and SMILING PEOPLE- a warm welcome with ‘Atithi Devo Bhawa’ means Guests are like god.

And now I recollect my memories of experience growing up in my country. ‘Nepal is a landlocked country’, probably it is the first thing I learned in school about my country. Being the landlocked country has its own good points and bad but the neighboring country’s politics and business policy has always affected us. The second richest country in the world in water resource, we still lack right use of our resources. Nepal is the agricultural based country but we still lack modern technological farming. Nepal is divided into three regions according to its landscape, mountain, hilly and plain area.

This is the country where you will find different culture and customs in your every step. The most people are Hindu’s and rests of them are Buddhist, Christian, Muslim and others. In Hindu religion there are 33 thousand gods. Though the number of Hindu’s is higher, we have equal respect to all the religion and we get holidays in all the festivals of every religion. It is said that we have 366 festivals in 365 days that means there are so many festivals. Among them, Dashain and Tihar is the main festival we celebrate-at that time family gathers and share their time and love with each other.

There are so many options to spend the holidays in Nepal, Bungee, Trekking, Hiking, Rafting, Wall climbing, Mountain climbing/flight, jungle safari, Meditation and many more. One can find themselves very close to the nature in this country as we say-Naturally Nepal. One can find everything in Nepal they want to find in nature. I have visited many places in Nepal and these places attract me much more than highly urban area. The more I visit the more places I want to explore and I am sure you will feel the same.

People here are friendly in nature we believe that guests are god. Here the religions are very important and so is culture. Though the conservative beliefs still exist, but festivals and culture unite us strongly. The respect for other culture and celebrating it together is what influence me the most. The different outfit, different dresses, different foods, different lifestyle it is the biggest mixture of culture and biggest mixture of religion. This is what I have loved particularly about my country.

Sometimes the conservatives beliefs has made living difficult but one can easily find the encouragement and inspiration to fight these thing and go ahead with the positive and strong aspect of this country if we can really see the innocent smile and friendly nature of the people living here. So did I found the inspiration to go ahead and live life with the most varieties of the nature and people we have in our country. Natural and pure are the words which suit the most for our country Nepal. As we say – Naturally Nepal :)