Nepal

Nepal is the place I keep coming back to even though I grew up here — or maybe because of that. There's something about standing at Boudhanath, watching the city spread out in every direction from the stupa's white dome, that resets you. The air smells of incense and dust and something old, and the morning light turns the whole place gold before it gets busy. Bhaktapur is the same — those tiered pagodas and carved wooden lattices have been standing for centuries and they still look like they're daring the sky.

The mountains are what most people come for, and honestly, they're right to. I've been up to the Everest region and to Mustang, and both times the scale caught me off guard — the way the Himalayas just sit there, massive and white, while the valley below carries on in green and brown. The eroded canyon walls of Mustang look almost alien, all those vertical ridges carved by wind and time. And standing on the snowfield near EBC with Nuptse and Lhotse filling the whole frame behind the helicopter — that morning was so cold the inside of my nose froze, but I didn't want to leave.

Back in Kathmandu, the rhythm is different. A good espresso at a cafe in Thamel, a plate of steamed momos with that tomato-chilli dip, a full dal bhat thali with every side dish you can eat — this is how I slow down. The city has chaos and colour and contradictions, but it always feels like mine.