My life has been in contrast recently. Time changes everything including my physical body. I grew older everyday, the wrinkles on my face grew more noticeable, I started to feel the limitation on my movement very slowly. But my horses…. my horses and the Tien Shan mountains… they made my mind stronger. My experience travelling with the horses through the Tien Shan has really changed me. I now realized even more the true power of experience. Time will slowly decay every physical thing in this universe including the body, but experience does the opposite to the soul. Through time, the soul becomes richer when life experience registered inside the human memory, despite the decaying physical body that acts like an oxygen mask for the soul…

After the Tien Shan chapter passed into memories, I lived and breath slower for a few months taking a break, recuperate, hybernate and rejuvenate. But I was very careful in this part of my life since I know this can make me weaker. It was good to pamper myself with chilling with family and friends day and night and eat all the good food back home as much as I can. But I was very careful when sleeping on soft pillow and comfortable bed. Being too comfortable makes a man weak. So I slept on hard surface even at home, constantly making myself uncomfortable. During my few months break, I had this idea to explore the greater Himalayas. This time, I dont want to cycle along the Himalayas, but instead I want to explore the Himalayas in every detail and use bicycle as my main means of transportation.

preparing my machine for the Himalayan expedition

The Himalayas is not really a path less travelled, but I want to set foot in it and observe it from my point of view. I’m so used to the Kyrgyz way of life, the Kyrgyz in the mountains even gave me a name and call me brother. They embraced me as their own. Most even guessed wrong, they thought I’m from Osh or Batken, south of Kyrgyz rather than from Malaysia. So now I will explore the Himalayas like a Kyrgyz, but at the same time I will empty my cup and learn the ways of the Sherpas, the Ghurkas and the Indians. I will try to live in the Himalayas long enough until I understand the mountains and its people. After all its probably almost the same like in the Tien Shan, this time… its just a little higher. But after a little research, I started to see the challenges, my time will be limited by the unnecessary modern rules like visas and permits, which are really annoying and can make travelling very complicated. In some places, I even need a partner in order to get the permit to explore the area which is difficult for me since I’m only one man.

sexy mamacota!

I stared at my laptop screen very carefully, studying the Himalayas. Looking at the map, I became curious about a small Himalayan Kingdom called Bhutan. Not many people go there and its rarely heard. I discovered the country Bhutan when I was very small while playing the world map with my sisters. My fingers quickly pressed the ctrl+tab on the keyboard to open to a new window and began searching for contacts in Bhutan. Few minutes later, another new window was opened and I found myself emailing the contact person in Bhutan, introducing myself, sharing my intention and vision. Less than a day later my email was replied and it was positive. After a couple of months, we exchanged over hundreds of emails. The results… my trip to Bhutan is fully covered from the flight all the way to the cup of tea. It was fully sponsored by one of the most leading tourism company in Bhutan which is DrukAsia (www.drukasia.com), DrukAir (www.drukair.com) and Tourism Council of Bhutan. This is a very good start, even I was still in Malaysia I could already feel the warmth of the hospitality of the Bhutanese.

meeting with Cipto, the vice president of DrukAsia based in Singapore

At the end of April, I packed all my stuffs including filming equipments and my bicycle into a bus to Singapore. Stayed 4 days in Singapore with one of my cousin doing final preparation and meeting the Bhutanese representative based in Singapore… the guy that I have been exchanging hundreds of emails since the past few months. On the 28th April, I flew from Changi Airport into Paro, Bhutan. It was the most luxurious flight for me. I was given the business class seat and allowed to get inside the cockpit to film how the pilots operate the plane especially during the landing, which is one of the most dangerous and difficult airport to land in the world. It was scary but worth the experience. During the landing, the plane was flying like a paraglide, swinging here and there through big hills, before I could see the runway of Paro Airport. I took a few very deep breath once the plane successfully landed in Paro. I then descended slowly from the plane, taking another few deep breath of the fresh air in this Kingdom of Himalaya. I’m now standing in Bhutan, Land of the Thunder Dragon…

filming one of the most difficult landing in the world

these pilots are awesome

feeling so lucky to be allowed inside the cockpit to film these guys

Bhutanese schoolgirls

vege seller on the street

one of my guide in Bhutan with his aunt

typical Bhutanese houses… beautiful!

typical Bhutanese houses near Paro