Exciting news for upcoming travel plans!

Unexpectedly, I’m heading back to Hungary for a few days mid-February. There’s a big festival in the south that’s more or less a local little Mardi Gras celebration, though locally known as Busójárás and celebrating the local town Mohács’ Ottoman-era success in retaking their town from the invaders by dressing up as demons and scaring them away. It all sounds very photogenic.

After the festival I’ll head back up to Budapest for a few photoshoots, but looking at how tight the schedule is it really feels like I’ll be there just long enough to sleep and then hop back onto a Budapest shared airport transfer and take off once again.

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Leaving there, I’ll be straight on to Nepal. I’ve got two weeks in Kathmandu to soak up all the valley has to offer; and you probably already well know that for me this means not only Durbar Square and Monkey Temple but also a lot of time looking for the best momos that Kathmandu has to offer! But as much as I love Kathmandu and the Kathmandu Valley, I’m also very much looking forward to getting OUT of the valley and into the mountains in a way that I’ve not really been able to the last few times I’ve been. I’m not totally sure of route/location yet, in part because I’m waiting for some clarity regarding the 2023 law requiring guides and how well (and where) that is being enforced, but I’ve got about two weeks set aside to get out of the city and into the mountains and I genuinely cannot wait.

As you may or may not recall from my 2019 hike of the Tamang Heritage Trail or last year’s walk of the Chepang Heritage Trail for which I posted on social but seemingly never actually published anything, there’s a really diverse and wonderful array of hiking experiences to be found in Nepal; to the point that there’s actually something of a decision paralysis sometimes as it’s hard to pin down a single best option for a given window of hiking time. But, we persist, despite the challenges we face.

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Finally, and in what seems to be turning in to a bit of a habit, back to Dubai! Given that home has so few direct flight options, Dubai remains one of the easiest short getaways and so as we’ve done several times over the past few year Gulmira will fly in to meet me for a short trip once I’m free. As always, I like to leave a little free time in Dubai to wander the old souqs (and also leave time for Gulmira to do some shopping in the malls, ahem). However, I do expect that this time we’ll get a chance to do a photo excursion that I’ve done once before very long ago and then failed to backup all the photos – it’s a high-flying experience I’m very excited to repeat, I can say. Beyond that, I’ve long wanted to spend a night in the Dubai desert in a tent camp somewhere, and it appears this may finally be the trip that we get to make that happen.

For the moment I don’t feel so fussed about settling the rest of our schedule for the United Arab Emirates, though. Dubai really is one of those cities that has so much to do that it doesn’t necessarily feel crucial to define everything in advance. At any rate we shall eat good food and enjoy the warm sun and if we have time we’ll meet up with one of our dear friends who lives in the city.

After Dubai there’s a whole separate adventure that may or may not happen – but I’ll leave that one for now until I know more for sure.