In the months after receiving the funds, we spent several poorly coordinated zoom calls trying to work out some of the logistics. I say poorly coordinated because people were in various time zones and sometimes were very busy with other work that they didn’t show up to the calls. Overall, though, we managed to get some plans together. Very basic plans.
It was decided that I would travel to Nepal the beginning of December for 3 weeks. Though it wasn’t fully verbalized at the time that this is in fact a terrible time to try and collect samples in Upper Mustang. We were trying to work around schedules, and this is what we had to work with.
So, I booked my flights and a hotel in Kathmandu for the first couple days, thinking we would get the necessary permits and be off to Lo Manthang for a week and a half before coming back to Kathmandu and the lab to run the samples. These are the best laid plans and sometimes, once you arrive in country, that’s when things really get organized, and plans change. Drastically. But in my naivety, I didn’t realize what truly needed to go into getting to this region and collecting the necessary samples. But I was about to find out.