Maldives

Flying into the Maldives, you look down from the plane and the atolls look almost fake — like someone dropped teal paint into the middle of the Indian Ocean. The water is that specific shade of blue-green that you only see in screensavers back home in Kathmandu, and then you land and it's actually real, right there under your feet.

Most of the trip was built around water. The overwater bungalows sit on stilts above a lagoon so clear you can see the coral through the floorboards. I spent one morning just lying on the deck with my feet up watching clouds roll over the bungalows — nothing urgent, nowhere to be. The stingrays in the shallows didn't care about me at all, which was both reassuring and slightly humbling. Below the surface, nurse sharks cruised slow and unbothered through schools of fish while I kicked around trying not to knock into anything.

The pace here is completely different from anywhere else I've been. Even the heron on the beach moved like it had nowhere to be. Coming from a landlocked city of mountains and fog, I wasn't prepared for how much of this place would just be open sky, flat horizon, and that constant low sound of water moving against sand.