Friends Fiesta 2009

Friendship Day is internationally celebrated on the first Sunday of August every year to honour one's friends. It is celebrated in different ways, to the place and age group. In 2008, a creative group of Nepalese web designers who founded an independent group called Hamro Chautari, a unique concept to mark the special day in Kathmandu. The group has already announced that like last year, they will be organising a brand new episode of their highly acclaimed event, Friends Fiesta - a dance party.

Last week got a chance to chat with some of the members of Hamro Chautari and was instantly with them. They invited me to the upcoming event as well. Though I have never been to a dance party before, I accepted their invitation. I know I won't be dancing there, but I think I will be taking as much snapshots as I can.

A few days ago I asked Dijup Tuladhar, one of the founders of Hamro Chautari, "What is the main idea behind the dance party?" He replied, "We simply want this event to bring friends and friends of friends together at a place where they can spend some quality time and cherish the true colours of friendship. Originally, we had started this event as an informal gathering of our own circle of friends, mostly the IT professionals like Web Designers, Programmers etc. who we once used to work with. However, we have now decided to open this programme to everybody who would like to have a light-hearted session of entertainment with likeminded people."

Friends Fiesta 2009 will begin from 7 pm onwards, on August 2nd and at Club Platinum, Hotel Yak & Yeti. Take your best friend or friends to club, get indulged in the celebration with hundreds of other enthusiasts and if you want to take a step further, you can get acquainted with some of the emerging talents in the IT arena of Nepal. For further details, search for the groups "Hamro Chautari" or the event "Friends Fiesta" after logging in to Facebook, or simply visit the "Local Events" section of www.KathmanduHotel-Link.com. To try your luck, simply tune in to Hits FM 91.2 and see if you can win some free tickets to the dance party.

According to Sudish Shrestha, another founding member of the group, "Hamro Chautari is a non-profit group of IT professionals who, despite working in different companies, share the same ideals, the main being a burning desire to bring about some positive changes in the IT sector of Nepal. We organise several events and activities every year mostly on weekends so that our members get a chance to release their work stress, have ample time for rejuvenation and brainstorming. It is encouraging to see how well they get involved every time, forgetting individual differences and building respect for each other, which, we believe, is the key element for success of any sort of Social Networking."

I wish all the best to the organisers and to all the attendees, I wish a great time and lots of fun. And if you expect the event to run without any media coverage, you're utterly wrong, for there will be professional photographers (not me!) plus the TV crew of Image Channel. So rest assured, you'll get noticed! See you there.

Planning a trip to Pokhara with my kids

My last trip to Pokhara was one of my wildest escapades, a 200 km journey on bike starting off at 5:00 PM from Kathmandu. It was the 3^rd of January, 2008. I wasn't riding alone; had my colleague too. Both of us had our bags loaded with clothes and stuffs and were so heavy that it we could barely enjoy the ride. As a matter of fact, I had to discard some of my belongings and hand them over to an acquaintaince soon after exiting the valley. Due to poor visibility and several stopovers for my complaining partner, it was half past eleven at night when we reached hotel in Pokhara.

For some things, once is enough, I thought at that time. I had to ride alone all the way back home because my partner got a complimentary return flight ticket. Not counting the one and half an hour of recess I took at a point almost halfway, I arrived home in just four hours. I had left from Pokhara at 3:00 PM. I promised myself that day that I would think several times before riding such long distances on a bike in future. 200 kms in 4 hrs may sound easy enough to you unless you are familiar with the hilly terrains of Nepal.

That story is now more than 4 months old. If you're curious to know what's new, then I'm scheduled to report to the bus-stop tomorrow at 6:30 AM. Same destination. Alone? No, this time I'm taking my three dearest kids. They're the youngest three amongst my cousins. So, is it a family vacation? Not entirely, as I've got some official works to take care of. My plan's plain and simple. I'll take them for a whole day sightseeing on Saturday. I'll be visiting some of the hotels we're dealing with in the next two days. I expect my kids to go with me to all those places and to spend some time in the gardens while I finish my business indoors with the managers. They'll comply, I hope, because they're aged between eleven and fourteen years.

Have we packed up? The kids have and are already dreaming. I'll try to finish mine after publishing this very post and tucking this very computer into my bag. I had a very restless and tiring day today and now am a bit worried that I may not be able to get enough rest. To make it on time to the bus-stop, we'll have to get up at five and freshen up and dress up and make some last mintue rechecks and leave by 6:15 AM.

A note of gratitude

Over the past few weeks, I remained busy spreading the word about our newly launched portals, http://www.nepalhotel-link.com/ and http://www.kathmanduhotel-link.com/. The overall feedback was positive, if not overwhelming. Personally, I think that we're suffering from the lack of interest from our own people. The initial statistics on the traffic we're getting show that only a small part of it is generated by domestic visitors. Had it been for me, I would not have lagged behind in promoting works of others, priority definitely going to those of our countrymen. What about you? Don't you think your small contribution today can change the way tourism is done in our country? If you think it can, I hope you will pass the word around and let your friends and colleagues know about our 'Caring for Destination' initiative and other activities related to responsible tourism in collaboration with whl.travel network.

I remain thankful to the following publishers who took their time to hear us and brought our efforts to the public through their media.

Gorkhapatra/The Rising Nepal
The Himalayan Times
eTravel Board
Nepali Times
Nepal-News.org
People's Review
Yahoo! Buzz (Howang Nhu)
Mixx (Howang Nhu)

I also wish to thank all those who are not in the list above but who did care to indicate their support in their own ways, and not to miss, all of our link partners.

If you care too, don't wait to let it out. Tools are plenty, just take your pick - email, buzz, chat, blog, Twitter, SMS, MMS and so on.