I had left Kathmandu as the morning bustle was beginning to pick up, and I was in the Sinja Valley late that evening, as the moon was shining on the Tila River. The place was mostly quiet, except for the monotonous chirping of insects in the midnight twilight, where countless stars were twinkling.

But in a moment, the entire village of Okharpata gathered under the open sky and welcomed us singing Deuda.

After the fun was over, each family offered to stay. The delicious wheat bread with honey that they served us that evening had been grown in the earth's air for twice as long as in the Terai. The next day, I climbed down from the aunty's bed and climbed the stairs to the house where I was welcomed. When I stepped out into the courtyard, a living museum spread out in all four directions was before my eyes.

The people of Sinja became our new friends. In the following days, when I reached Rara via Gothijyula, Okharpata, Chuchemara Bhanjyang and Majhghatt, countless curiosities remained within me. I was with myself. In that sacred land, which is filled with nature and history, there were many things that were much larger than what curiosity could find, in which I silently enjoyed myself.

Rara Lake is truly alluring. There is no need for any debate, argument or flowerpot. However, when Sinja is omitted from the Rara journey, many issues are omitted. The culmination of nature and its struggle and harmony is seen in the Sinja Valley.

Isn't there diversity and uniqueness there? From the small seasonal systems in every corner to the landforms that have become witnesses to ancient history, anyone is fascinated. From the mythological stories connected to the Pandavas of the Mahabharata to the remains of the modern Khas civilization and the history of the Jumla kingdom, there are still remnants of it.

When Rara is seen in conjunction with Sinja, it feels like a mirror. In that entire journey, not only the forest, mountains, water and sky, but also a rare opportunity to communicate with our ancestors, our own minds, emotions and nature. Nowadays, people all over the world are attracted to meaningful journeys. Such journeys are not made to escape from life, but to connect with life more deeply. There is such a separate world around Rara.

I set out on my first trip to Jumla and Mugu before the monsoon started last year. Master-Chef Santosh Sah, journalist Manarishi Dhital and educationist-Chef Keshav Kathayat from Kalikot were my companions. It was a journey that fed the soul. For someone like me who was running away from myself in the hustle and bustle of the city, it was a place to meet myself.

Every village we passed through was beautiful in terms of scenery. There, we met many dimensions of human relationships up close. We joined local farmers and participated in planting marsi by singing songs in the fields of the valley. Those songs were sometimes exciting and sometimes also hopeful and sad. Sometimes they would include mountains of pain when the husband went abroad and sometimes they would add stories of the joy of growing apples well. It reflects what is robbing the happiness of the village for the current generation, who cannot enjoy even the great comforts of living in the city, and what has made them full.

The actual trek started from Okharpata, our first settlement. However, there were countless things that made me forget my mind in that village. It struck me that sometimes your journey is the destination. How rich and full that village is. From agriculture, herbs, costumes, food, lifestyle, the history of the village is still visible there in a lively and self-sufficient manner.

On that journey, I was struck by the fact that Rara and Sinja, despite being two names, are destinations that carry the same soul. One is a mirror of calm water, where the soul finds itself, while the other is the womb of civilization, where history reminds us. When we reach the origin of the Khas language, we keep asking everyone where we came from and where we are trying to reach. And, we ourselves are struggling to find the answer, during which you will someday reach the forest of Bhojpatra, where people used to write before paper existed and even used to make clothes from it.

The blue sky of Rara and the green valley of Jumla seem like two chapters of life. One teaches silence, the other reminds us of heritage. One purifies the soul, the other strengthens the roots. Therefore, the journey to Rara cannot be seen as just measuring distance. It is rather a practice of meeting oneself.

I was able to find a little bit of why Nepal is not just a country of mountains and lakes, but also a land of mythological stories, relationships, and rebirth. Jumla still breathes history. Where every stone, every river seems to hum the stories of the past. The birthplace of Khas civilization, the Jumla Empire, as a powerful state, had expanded from Mustang to present-day Uttarakhand. That was a time when borders were measured not only by geography but also by the depth of civilization.

Even though Nepal lost some of its former glory with the partition of 1816, the spirit of Jumla has never been lost. The real attraction there is the spirit of that history. Even in the absence of any modernity, the Jumli's courage, confidence, and prosperity are worth seeing. Let's go back to Okharpata. I still feel like I've traveled to a mythological village. The people there often don't choose modern medicine. They trust the herbs around their own yard.

The most important thing is that they know when to pick which plant, which root will soothe what pain. Will that knowledge, skill, and heritage that has been passed down through generations remain the same? While walking, I touched a black, heavy clay mine. Its weight and shape attracted me. I felt as if there was iron in the soil. A local friend, seeing my curiosity, smiled and said, "Pregnant women come here to eat this iron-rich soil." I was surprised. Its medical benefits should be evaluated differently, but I saw an amazing thing there about how the human body understands its needs by communicating with nature.

It reminded me of a documentary on the 'Animal Planet' channel, where herds of animals would walk in search of a source of salt and maintain their body balance. How did their intuitive understanding show the right direction? Because they were still closely connected to nature.

Then, on the way to Rara, you realize that humans were also like that. However, with easy access to everything, that intuition is gradually being erased from our genetic memory. Along with sensitivity, human values, culture and tradition are being lost here, which are the heartbeat of our civilization.

They are also the special elements that make tourism lively and meaningful. Yet, what people now feel is their problem, it is easy to forget when you go back to the old environment and try to understand the tolerance of their ancestors. You feel the same way while walking in Jumla and Mugu.

You are often 'zoned out' in such places. The feeling of meeting villages with ancient relics, people living in similar dwellings, walking along the river, stepping in silence, and crossing the mountain ranges was like a scene from an India Jones film series on screen. In which it kept making me feel as if I had been transported somewhere years ago, that is, it was like ‘time travel’ to return to that old time. That is why the entire Sinja is like a unique living museum.

There is no need to struggle to become a poet on the way to Rara. Be it the taste of the cold water coming out of the source or the color of the flowers there, the fragrance of the soil or the chirping of the birds! Everything only cools the mind. The most important thing is that those free, sincere smiles were so real that it seemed as if life had regained its original form. The village boys were running around on horseback without any clothes. Their haste was to make pickles by picking Himalayan khurbinda. I thought—is this poverty? We consider it like that and we try to impose on them that happiness can be bought and that modern life is progress. When we reached Rara by crossing the green path of the forest, there she was—peaceful, magnificent and eternal.

Bowing down before that grandeur, I had a hard time deciding whether the blue sky was really reflected in its water or the blue water in the sky. And I remembered Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, where my friend runs a ‘loop tour’. There, you have to pay about 40,000 Nepalese rupees in Nepali currency to ride around the lake for a while. But here, for those who have difficulty walking, there is no easy solution. The locals are sincerely planning to build a cement road. But, who will tell them that real beauty lies not in concrete but in stone?