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Coffee, media, cellphones, social media. All of these were readily available in Kathmandu, Chengdu, and Nangchen. Nepal grows its own espresso, and the local restaurants and cafés offered fantastic lattés and cappucinos. Likewise, it was easy to find great coffee and hang out at local cafés in Chengdu. In Nepal, I had easy access to wifi in most restaurants around Boudha and Kathmandu and in the guesthouses where I stayed, I often had more television channels than I had back home. I remember one classmate saying the 8-year-old daughter in his Tibetan host family liked to watch HBO’s racy vampire series, True Blood. Ai carumba.

In Kathmandu, I frequently ran into a trio of young Nepalis whom I jokingly dubbed the three wolves. I sometimes ate at restaurants near the Boudha stupa for lunch and supper and the restaurants with roof top seating offered amazing views of Kathmandu and the surrounding mountains. It was here I met the trio. They were handsome, talented, strikingly bright, and had a natural ease with women. They seemed to epitomize Nepal’s restless desire for freedom and modernity and its untapped human capital as Nepal wrestles with its political and social difficulties. Much of Nepal’s recent problems stem from the fall of the monarchy in the 1990’s. One of the crown princes murdered most of the royal family and political chaos ensued. Elections later brought the Maoists to power, but the country and government continued to have troubles bringing meaningful change.