Leaving Kathmandu

I expected moving from Kathmandu to the UK for an MSc to feel like a bigger event than it actually did.

Before leaving, everything seemed to have a deadline attached to it. The visa paperwork, university documents, packing, saying goodbye to people, getting my HND certificate apostilled, and eventually the one-way flight.

For months, the whole thing was something that was going to happen.

Then suddenly it did.

I remember the excitement of finally getting on the plane, but also the strange feeling of leaving behind something that had been normal for so long. Kathmandu was home in the most ordinary sense of the word. I knew where things were, who I could call, where to eat, how long a journey would probably take if traffic decided to cooperate.

Then I landed in the UK and none of that applied anymore.

Before leaving

The funny thing about moving abroad is that the person leaving is rarely the only person preparing for it.

My family had their own list of things to worry about. Friends had their own advice. People I hadn't spoken to in a while suddenly had stories about someone they knew who had already moved abroad.

Everyone had something to say.

Take this.

Don't forget that.

Keep these documents somewhere safe.

Call when you land.

Some advice was useful.

Some of it was repeated five times by different people.

I appreciated all of it.

There was something reassuring about knowing that even though I was the one getting on the plane, I wasn't really doing it alone.

There were people helping with documents, people checking whether I had packed something important, friends making plans before I left, and family trying to make the whole thing feel a little less intimidating.

A lot of the support wasn't particularly dramatic.

Sometimes it was just someone asking, "Have you eaten?"

Sometimes it was someone helping with something I was too stressed to think about.

Sometimes it was just having someone to talk to when the whole process started feeling like too much paperwork for one person.

Looking back, those small things probably mattered more than I realised at the time.

Then I landed

The first few days felt like a strange combination of excitement and admin.

I had arrived in a new country, but there were still practical things to do.

Find the accommodation.

Figure out transport.

Get a SIM.

Buy groceries.

Work out where everything was.

Understand the university.

Find out which way the buses actually go.

It wasn't the dramatic new beginning I had imagined.

It was mostly errands.

And then, somewhere between all of that, the excitement started becoming real.

I could walk outside and realise I was actually here.

Not visiting.

Not on holiday.

Living here.

That feeling would come and go.

Sometimes I would be excited about everything that was ahead. Other times I would be standing in a supermarket looking at completely normal things and thinking about how strange it was that I was doing this several thousand miles from home.

The similarities surprised me

A lot of things were different, but people were still people.

Someone will always be late.

Someone will always know a shortcut.

Someone will always tell you about a better place to eat.

There is always someone who has figured out something you haven't.

The first people I became comfortable around in the UK made a huge difference.

Friends here helped with the things I didn't know. Where to go, what to buy, how certain things worked, which places were worth visiting, and all the small pieces of information you don't think about until you suddenly need them.

It reminded me of Kathmandu in a strange way.

Back home, there was always someone who knew someone who could help.

Here, I slowly started building that network again.

The names changed.

The accents changed.

The places changed.

The feeling didn't.

What was actually different

The biggest difference was having to make more decisions on my own.

At home, there are certain things you don't even think about because they are already part of your life. You know how things work because you've been around them for years.

Moving away removes that background knowledge.

Even small things become decisions.

Where do I go?

Who do I ask?

Is this normal?

Am I doing this correctly?

It can be tiring, but there is something useful about it too.

You become more comfortable figuring things out yourself.

You learn that most problems are not as serious as they initially feel.

You learn that getting lost isn't necessarily a disaster.

You learn to ask for help.

And probably most importantly, you learn that being independent doesn't mean doing everything alone.

The people who stayed

One thing I worried about before leaving was how distance would change relationships.

Some friendships naturally became less frequent. Everyone has their own life, their own work, their own problems.

But some people stayed surprisingly close.

A message from home can feel very different when you're far away.

Someone sending a photo of something ordinary in Kathmandu.

A family call.

A friend asking how the new place is.

Someone remembering an important date or checking whether you've settled in.

None of these things take very long.

They just remind you that leaving somewhere doesn't mean leaving everyone behind.

A year later

I think I expected the move to completely change me.

It didn't.

At least not in the dramatic way I imagined.

I'm still interested in the same things. I still spend too much time building things. I still overthink decisions. I still call home. I still miss Kathmandu.

But there are things I wouldn't have learned by staying comfortable.

I've become better at asking for help.

Better at figuring things out when nobody has the answer.

More comfortable being somewhere unfamiliar.

And more appreciative of the people who helped me get here.

The hardest part of moving wasn't getting on the plane.

It was everything around it.

The uncertainty before leaving.

The first few weeks after arriving.

The small moments where you wonder whether you made the right decision.

And then one day you realise you know the route home from university.

You know where to buy groceries.

You have people you can call.

The unfamiliar starts becoming ordinary.

That's probably the strangest part of moving abroad.

You spend so much time preparing to leave home, and then eventually you start building another version of home somewhere else.

I don't think Kathmandu became less important because I left.

If anything, distance made me appreciate it more.

And I don't think the UK replaced it either.

I'm just learning what it means to have a little bit of both with me now.