On the 6th of January, I left Kampala to start my journey towards Democratic Republic of Congo. I took the route via Masaka. Tomorrow, the 11th of January, I am hoping to enter Congo via the border of Kasindi from the border of Uganda, Bwera. Right now I am staying with a Nepali man, Mr. Indra Bhat at Kasese, my last stop in Uganda.

Yesterday, I visited the Queen Elizabeth National Park in Kasese and thoroughly enjoyed myself! The park has one of the highest biodiversity ratings of any national parks in the world with over 500 different species of birds and about 100 mammal species. Despondently, I only got to see a few of those animals and birds because I was told that animals might not like my bicycle and might go wild if they spot me like that since it was a free park where animals roam and can just charge at me if they felt insecure and disturbed. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth National Park is the most-visited game reserve in the world with the vast number of species in that 1,978 square kilometers of land.

Besides that, I had a joyous time in Kampala, the capital city, celebrating one of world’s most loved holiday seasons, Christmas and New Year with a loving bunch of Nepali friends. Even though I am oceans apart from my family, I never felt away from my loved ones. In 2010, I celebrated the said holidays in Mexico. With all the merry makers and festival crowd, I avoid travelling. The magnitude of the merriment is not a great deal despite Ugandans being predominately Christians.

There were no lights off during the final seconds of 2011, or fireworks to compliment the jovial spirits of every one of us. We merely just counted down and screamed “Happy New Year!” which did not make the missing obvious at all, in fact more memorable and different, getting to see all the happy faces. In some ways, I like this way of bringing in the New Year with light (as we Nepali associate light with goodness) plus the poor person doing the lights does not have to miss the joy of it because he is too focused on the switch even when he does not want to.

I would like to thank Ragbubar Raj Thapa, Rakesh Prasai and Pancham Lama, also the police and army for making this party such a success. I will meet you all around the world soon. Thank you to all the Nepalese folks in Uganda who were very nice and respective to me. I appreciate everything and I wish you all the good in life. Till we meet again.