Adieu Maldives

It's the eve of my departure to Bangalore, in India, where I plan to take the train to the Nepalese border. I'm travelling to Nepal to trek to Mount Everest again. This time, my third visit there, I hope to climb Kala Pattar, the most popular viewing point for the world's highest mountain, and also trek to Everest Base Camp as it is the climbing season. In addition, I will try to cross the Cho La pass into Gokyo valley which has stunning lakes and also a hill from which you can see four of the world's 8,000-metre mountains. This time round, I'm going alone.

I've completed a two-month training for the trek, supervised by my friend Hussein, a former Olympic marathon runner, and his associate Zinan, a personal trainer. Being an athlethe himself, Hussein was not afraid to push me and I managed to swim and walk long lengths while keeping my heart rate in the aerobic zone, something I hadn't done before due to ignorance in these technicalities of sports science.

Zinan was my trainer in the gym. The most important thing I learnt from him was developing a core balance and strength system needed for the trek. I have a repulsion for the gym in general, but Zinan convinced me that it could help the task ahead of me. Being an advocate of functional training, or movement-based exercise, he avoided putting me on resistence machines. I am looking forward to finding out how this kind of training helps trekking, and for people interested in learning more about it I've added a link to Zinan's blog.

As well as doing the Everest trek, I hope to look up possible work contacts in Kathmandu. Having worked for more than six years in making films on social issues in the Maldives, I'm now looking to broaden my horizons by working in other parts of South Asia. A recent workshop I attended in Lahore, Pakistan, where human rights activists from the region shared their experiences, has only strengthened my desire to explore my South Asian identity.

So it's goodbye to the Maldives for a while, but I will think about my family and friends as I walk in the foothills of the Himalaya.

For Mais

Mais, the little boy in the picture, visits his granddad, who has sadly been bed-ridden for the last six months, as much as he can. Mais often wipes his face for him and gives him a much-needed cuddle, as his granddad drifts in and out of consciousness.

Mais is the son of my friend Centerey and Gamar. The photo was taken by Gamar on her mobile phone, and it's the most moving image I have seen for a long time.

Many thanks to Gamar for sharing this beautiful photo with me. I think she should take up photography!