My first overseas visit – lessons beyond engineering

I still remember the day I left Nepal for my first long journey abroad. It was not just a journey across countries; it felt like stepping into a completely unknown world. In 1992, I received a scholarship to undertake a postgraduate diploma in earthquake engineering in Skopje, Macedonia, then part of the former Yugoslavia. For a young engineer from Nepal, with limited exposure beyond India, this was both a proud and unsettling moment. I carried excitement, but also a quiet fear of the unknown, of unfamiliar systems, and of whether I would be able to adjust.

At that time, Yugoslavia had just fragmented into several countries, and Skopje did not yet have an international airport. Financially country was broken. My journey took me via Sofia, Bulgaria. I knew very little about Macedonia. In Nepal, there was no internet then, and information was not easily available. Everything depended on letters, fax, and occasional phone calls. I learnt little bit about Skopje from one of my seniors. Even travel arrangements were uncertain. I did not have a visa for Bulgaria or Macedonia. I only carried a wire message from the institute stating that someone would receive me in Sofia and that I would be granted a visa at the Bulgaria–Macedonia border. Looking back, it seems risky, but that was how things worked at the time.

My difficulties began as soon as I arrived in Sofia. At the immigration counter, the officer asked for my Bulgarian visa. I did not have one. Without much explanation, he took my passport and disappeared. I waited in the immigration hall for hours. Time felt heavy, and uncertainty slowly turned into anxiety. I did not know whether I would be allowed to enter, sent back, or simply left waiting indefinitely. While waiting, I met another traveller from Africa who was also going to attend the same course. To my surprise, he had been waiting since the previous night for his passport. That was a frightening thought, would I also be stuck like this?

Meanwhile, the institute staff who had come to receive us was waiting outside, puzzled that no one had come out. Somehow, he managed to enter the immigration area and sort things out. We were finally “rescued”. That moment taught me something important - when you travel far from home, not everything will be in your control. Sometimes, patience and trust are the only options.

After arriving in Skopje, I decided to explore the downtown area. It was a beautiful city, full of gardens and flowers, with the Vodno River flowing gently through its centre. Across the river was a vibrant Turkish market. Everything looked lively and well organised. But what I saw next deeply disturbed me. Well-dressed men, wearing neat three-piece suits, were begging on the streets with their hat in their hand. In Nepal, a suit was a sign of wealth and status. Only rich people could afford it, and they would never beg. Here, these men walked with dignity, and then suddenly, at street corners or near the river bridge, they would take off their hats and use them to ask for money. It was shocking. Something did not feel right. The image stayed with me and kept troubling my mind.

After a few days, I gathered the courage to ask one of my Macedonian friends about it. He explained that many of these men had bought their suits during the earlier days of Yugoslavia, when the country was economically strong. After the fragmentation, the economy collapsed, jobs were lost, and people struggled to survive. Even educated and once comfortable individuals were forced into hardship. I also learnt that the salary of the institute staff was lower than our student stipend. That realisation was deeply unsettling. Even today, after more than three decades, that image of dignity mixed with hardship still stays with me.

At the institute, I faced another kind of adjustment. This time cultural and personal. For the first time in my life, I saw young women wearing short dresses. Coming from Nepal, where modest clothing was the norm and expectations, especially for women, were quite strict, this was difficult for me to understand. What confused me even more was that these women were highly educated, pursuing master’s and PhD degrees in highly mathematical earthquake engineering. In my upbringing, modest dressing was often associated with discipline and character. Here, I was seeing something very different. It created a quiet but real moral dilemma in my mind. How could these two ideas exist together? Over time, as I interacted with people and observed more, I slowly realised that clothing has nothing to do with intelligence, capability, or dignity. But that understanding did not come immediately. It took time, reflection, and openness to accept a different perspective.

If that was one challenge, another came in a much more basic form - daily habits. We all 18 participants from 14 countries were accommodated in a nearby hotel. When I entered my room and used the toilet for the first time, I faced an unexpected problem. There was no water tap or mug. Instead, there was only toilet paper. I had heard about toilet paper from a friend from Darjeeling during my engineering studies, but I had never used it. In Nepal, we use water, and that is what I was comfortable with. I managed somehow on the first day, but I felt uncomfortable and unclean. It stayed in my mind throughout the day.

The next day, after classes, I walked around the hotel and found an empty whisky bottle in the backyard. I quietly brought it to my room, filled it with water, and finally felt relieved. It was a simple solution, but it solved my problem completely. I thought I had found a permanent answer for next three months. However, after a couple of days, the bottle disappeared. I was puzzled. I had not moved it. So, I found another bottle. That too disappeared. This became a pattern. Every one or two days, the bottle would vanish, and I had to find another one. It almost became part of my daily routine - classes during the day and “bottle hunting” in the evening.

One day, while collecting my room key at the reception, the receptionist, who had become friendly, asked me politely if he could ask a question. I agreed. He looked at me seriously and asked how I managed to drink a bottle, or at least half a bottle, of whisky every night without anyone noticing. He said he had never seen me drinking, not even wine or beer, yet the cleaners found empty bottles in my room regularly. I was completely surprised. Then he explained how the cleaners assumed I was quietly drinking every night. At that moment, everything became clear. The cleaners were simply doing their job, removing what they thought were empty bottles after a “heavy night.” We both laughed. I tried to explain my situation, which must have sounded quite unusual. That was probably the only time in my life when not drinking alcohol created confusion!

Looking back, this journey was full of learning - far beyond engineering. The dilemmas I faced about clothing and about cleaning may seem small, but at that time, they challenged my upbringing and habits. One made me question my assumptions about culture and values. The other made me realise how even basic daily practices differ across the world. Both experiences taught me humility and adaptability.

Even today, when I reflect on that first overseas visit, it brings a smile and a sense of gratitude. I went there to study earthquake engineering, but I returned with a broader understanding of people, cultures, and life itself. And perhaps most importantly, I learnt that adapting to a new world sometimes begins with very simple things, even something as small as an empty whisky bottle.