Name: Rishard Bitbaba

Hometown: Tehran, Iran now lives in San Francisco, California

Where he traveled: Rishard is a well traveled guy. In the summer of 2006 he took a few months off from his job as an engineer and traveled solo through Japan, China, Nepal, India and SE Asia. (The photo to the left is of Rishard on Mt. Fuji, note the shape of the mountains shadow.)

Where our paths last crossed: Lhasa, Tibet

Rishard and I met only briefly but his enthusiasm for life and his travel stories make him a hard guy to forget. I replied to a note he had left on a travel board when I was trying to arrange a way out of Tibet (and onward to Nepal) and though are travel plans didn’t match up, we had a fine Tibetan dinner together with a group of travelers in Lhasa.

Rishard was born in Iran and grew up in there and in the US, he now works as a engineer in San Francisco. His summer trip was full of wild stories from finding himself stuck halfway up Mt. Fuji with no money and no place to stay, to being mistakenly arrested in Beijing (where he ended up getting a free police escort from the non-English speaking, embarrassed police officer onward to his intended destination), to being robbed of everything he had (passport, camera, photos, etc.) in Thailand. I admire Rishard for his sense of adventure, his energy and his desire to live life out loud.

Below is an excerpt from an email he wrote home right after his trek to Mt. Everest, and since I didn’t make it there during my time in Tibet, this is the closest you’ll get to a Mt. Everest story at noboundaries.org.

As you read, I hope you get a sense of the energy Rishard brings to his life and his travels.

Conquring Mt. Everest by Rishard Bitbaba “I roll over again to try to find a position in which the bed under me is soft enough so that my body can rest from one of the most amazing days in my life. Not a chance. The smell of the fire that has gone out over night is still in the tent, and the snoring of our driver sounds like a bear and lion fighting over the last piece of meat in the jungle.

I turn over again and realize what is keeping me up, it is not the hard bed or the cold wind, that at present is seeping under the door of the tent and finding its way into my sleeping bag and all the way down to my toes, nor is it the blue light from all the stars and the brightest moon ever coming through the piece of plastic put on top of the tent to let light in during the day. In fact, what is keeping me from closing my eyes is the excitement of my previous day, an excitement that still lingering in my mind that is stubbornly refusing to let me sleep soundly. Reliving it again and agin in my head, I get even more exited knowing where I am, and I just can’t wait to see what the next day has to bring. 

My to-do list for tomorrow goes as following, take pictures of the first light of the day on Mt. Everest, run back into the tent, order breakfast, have some Jasmine tea, and talk about our core values, what we stand for and our life missions with my tent mates…”This was a portion of my writing in my journal as I was sitting in my tent, which was warmed up by this time with the Yak dung burning in the stove as the tents canvas flaps violently fluttered against the walls of our shelter. I keep thanking all the powers that have led me there and I was thankful for this experience that I will always be able to remember if I am ever seeking a state of peace and calmness.

We got to the Everst base camp (18,500 feet above sea level) and hiked two hours to the furthest point that people are allowed to go. With a couple of short cuts, a coffee break on tops of some rocks (made with our portable stove), we made it to what was supposed to be the final viewpoint, though once there we felt a bit unimpressed. So we decide to sneak by the guards and head towards camp 1 of Everest (20,100 feet ASL) though we only got about an hour further and found the most amazing view I have ever seen (though we had to take 4-5 deep breaths with each step to get there): a pond with turquoise water and a perfectly CLEAR view of Mt. Everest. This was going to be our rest area for the day.

By this time it was noon and the sun was so strong that we could feel our skin burning though our clothes. What to do? Well obviously, strip down and jump in the water (note the picture you see below is prior to all the clothes coming off). After two hours of bathing in the sun (we had to put our clothes back on after thirty minutes since the sun was burning us up), we decided to walk back since we saw clouds headed towards us. Within a half hour we were freezing again and all our clothes, jackets, and gloves were back on. All we could say to each other, between long deep breaths, was “What a perfect day, WOW, what a perfect day.”

Manifestation, things happen for a reason, how simple and pure we were at the age of 3, what is love and how much of it do we give on a daily basis, who are we and what is our mission in life, how has traveling changed us and what can we do to have more of our friends get the experience of traveling, and where have we been and what’s next—are just some of the conversations in our Jeep ride across Tibet to Everest and finally to Nepal, which is where I am now.

All I can say, is that you need to jump on making plans to get out here as soon as possible. The humans are changing the face of the earth, and it’s not all in a good way. Come and see this world in its raw stages before hotels and resorts are set up, and humans, with no respect for the land, just leave their garbage on the face of our mother earth. My pictures may tell you a story, and some of my words may resonate with you in one way or another, but no words or pictures can simulate the experience of sitting in front of the highest point in the world. You just can’t get enough of it. The energy that you feel is life changing. The view will burn in the back of your eyes, where you can see it again each time you think of it, and the thought of it will place you back in that spot where you sat and gazed at pure beauty and the power of the world, and you become balanced and energized.

I am now in Kathmandu, Nepal, as I got here last night. I met a guy in a bar that was going river rafting and invited me to go (the river is at its biggest and best now, as the rain season is near its end. I say near its end because we got rained on all day today). So we river rafted all day, the bus ride took 7 hours (though it should have been 3), and we are planning another 3 day rafting trip next (Nepal is one of the best places in the world for white water rafting),before I am to jump into the jungle and sleep in tents so I can maybe spot a tiger (and hope fully not be his or a Rhino’s meal).

I’ll be back on email in a week, until then….

Plan your next trip. Where do you want to go? What is your dream vacation? Just think about what place you want to go. Don’t think if you can do it or not, just write down where, and how many days, and what you want to do there. What is your dream vacation. It’s not hard to do it. So many people I meet are living their second or third dream vacations. I want my friends to live that out.

Talk to you when I’m done and in India. Again, thanks for your emails and wishes. I have the same for you all.

-Rishard

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What you can do now:

• Leave a comment on Rishard’s story in the box below.
• Suggest yourself to be featured as a future noboundaries.org “Guest Traveler” by contacting us.
• Read entries from other “Guest Travelers” featured on noboundaries.org:
  • 陈峦 – Chen Luan, a friend from Shanghai on her trip to Lugu Lake in Yunan, China.
  • Nicole Bruskewitz saving turtles and backpacking the back roads of Central
    and South America for a year.
  • Davey Dance, a travel video series I guarantee will help you lose an hour of your day.
  • Brian Triplett and Denny Clark walk across America, and Brian on life in Africa on his 8 months trip around-the-world.

Guest Traveler: Rishard Bitbaba