When flying over Nepal, it's easy to soar in your imagination and pretend you're tiny—a butterfly—and drifting above one of those three-dimensional topographical maps architects use, the circling contour lines replaced by the terraced rice paddies that surround each high ridge. Nepal is a small country, and from the windows of our plane floating eastward at 12,000 feet, one can see clearly the brilliant white mirage of the high Himalayas thirty miles off the left window. Out the right window, the view is of three or four high terraced ridges giving sudden way to the plains of India beyond. There were few roads visible below, most transportation in Nepal being by foot along ancient trails that connect and bind the country together. There is also a network of dirt airstrips, which was fortunate for me, as I had no time for the two-and-a-half week trek to my destination. I was on a flight to the local airport.