Book excerpt: Blown Away And Back Again finds Hannah Bent dodging traffic and sadhus in Kathmandu; chatting with political exiles in Ilam; sleeping with feral dogs in India's Thar Desert (on vacation no less) and hiking up to Lo Monthang, one of Nepal's most storied and secluded villages in the Upper Mustang region. But in addition to her often unexpected exploits, this book also provides a glimpse into the everyday lives of the people and nation of Nepal, a country so far removed from the First World problems we face in America, yet on the verge of a modernization that will drastically affect the way most people live, work, and think. As Bent shows, while we may commonly think of Nepal as some sort of idyllic "Shangri La" or "lost, forgotten kingdom," the real Nepal is actually quite the opposite, although no less mystifying.