Two years ago, when I was in one of my ‘I-don’t-want-to-talk-to-people’ moods, I signed myself up for a Conservation volunteering project in the mountains of Nepal. I wanted to go somewhere where there would be peace and quiet, and I could do something useful. By the time I arrived, it had been two months since the devastating earthquakes, and the monsoon season was just setting in.

It took two days to get from Kathmandu up to Ghandruk, a small village in the Annapurnas, where the project was based. The last two hours of the trip was an uphill hike following my porter, a little old lady who could have fitted into the basket she was carrying. I arrived hot and sweaty and looking forward to a hot shower and a cold drink. Until I was told that there was no power, as a monsoonal deluge had caused a landslide which had taken out the power lines. That meant cold showers and no warm drinks. It also meant there was no wifi.

My first thought was how was I going to let people know that I had arrived. My second was, ‘well, I did come here to get away from it all’. And so I did. I sent a text message to my parents and hoped that anyone else who wanted to know if I was alive would get in touch with them. And then I forgot about the outside world and got on with enjoying my mountain retreat.

For that first week, the only company I had was the three other volunteers at the lodge, our project manager Raj, his parents, who helped run the lodge, and Jamuna, a cousin of Raj’s, who cooked our meals. She had a gas cooker that she cooked on and boiled the kettle for tea, and as there was no fridge she cooked only enough for one meal at a time, no nothing was wasted. When we went out on projects – bird surveys, checking cameras etc – we took our phones, in case we got separated, but the rest of the time they stayed switched off.

At home, we played table tennis, read books, helped with the cooking, and, with some help from the others, I practised using my camera. In the evenings we played Uno by candlelight and then went to bed early. Playing table tennis was particularly amusing because the table was in such a bad state. In some places it had moss growing on it, and in others the concrete surface had chipped away, so that the ball would often veer off at a bizarre angle, either to the left or right and even once catching the edge of the table and looping all the way back over the other side and into the corn field behind us.

The funny thing was, I didn’t miss being connected or having power at all. I particularly enjoyed the evenings, eating a meal and playing cards without any phones going off or people getting distracted. Jamuna had more fun than any of us – perhaps it had been so long since anything had happened up there, or maybe she just liked Uno, but her enjoyment was contagious, and her company made all the difference. Her English wasn’t great – when we tried to explain the rules she would nod and say “Ah, ok, yes!”, play a completely wrong card, and then collapse into a fit of giggles when we told her she had to pick another one. It was peaceful, and companionable – it reminded me of family holidays when I was young when we would sit around the campfire or play cards with no phones or television to distract us. You realise how precious and important human contact is when you are 100% present and in the moment.

I found the absence of the outside world calming and liberating. I was much more aware of the environment around me, of the lush greenery flourishing in the monsoon, the sound of running water, of birds, frogs and insects that weren’t competing with phones, cars and televisions, the smell of damp earth tinged with the faint aroma of animal manure and the ever-present monsoon mists, which crept in and out of the valley, occasionally giving us spectacular views of the snow-capped Annapurnas and the mighty Machhapuchhare, also known as the Fishtail because of it’s disctintive double peak. All this I took in because I didn’t have my nose in my phone.

Isn’t it interesting what technology does to us? When we finally did get power back, the effect was remarkable. Suddenly all our phones were plugged in all the time, we were all sitting around the table with our laptops, our feet getting tangled in all the cords, uploading photos so we could show to others what we should have been looking at ourselves. Suddenly, after being perfectly happy checking my phone only once a day, I needed to have it on all the time, in case I got a message or notification.

Isnt it funny how this happens? I’m sure I’m not the only one. I even felt a bit sad about it, even as I realised it was happening. Still, I think it was good for me to learn that the world could cope without me for a few days, and it was especially nice to know that I could cope without it – beforehand, I would never have thought that I would manage so well for so long without power of any kind. I even managed the cold showers without complaint. It was just a pity we couldn’t chill the beer.