Nepal, July 14 -- Kailash Patel had waited years for this moment. Standing at the edge of the windswept tarmac in Simkot, a remote airport in northwestern Nepal, he looked tired but elated.

"After a long wait, I finally got to visit Kailash Manasarovar," said Patel, a resident of Ghatkopar, a suburb in eastern Mumbai. "It was my life's dream to visit the revered site once, and it came true."

For Indian pilgrims like Patel, the Kailash Manasarovar yatra is not just a physical journey through some of the harshest terrain on earth-it's a spiritual odyssey. Revered in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, Mount Kailash is the mythical abode of Lord Shiva. Pilgrims believe that completing the kora-a sacred 52-kilometre circuit around the mountain...