Get up, stand up

Friday, 07/12/2012 – 176 A.D.

Woke up after a good, long sleep, but still not with much of an appetite. Did a bit of research online as to what foods you should not eat when recovering from food poisoning – protein foods, no; meat, no; spicy stuff, no. Therefore the Nepali chicken was a mistake! I shall try and be more careful in future. Jeez, talk about a slow process! I’ve even had to stop boozing!

It was a new day and I was b*ggered if I was going to spend it a prisoner in the hotel room, just like the day before. I’m British, after all, with the roar of an English lion inside me (or maybe a Merseyside squeak) and I felt that getting myself outside and being shaken about in the fresh air would do me some good. And so we went to the lake.

Here it was possible to hire boats for various rates, 700 NPR giving you full use of one for the whole day. Other less robust and lazy tourists could pay a fare that included a local to do the paddling, but we were up for sticking our oars in. The early cloudy weather from first thing had cleared and the lake was now as enchanting as ever, despite the occasional bits of crap floating past.

Tim made the right choice and went at the back of the boat, which is the bit where it’s easiest to paddle with least effort. Smart fellow. I was sitting in the middle and putting my lack of skill down to the fact that I’d had three pringles to eat all day (and those were simply to help the anti-malarial go down).   

We met various other boats of people coming past, saying hello, though secretly we called them wimps for wearing lifejackets (not that we’d been offered any when we picked up our vessel!) We were also offered all kinds of illegal narcotics by local boaters, though nothing as useful as a life belt. Out in the middle of the lake was the temple pictured below, but being out of action I hadn’t been able to do my research on it and given how busy it was, we decided not to stop.

Our disembarking on the other side of the lake went pretty well, not a ten out of ten, but we got the job done and got the boat tied up. Then we left the oars with the local restaurant so that no one would steal our pride of the seas, and started up the long path to the grandly-titled World Peace Pagoda.

It was a pretty steep hike, but we did it slowly and stopped for plenty of rests and water glugs. Then we saw a sign saying that people should only go up there in a group or with a guide because there had been robberies. Hmmm. Only that morning I had been thinking that we’d encountered pretty much everything so far on this trip, except for violence (despite Tim giving me a dead arm when I get too surreal). Nor had we been mugged. However, we had both brought our multi-tools, so we were reassured sufficiently. Besides, the state of me in recovery from food poisoning is enough to scare off any would-be brigand!

We didn’t meet anyone, bar the odd fellow tourist on the way down and considerably less out of breath than us. And while we didn’t see anyone lurking in the bushes, what we did see beyond those bushes were some excellent views of the lakes and the Annapurna mountains.

The World Peace Pagoda was built in 1996. There are several routes up to it, our water-based route seemingly one of the least popular. Coming up from the other side of the mountain taxis can get 15 minutes walk from the stupa and after that it’s walking all the way. It’s great being up there in the mountains and I would have loved to have kept on along the trail and done some more exploring, but Body said no. So instead I sat down and ate an apple. I was wondering yesterday…throughout America and Australasia I was religiously on an apple a day, but when I hit Indochina they became a lot more scarce and, with so many hotels providing breakfast, I got out of the habit of eating them. Could that be the reason for me being more susceptible to the poisoning? After all, they do keep the doctor away. It is also ironic that Nepal is the only Asian country in which I did not brush my teeth using water out of the tap…and look what happened!

The hike back down the way we’d come wasn’t too much trouble, a bit heavy on the knees, but we’ve done worse in recent memory. Apart from stopping to photograph grasshoppers and a gigantic spider’s web, we didn’t need to take five and were soon back at HMS Grayboy and ready to launch her onto the ocean waves again. This time I ended up sitting at the rear of the boat (stern? Bow?) and boy was it a lot easier than before!

We took it slower on the way back across the lake and moored up without a hitch. There was time left to stroll down the main street and buy any of the 1001 trinkets that we had not yet purchased on our trip. I even bought some beads to hang around my neck, re-opening the ongoing debate as to whether they can ever look macho on a bloke. But hey, I’m a traveller (for the next two weeks at least) and it’s what we wear! I’ve stopped short at the baggy cotton pants, straw fedora and out of tune guitar. Oh, and aren’t you impressed that I got through this whole post without mentioning how much fun there is in messing about on boats?     

It may be time for some closing observations on my time in Nepal, or even to say a few things about Pokhara. Unfortunately for obvious reasons I did not get to truly experience this “small” town (the second largest city in the country!) If you come here, you tend to do two things – stay by the lake, and go trekking. We’re here in the off-season and to be honest I prefer this time as there aren’t too many tourists around and the weather is just right. It would have been nice to sit out on the balcony and watch the summer sun set with a few beers, but that’s for another visit. I’d definitely come to Pokhara again.  

As for Nepal, well, the guidebook states that if the endless powercuts and awful infrastructure are the type of thing that wind you up then you will not enjoy your time here. But if you are prepared to look on these shortcomings with a smile and a shrug, and you keep in mind that you are in a third world country, Nepal provides a vibrant and exciting cultural experience. I agree with this. The second leg may have been marred by food poisoning, and the powercuts are an absolute pain in the backside when you want to charge your netbook, but overall it’s a pretty good place to visit. Maybe fresh from home though, and not after nearly six months on the road!

The road to hell

Tuesday, 04/12/2012 – 173 A.D.

We had to get to Pokhara today. There were three ways in which we could do this:

1.      Local bus. Mobile death traps that we’d have to share with people who travel with livestock. Luggage bound to go missing. Definitely not an option.

2.      Tourist Bus. So named because tourists do tend to take it. More like a coach than a bus, but not the most modern in the world. Leaves at 7 a.m. and takes 9 hours. Probably not an option.

3.      Microbus. A Toyota Hiace minibus with about 12 seats. More modern than the above two, but the drivers have a reputation for tearing along the roads, though the vehicles at least have good brakes. Leaves every 20 minutes or until they are full. An option.

In fact, we’d decided a couple of days ago that we’d take the microbus as we’d seen them get better reviews than the other choices. And if you stay in a hotel where breakfast is provided then you want to take advantage of it, right? At breakfast this morning I decided to have the cornflakes, not just to keep the cook happy, but also because I genuinely fancied them. Tim gave them a miss. 

There was still one dilemma to be sorted - hard cash. We'd tried to get money out of a couple of ATMs the previous evening, but hadn't been able to. We put it down to the powercut. But this morning we were still not able to because the power was still off. However, Sujan seemed to think that it wasn't due to power, just that the ATM's themselves weren't working. He said he tried to get cash out the previous day and had to try three different machines. Time was running out for us and the last thing we wanted to do was go on a wild goose chase around Thamel looking for an ATM that actually worked. We had some money left, which we hoped was enough to get us to Pokhara, but if there were any unexpected "charges" along the way we'd be stuffed.

Check these bad boys out. All of the taxis here are these little Suzuki’s. I think they are the only model of car that can get along the narrow Kathmandu streets. We said goodbye to the gang at the Peak Point Hotel and got them to hail one of these. I climbed into the front seat and found the seatbelt, but it was tied in a knot. The driver looked at it and just shook his head. Naturally there were no seatbelts in the back. Then what followed was a hairy ride through streets that really should be pedestrian-only, with the driver using his horn as if a nervous habit. He must have pressed it 300 times on the 20 minute journey. 

The taxi pulled up at the bus park, which was essentially just a chaotic length of pavement to park against. Before the vehicle had even stopped moving we had people shouting through the window about where we wanted to go. “Sunauli? Sunauli?” “Pokhara.” We were pointed a few metres along the pavement, but none of the minibuses had signs next to them. The whole scene was one of shouting and pointing and engines revving. I was already starting to wonder whether I should have skipped the breakfast and gone for the Tourist Bus!

It didn’t take long for us to find a guy going to Pokhara and he quoted his price of 465 NPR each. We could only haggle him down to 450, but for a change I really didn’t feel like bartering, just wanted to get my bum on a seat. Our luggage was immediately heaved up onto the roof and we asked the guy several times if it would be strapped down. What do you think – does that look safe to you, given the disastrous state of Nepal’s highways?

The guy coming down the ladder we referred to as “Bag Man”. He works in partnership with the driver, obviously loading and unloading the luggage, but he would also spend a large amount of the trip hanging out of the window shouting, “Pokhara-Pokhara?” to anyone who might want to get on. Tim and I felt rather pleased with ourselves getting a two person seat one row in front of the back. There were only a couple more people on when we boarded, so we thought we’d done alright if the minibus pulled away shortly. Ha! Did the website not say they leave “when they’re full”? That’s exactly the case. Driver had the engine running, but he wasn’t going anywhere as Bag Man darted amongst the crowd to find more would-be passengers. When we did finally get going, we simply drove round to the next street, couldn’t find anyone there, then came back to where we’d started. About 20 minutes after we first got on, the Microbus was full and finally we could get going. Gawd knows how long they would have hung around until they'd filled the vehicle! 

The journey wasn’t actually that bad to start with, considering there were 14 blokes crammed into a minibus. The mountainous sights were spectacular and I put on my iPod to tune out, then fell asleep in the unorthodox leaning-on-hand position. Tim then fell asleep once I’d woken up and during that time I witnessed a lorry overturned onto its side, as well as one of the local buses perched halfway over the edge of a ravine. I didn’t tell him of these sights until later, and he said he’d decided not to tell me of the amount of broken crash barriers he’d seen while I’d been asleep. Driver seemed to be handling things okay, but one wrong manoeuvre over the wrong pothole and we could have been in big trouble! Listen to your iPod, James, pretend everything is fine…

A couple of hours into the drive we stopped off at the halfway house where there was the option of buying lunch, which we decided against, instead sticking with our healthy mix of biscuits, chocolate and crisps. It was a half hour break in a very dramatic spot, though naturally we had no idea where the hell we were. We were just glad to have made it that far! And it was reassuring to see that our luggage was still fixed firmly in position.

Things got a little more wacky on the second leg of the journey. Despite the bus being supposedly full, Bag Man kept on shouting, “Pokhara-Pokhara?” out of the window at every village we went through. Eventually he got some takers. But where would they sit? No problem, he either put a length of wood down across the aisle between two seats, or pulled out a stool for someone to sit on. Of course, passengers were alighting along the route, but mostly getting on. At one point there were 20 men packed into this MICRObus! And why was it just men? Were no women travelling that day? 

At one point a guy got on with some kind of traditional Nepalese instrument – a bit like a viola, but played in the same manner as a cello. He was only going to the next village along the road, but paid for his passage by standing at the front of the bus and knocking out a few traditional tunes. As far as authentic experiences go, it was great, and the tunes weren’t that bad, though they didn’t really have choruses, just sounded like the same verse repeated over and over, or maybe just improvised. Either way it was a break from the incessant local radio that Driver insisted on having on.

At another point along the way, high up in the hills, Driver stopped the bus beside a group of large fellows who were sitting at a table. One of them came over to the window to talk to him. It looked like some kind of impromptu checkpoint, which made us a little nervous. Surely this wasn’t a Maoist thing? It didn’t help that most of the other passengers were looking on with some confusion. Hmmm, was it time for some of those unexpected charges that I'd been worried about back when we couldn't get any cash out of the ATMs? Eventually Bag Man got out and handed a piece of paper over to the men at the table and that was that. As we pulled away I looked back to see that the vehicle behind us had also been stopped.

Towards the end of the ride, I started to feel a bit hot, which is unsurprising with so many bods in a smallish bus. I was also rather lethargic, which I put down to falling asleep several times. I needed to get out and move around freely! We arrived at Pokhara about six hours after setting off, including the break for lunch. That wasn’t bad and the Microbus had lived up to its reputation as the fastest public transport for crossing the Prithvi Highway, even though the distance between the two towns is only 108 miles!

We were booked into the Wild Orchid Hotel, just a couple of minutes walk outside the centre of town. After such a crazy journey it was a relief to find it was a nice place – recently-built and clean and modern. And there was a tranquillity in the air, which we got the full benefit of when we got to our room on the fourth floor. Out on the balcony we were treated to wonderful views of the surrounding hills.

Despite this amazing view, I wasn’t feeling too amazing. I was still rather warm and my fatigue wasn’t shifting. Figuring it was due to not having eaten much, I checked my email and shoved a few sweets down my throat, for sugar energy and all that. Bad, bad idea. You know that feeling when you think you’re hungry, but in effect you’re not? That was me, and soon I was starting to feel very ropey indeed. The warmth suddenly gave way to shivering as the nauseous sensation in my belly became worse. As Tim sat out on the balcony drinking in the view, I lay on the bed with the horrible sensation that there was some very bad mail on its way to me in the post.

And then it arrived.

Food poisoning, in all its terrifying glory! Did it have to happen now, so close to the end of this fantastic voyage? Oh man, it hurt! I trust I need say not too much about what I went through – if you’ve been there, you know, and if you haven’t then you’re a lucky little blighter. Time and space took on no meaning for me from that point onwards. Tim was about to go out for his tea, with no doubt at all as to whether I would be joining him. I asked him, nay begged him, to return with some more water and toilet roll. And then for the next few hours I was in that bathroom, at one point taking the duvet in with me so I could try and sleep between “moments”. Upon waking, and feeling like absolute crap, I’d purposely groan so that Tim in the next room knew I was still alive. Bless him for not putting his iPod on to drown out my wailings!

So, how did this happen? There are a couple of theories:

* Breakfast at Peak Point. I had the cornflakes, Tim didn’t. Then again, it could have been my plate of eggs, you just don’t know.

* A dodgy tub of Pringles or a bad batch of chocolate.

* Or not drying my hands when washing them at the facilities at the halfway house, then eating some of the Pringles in the bus some time later.

It’s no fun being ill when you’re abroad. You just want to be back in your own bed, not lying semi-wrapped in a duvet on the floor of a hotel bathroom. That said, if this was going to happen then I am so grateful that it happened in one of the best hotels we’ve been in! As mentioned earlier, the place is clean and modern, and the bathroom is very spacious – it has to be if I can “comfortably” lie down in it. And just imagine if I'd come down with it in the microbus with 19 other blokes? Sometimes in life you really do have to be thankful!

Anyhow, there came a point when I couldn’t go anymore, so I stumbled and shivered my way back into the bedroom and collapsed under the duvet, hoping for some kind of mercy – any kind of mercy – from the coming night…

Wednesday, 05/12/2012 – 174 A.D.

I made it through okay. I had those weird, incomprehensible dreams you get when you’re ill, but I didn’t have to get up to go back to that bathroom. I just felt knackered from lack of food, had a pounding headache and was still a bit spaced out. Plus the old guts were still churning away, but at least I didn’t feel sick anymore – thank The Road!

Tim went down for breakfast, I didn’t. I think it’s only happened once before when only one of us attended – after the infamous night out in Bangkok. Instead I had a lukewarm shower, remembering how we’d ignored the Tripadvisor comment from a former guest that there was no hot water in the shower. After that I just convalesced with the best of them. Tim found some very cheap flights from Kathmandu to Delhi, so that solved our logistical problem of how to get from Nepal to India, which was one less thing to worry about. What a star – not only did he supply me with essentials the previous evening, but he also sorted our transport headache! I quite like having him around. Plus he’s had a couple of bouts of food poisoning in his time, so he’s well aware of the score.

Another less thing to worry about was dirty clothes – I ventured outside of the room to take my laundry down to the front desk. It was a big, wide world out there! And I reckon I can get away with that being the last big wash I’ll have to do before returning to the family washing machine. Keen to see the sights, despite not having eaten anything, we ventured outside proper come 12.30, taking it very slowly. Pokhara looks a very nice place, maybe not “the most beautiful place on Earth” as some of the websites say, but it’ll sure do as somewhere to  recuperate. 

The lake was good to chill out beside, but I was still pretty knackered so headed back to the hotel and ate half of the complimentary apple. Not sure if it was low grade or the kickback from the previous night, but it tasted yucky. Still, it had to be done, despite Tim’s tale of the time he had a “double dip recession” after eating something in India when he thought he’d recovered. Fortunately I kept it down and went back to sleep as Tim went out for a wander.

I woke up in total blackness – powercut, but even the emergency lighting was out! For once I was glad – better for snoozing! Tim came back later and I decided I should make the effort to go with him to dinner, undecided on whether to have something. After two paracetemols, a dioralyte satchet, another apple and two immodiums, I was gradually getting there. Knocking back a can of Mountain Dew didn’t help though – bloated after that one! Fortunately there was chicken soup on the menu at the place we went to, that time-honoured food for sickies. I managed half a bowl, then watched Tim devour a plate of chilli chips with hot peppers, followed by a pizza.

So, bit of a crap day, but at least by the end of it I was writing the blog, which is the most important thing of all.

Unfinished monkey business

Monday, 03/12/2012 – 172 A.D.

This morning I stepped out into the corridor and asked a fellow guest for some toilet roll. I didn’t know he was a fellow guest when I asked him, but he was milling around in the corridor saying, “Good morning,” and all that, so how was I to know? I don’t think he was too offended, but he did walk away. So, we did not get our bogroll, which is lacking because the maids have not been in to clean our deluxe twin room since we’ve occupied it. At breakfast we were told that the cook was currently out of Cornflakes, but not to worry because some had been ordered and would be arriving shortly. We weren’t that hungry this morning, so weren’t really bothered. But when they arrived the staff virtually insisted that we have those damn Cornflakes, “…because they are ready.” No thank you, we are not hungry!

We have a dilemma – how we’re going to get from Nepal to India. Crossing the border isn’t a problem, we’ve got our visas, but at this stage it’s not as simple as hopping on a high speed train. For one, Nepal doesn’t have trains, and if it did, they would certainly not be high speed. And the electrics would go down at every station. We are heading to the Nepalese town of Pokhara tomorrow, and three days later we’ll be bound for Delhi. These are our Pokhara-Delhi options:

1.      Get the bus from Pokhara to Delhi. It takes 36 hours!

2.      Get a private car to take us 6 hours to the border. Cross border. Get a 3 hour “jeep” journey from the border to Gorkaphor. Take the train from Gorkaphor to Delhi, which takes about 16 hours.

3.      Return to Kathmandu and fly to Delhi.

In terms of cost, and the Grayboys ethos that you should never go back, we’re trying to ignore option 3. For obvious reasons we’re not keen on option 1. That leaves option 2, which looks like a lot of faffing about, but it’s the type of faffing that we’re used to. It would all be so much easier if everyone in the world had a personal rocket-powered backpack! But until those days come, we’re stuck with jeeps and the like. So, unfortunately we spent a lot of the morning surfing the web and trying to work out how we could pull off option 2. At some point during these proceedings the door to our room was opened by an old man holding a curtain rail. He stood there staring blankly for a few seconds as we both looked up at him, before walking away without a single word of explanation.

Next order of the day was for Tim to get on the phone to Barclays, tell them what idiots they’d been for stopping his card, and get it operational again. Our efforts to find a. a payphone, and b. someone who understood the concept of an English-speaking operator, had failed, so Our Kid bit the bullet and headed to an Internet Café where he could dial his bank on an international line. And he was able to get through and get the job done. He even made the clerk in the place write him out a receipt for his time on the phone so he could scan it in and bill it to Barclays. I suggested he add an extra nought or two to the total.

[Tim returns to the 1930s to make his call in a private wooden booth.]

Upon returning to the hotel room (power out, surprise-surprise!), the view from the balcony hit an all time low when we went out to see a guy wiping his arse in the allotment. Yet they still grow crops there! Our research had turned up an agency in Kathmandu that seemed to have an official link to the Indian Railways booking system, meaning we could go down there and book tickets on the Friday sleeper train from Gorkaphor to Delhi without running the risk of turning up on the day and finding them all gone. Remember that terrible trip we had in the overnight seats from Nanning to Guangzhou in China? We might not even get that! And so out we went, into the T-shirt weather of mid-afternoon Kathmandu in December…

…did we find the place? Did we heck! Instead we came across another travel agency in the vague vicinity of the one we wanted, so we thought we’d take our chances with them. After giving them the details of the train we wanted, they looked on the computer and told us there were no seats available. Oh dear. Now, we know that sometimes agencies only get a certain number of tickets to play with, so if they say that no tickets are available, it may just mean that they have no tickets available themselves, not that all the tickets have gone completely. But you never know, it might mean there really are no tickets, and if that’s the case then our plan for Option 2 is severely screwed. Hmmm…

We tried not to worry about that, instead continuing our long walk east across town to Pashupatinath Temple. Bikesh had told us about this place and it is one of the most significant sites dedicated to Shiva in the whole world. Upon arriving we were asked for 500 NPR to get in, which seemed a bit steep, but we had to mark this day with some kind of productive visit. So we paid, and were stopped about ten metres later saying that only Hindus cold go into the temple. I said to the guard that I could be a Hindu. He replied, “Maybe in another life”. Well what did that leave us with? A 500 NPR stroll around a courtyard? There were plenty of monkeys kicking around, but we’d already been there and done that.

[The gate at which we were turned back - yellow Hindus-only boards.] 

Just when we thought we’d been swizzed, we found a proper route through the complex, one which took us down to the banks of the Bagmati river. Once upon a time you could drink the waters of this river, coming down from mountain valleys as it does, but now it is far too polluted. We ignored “pilgrims” coming up and telling us bits of information about the place (and then asking us for money for acting as a guide) and saw what looked like two bonfires by the waterside. Not so, these were in fact the remains of bodies that had been cremated earlier in the day.

Bikesh told us that tradition states ten bodies must be burnt every day, and if they do not have ten recently-deceased people, they will use fake bodies. 

The one who was about to be lowered into the water above was definitely not fake as a zoom from Tim’s camera showed a face (the guy with his hands crossed behind his back got in the way for me!) People would come down to the edge of the water and wash their feet and hands, paying their last respects to the departed. I’m sure there was a lot more involved than simply that, but we were too far away to see up close, despite the zoom, and once again it was Hindus-only on that side of the river. Guess we should have gone with those unofficial tour guides after all!

The ceremony was taking a long time and, not knowing how long it would last, we went higher up the site. Sitting up here was a sadhu, roughly translated as a wandering holy man who has eschewed material possessions in favour of spiritual devotion. Kinda like me. Anyway, I used to joke with Asha in the office that I was a sort-of Sadhu, and it was one of my missions on this trip to have my picture taken with one. I decided I would offer him 50 NPR and see if he was up for it, but as soon as I approached he simply said, “Photo?” It’s like he knew beforehand, maybe having seen into the future! Or maybe he just has his picture taken with tourists all the time. So I gave him the 50 NPR and posed for a couple of pictures as the sadhu blessed me and wished me long life, happiness, etc. It’s funny, but I felt a strange moment of calm as I was sitting next to this guy – would his blessing change our luck on this difficult day?

After the photo the sadhu reached behind him and held out a handful of 20 cent coins (Euro). He told me to take the change in my own currency because the price for a photo was 10 NPR. Having no use for cents, I told him to keep the 50. Then I realised that I could get a photo of Tim with the guy, kind of like a buy-one-get-one-free sadhu shot. And so I did, but Tim told me that as he went to walk away the sadhu said to him that the price was 100 NPR! Why should it cost him ten times that which it cost me? Let’s just put it down to some mystical spiritual logic…or else the fact that the guy could see we were happy to pay over the odds and would chance it with Our Kid. Tim gave him 20 NPR and kept walking.   

We walked to Durbar Square, hoping to time our arrival with sunset, from which point onward the square is free to enter. And it was, yet because it was after dark it wasn’t easy to see the sights, given the lack of Kathmandu street lighting. Oh well, some things just aren’t meant to be! We entered the square via the small road known informally as Freak Street. This is where the hippies first came when they arrived here seeking enlightenment and/or cheap dope, but now there’s only a few restaurants and none of the original funky shops.

There have been many moments on this trip when I felt as if I live on Freak Street, despite technically being of no fixed abode! 

Over the hills and far away

Sunday, 02/12/2012 – 171 A.D.

Namaste!

This morning we were up at 08:00 and down for breakfast shortly afterwards. A table was free for us to sit at, but there was also a floods-worth of water on the floor, which the cleaning ladies were doing their best to brush out of the room and into the street. Had there been some kind of pipe leakage or was this just routine cleaning? We weren't sure, but the door was open again, though this time I had worn an extra layer.

Come 10:00 we were down in the lobby again and ready to get go on our day of trekking in the Kathmandu Valley! Sujan briefly introduced us to our guide (i.e. "Here is your guide." No name or anything). The driver was there as well, giving it the old bowed head greeting. Jeez, will I have to tip him as well? I hate to be cruel, but his motor was not in the best shape and did not look like it could cope with the kind of potholes you get in Kathmandu - so deep they go right to the Earth's core. Sujan had described the car that picked us up from the airport as "the worst car in the world", and assured us our own private car today would be better, but in all honesty...it weren't. 

The drive is supposed to take an hour, and it does, though 40 minutes of that is spent navigating our way out of the capital. Our guide's name is Bikesh and he makes smalltalk as we go and naturally tales of our round the world trip come out. I am ashamed to admit it, but I tell the one about the train in Thailand hitting the cow. I have that nagging feeling that anything could happen today...

So, after an hour we are out in rural Nepal. The car pulls up at the village of Sankhu, famous for nothing in particular, but a decent place to begin the trek we've booked onto. Actually, Sankhu has some excellent examples of traditional architecture and we stroll through the village to look at the buildings. With the clear blue sky overhead, I am already back on the suncream - who'd have thought I would be applying it in December?

In his leather jacket and casual shirt, Bikesh looks dressed to go to a club, in stark comparison to Tim and I in our four layers...make that three...make that two - they're rapidly coming off! Bikesh assures us he doesn't need to eat lunch and buys only a bottle of water. How tough a trek will this be? I've done overnight in the Forest of Bowland in a November frost and I need a challenge! 

The unnamed driver leaves us and we go off on foot along the dusty road. We decide to get our money's-worth and waste no time in questioning our local guide about all things Nepalese. Some of the things we learn about Bikesh are:

- Age unknown, semes to get older as the day goes on, but then again, I probably do as well! And he sweats more than I do early on, which I take as a source of pride, but it's mainly because he was on the sauce the night before, belatedly celebrating the country's second largest festival.

- He is Hindu by birth, but is an atheist by choice.

- He is a professional guide who used to be an exporter. Sorry, that's ex-porter, he didn't transport goods out of his country - geddit???

- He is of the magar caste and could've been a Gurkha if he wanted to (five of the numerous Nepalese castes can). But he didn't want to be and left the army after six months after something to do with his commanding officer ordering him to uproot a tree with his bare hands.

- He has a wife and one son who always loses his pencils in school.

- Before he had a wife and one son he went on a trek for 92 continuous days. He did this with two German men (ouch!)

Some of the things we discuss throughout the trek:

English football (of course!), Nepalese football, the price of a quarter bottle of whisky locally, Maoist revolutionaries, the assassination of the previous Nepalese royal family, why Chinese tourists are not adventurous, what religion means for the average person, why you never see cats in Kathmandu, snakes that aren't venomous, tigers that aren't fierce, gangnam style (must have been number one in the UK by now?), how to pass the time over 92 days with two German men, and cheese. 

At first the trek was pretty much what I am used to back in England. I didn't expect to be up in the mountains with crampons, but I kinda wished the scenery looked a little less like New Zealand in the warmth - been there, done that. Seeing rural Nepalese going about their daily business made it a little more authentic though. Bikesh reckoned about 25% of people in Nepal can speak English, but give it a few years and this percentage will be a lot higher. However, when walking through Thamel it seems like everyone can speak English, probably because most of them are - bloody tourists! But there were none of them out here.

[At a rest stop to nosh some choccy, Bikesh tells us of the time he chased away a tiger that was going to eat his goat by throwing his radio at it (which he never found afterwards).]

Bikesh is a cheery fellow who's done pretty much every trek you can do in the countries of Nepal and Tibet (let's not get into the debate on whether it's part of China or not!) He seemed a bit surprised that we were doing our walk so late in the day and not early in the morning when the views are better. We admitted that we fancied laying in a little and not getting up at the crack of dawn, but he still couldn't comprehend the logic. 

The road up into the hills got higher and higher, and the sun overhead got hotter and hotter. Now it was starting to feel like a proper trek, even though Bikesh kept telling us to slow down and relax. I had to explain to him that being a lanky boy I naturally walk fast, and when I'm camping up in the hills I'm often engaged in a race against the failing sunlight to pitch my tent, so it's natural for me to rush. Once again, he didn't comprehend the logic. Still, at least he seemed over his hangover. And come early afternoon we reached the summit of the road and looked out over yonder...

The mountains in the distance are the Himalayas themselves, right on the border between Nepal and Tibet. It was a fantastic sight to see, especially because I'd always wanted to visit Tibet, but been logistically denied on this trip - to get so close was a real bonus. It's the kind of sight you can stand there and talk at and not feel any embarrassment at all.  And I would have sat down and meditated for a bit, maybe even said a prayer to The Road for future safekeeping, but with Bikesh being an atheist I didn't want to make him feel uneasy. Or think of me as a nutcase - England's honour to uphold, and all that. 

After staring at our glorious view for sufficient time, we checked our watches again and realised that we were well ahead of schedule. Just nearby was a steep route up a nearby hillside that Bikesh said he had never been up, so we suggested we take it and see what was up there. It turned out to be a small temple to the Hindu deity Ganesh, presumably worshipped at by people from the local village at the bottom of the hill. I have seen many places of worship on my travels, but to find a little concealed place like this that our guide had not seen before gave me a real buzz.

A short walk away from the tiny temple we found a load of grey bunting hanging in the trees, which Bikesh said indicated a burial ground. Immediately I checked my footing in case i was walking over someone's graves, but he pointed out the small pits in the earth where bodies are burned and ashes are left. He did tell me which type of tradition this is, performed by which castes, but by this point my head's Daily Informtion Holder was full and starting to leak a little. But again I was happy to have stumbled across a sacred place so high up in the hills that was deserted and accidentally discovered by random trekkers like us. Chinese tour people would never have ventured this far up the hillside!

[Everest is not far away...]

[Back at the bottom of the hill, at a conveniently-provided resting place.]

Despite our little detour up the hill, we were still ahead of schedule and I was trying desperately to shorten my strides. One thing we discussed with Bikesh was the Moaist revolution that they had here recently. Effectively, a civil war, Moaist guerrillas waged a war of terror until the government were forced to integrate them politically, and things died down. Bikesh told us that when he would be taking people on treks he would run into Maoist soldiers everywhere and would have to pay, usually 5,000 NPR, to be allowed to go on the trek. He'd also be given some kind of badge so that he wasn't charged again at a later checkpoint.  

We made our way through the outskirts of what was effectively our final destination, the village of Nagarkot. Didn't seem like anything special, apart from the presence of lots of hotels on the top of the hill that provide spectacular views of the `Imalayas for the tourist who wants to wake up with them outside their bedroom window, just like Bikesh did when he was growing up (Everest first thing in the morning? Didn't mind if he did!) Things got a bit strange when Bikesh suggested we have some tea or coffee in one of the hotels (relax, not a scam), but instead we climbed up to the top and went and sat out on the roof. It seemed our contract with our guide was to provide us with views at sunset, which as at 17:15, but it was only quarter to 4. Although the views were indeed spectacular, was I willing to sit up on this chilly rooftop for the next hour and a half to wait for the sun to go down? No way, Limbu! Instead I told Bikesh the joke about the guy at the world cup final who has an empty seat next to him (he nearly wet himself at the punchline) and suggested we keep walking a bit longer. 

Down the hill we descended, looking for somewhere a little less expensive than the hotels in which we could drink coffee. We tried the Cafe At The End Of The Universe, but there was only a small child inside, no adults who could serve us drinks. Next along the windy road was the Chill Out Restaurant where we had three black coffees for 70 pence (altogether). This was much better than being in a stuffy hotel - chilling out in a proper locals' place and throwing a bit of trade their way. Obviously the facilities were pretty basic...

...and the toilet-cum-shed out the back left a lot to be desired...

...but that's hardcore travelling, isn't it? 

17:15 was approaching and the sun was setting. Bikesh led us past the havoc that was the locals going about their daily business in Nagarkot and up to a small hill to observe the sunset. A great end to a great day's daylight on our trek, it was pretty chilly, but also pretty cool.

It wasn't long after the sun went down that our car came to collect us - different vehicle, different driver. This car was at least a lot more modern than the last, and it coped ably with the winding roads in the pitch darkness, avoiding the fires lit by the local people by the roadside for goodness-knows-what. However, once in Kathmandu and maybe 15 minutes from our hotel, the driver pulled over due to "engine heat". So we sat there for a while as he poured in some water and gave it some revs. I decided that I wasn't going to tip Bikesh the 5 US dollars that I'd planned (supposedly the going rate), I'd instead give him the 50 yuan note I still had from China - hey, he goes to Tibet all the time so he can spend it there (he was very grateful for it). If you fancy checking out his website and going on some treks with him next time your're in these parts, check out www.tripstonepal.com

And eventually our driver got the car going going, getting back to our hotel room a little later than we thought we would, but that's not surprising. And guess what else wasn't surprising? That's right, the power was off.