We were told that the minivan would pick us up at 6:30am. We had asked the night before if 6am was too early for breakfast. The manager had assured us that was fine, just come down at 6:15am. After a pause he repeated this, but added, “maybe 6am”. On a usual day, at around 9-9:30am breakfast takes 45 minutes to be cooked and eaten, so we weren’t entirely convinced. I decided 5:50am I’d go down and get the process rolling. We woke at 5:45am after a bad nights sleep and put the last few things in the bags. We went downstairs at 5:55am and found the manager was awake and sat in the lobby. It took until 6:20am before the scrambled egg and toast was brought through. 25 minutes to make scrambled egg, toast and coffee! He then brought our cornflakes and milk. That must’ve taken about 30 seconds, why not do that first? Just as we were finishing at about 6:30am a guy came in looking for us. He said the rest of the group were eating breakfast at a nearby cafe (we hadn’t been told about breakfast) and that as we’d already eaten we’ll be picked up from the hotel once everyone had eaten. That would be at about 7am. Dammit, we could’ve slept a bit longer and not rushed our breakfast. We finished eating, got our bags and sat in the lobby reading the newspaper. At 7am two men arrived on motorbikes. They had come to collect us and take us to the cafe where the rest of the group was. We had a huge rucksack each (we bought a lot extra equipment in Nepal which we wanted for Tibet and we had souvenirs weighing quite a bit), plus a day sack to be kept with us containing money, passports, books, phones, etc. Then we had a canvas bag with bottles of water in (it was 37°c outside, sitting in a minivan all day would be hot). We were told to get on the back of the bikes with all these bags. We argued, can’t we walk? The guy responded it was a 10 minute walk, or 2 minutes on the bike. They pressured us until we agreed. Annemarie got on one bike with her rucksack and the guy rode off. I had the rucksack on my back, the day sack on my front and I wrapped the canvas straps around my hand as best I could and held on to the handle. This was the first time I’ve ever been a passenger on a motorbike (except a couple of minutes letting Annemarie ride slowly on...

Nepal has been the first country on our travels we want to return to. It wasn’t always like this with our first days in Kathmandu filled with rain and shopping. We then trekked the Langtang Valley and were underwhelmed by the vistas. But then we went to the Annapurna region. Stupendously stunning! Where else in the world can you walk without ropes to an amphitheatre of 7 and 8 thousand metre peaks? Our time walking in the Himalayas has been fantastic with Circuit being the highlight of our time here; valleys, one mile high solid stone mountains, pastures, snow, mountains, desert and rhododendron forests making each day different and memorable. Another reason we have enjoyed our time here is the people. In this case the people we met on the treks. Sitting in lodges on an evening with like-minded people was a good experience. We have met some fantastic people such as Kitty from Australia who met us in a shop in Thamel. We ended up spending the day together. Then we met Marco from Germany on the bus and we spent 11days trekking with after meeting on the bus to the start of Annapurna Circuit. We also met Madeline and Nina from Germany whilst trekking. We met Marc from the Netherlands in Manang and Aldo also from the Netherlands whilst at Annapurna base camp then again on the Circuit. Talking to different people of different ages is what makes travelling fun and interesting. The best parts of this trip have always been in situations where we have met others such as Tiger Leaping Gorge, the Thai cookery school, Elephant camp and trekking in Nepal. I have found some sites to allow us to mingle further as sharing experiences, taxis and meals with others is so good. Nepal really does stand out as the country of extremes. With high pollution and chaos in the cities there is also the beauty of the natural landscape. I sincerely hope that Nepal does all it can to keep this natural beauty and we as tourists are responsible and set an example. Returning back to Kathmandu is to return to a scene of insane confusion. Thamel is the heart of the tourist area. It’s narrow streets are lined with trekking shops, singing bowl shops and Tibetan tat shops. To get anywhere you must walk in the road, just about wide enough for two vehicles but not wide enough for vehicles plus humans. Street lights do not exist so at night you have to plunge into the traffic and hope you can cross the road without dying. Motorbikes, pedalos and cars constantly press the...

It’s been 9 days since we arrived back in Pokhara after trekking to Poon Hill and Base Camp, almost the same length of time as the trek, and we haven’t done any walking. In fact, we haven’t done anything noteworthy at all. So we decided it’s about time we stretched our legs. Especially as we start the longest and possibly the most difficult trek in a few days time. Overlooking Pokhara is the World Peace Pagoda. It sits on top of a hill which can be reached by walking around the bottom corner of Phewa Lake or by rowing across. We decided to take a rowing boat one way, climb the steps to the stupa, then walk down through the forest and back into Pokhara. This was also the first clear view we’d had of the mountains in about 3 or 4 days. The haze has gradually got worse as the temperature has climbed, but often big, white, fluffy clouds just sit on the mountains anyway. Pokhara had experienced a torrential downpour the afternoon before, 30 minutes I’d extreme rain and a massive thunderstorm. Overnight another two huge thunderstorms had rumbled through, along with a lot more rain. All that rain had emptied the clouds and reduced the humidity and removed the haze which had blocked our view for so long. As we left the hotel the air temperature was about 26° but because of the intensity of the sun it had a real feel of 33°. Hot! Getting the boat one way means we had a ‘rower woman’ to row us there and bring the boat back. This would have been great if she hadn’t nagged us quite a few times for a ‘dollar tip’. I kindly informed her that we’re British and don’t use dollars. We’d already paid 400NPR ($4/£2.40) for the boat so either she wasn’t getting a fair cut of the money, which isn’t my problem (I think that giving tips to low paid workers just exacerbates the problem and condones poor wages and treatment, anywhere in the world!), or she was getting a fair cut and just wanted more of my money. Either way, she understood what we really meant… which is more than Annemarie who was sat at the far end of the boat taking photos and didn’t understand what the woman was saying. From the shore to the stupa is about 1,000ft (330m) and is almost all steps. We’ve done this trip before, the day before we trekked to base camp, but it was about 10° cooler then. This time the heat made it a horrible experience. We were panting, dripping and...

Downstairs at 6am to meet the porter and eat breakfast. Considering that breakfast isn’t supposed to start till 7am and we had been told it would be a minimal breakfast it was good, scrambled egg, toast and jam, bacon and fried potatoes, washed down with black coffee. By 6:30am we we ready to leave the hotel. Our porter, Sumesh, had gone out and arranged a taxi while we were eating and bartered the price down for us. A handy guy! At the bus station the voucher we had had to be swapped to tickets for the bus, this was achieved effortlessly. We stood out the way and Sumesh took care of it. I’m starting to like this. Some Israeli travellers weren’t having as much luck, the ticket office had rejected their bus voucher and wouldn’t convert it into tickets for the bus. Sumesh rang the ticket company then sorted out with the ticket office to get their tickets. He also sorted their seats on the bus. Very nice of him, he didn’t have to do any of that. The bus was old but not totally dilapidated. The seats were OK and the windows had glass in. That and a working engine was good enough. We set off into the hills on a single track road. It was full of lorries and trucks and we had to stop every 30 seconds to get the two vehicles to pass, usually with only inches to spare. Even when we were moving it wasn’t at speed, probably 25kph was the fastest we went. There are many small villages hanging on to the edge of the steep valley walls and the bus kept stopping to pick up more people. There was source for about 50 people sitting and I think we had about another 20 on the roof and probably about 20 standing in the aisle. It was extremely crowded and tightly packed and the people in the middle was usually lean on the seat or hang over my seat so I’d have either sometimes arse crushing me or their arm knocking my head at every corner or bump. Personal space was an unknown concept. Then the strangest thing, this women decided to stand next to me then put her head on the top of the seat in front of me and lean over. With her body basically leaning on me and her face almost in mine she then attempted to sleep. I was crushed. She also coughed often so I probably have some horrible disease. I couldn’t get her to move, she didn’t respond to pushing, shouting or shuffling. In fact any space...