leaving Kathmandu...

Many of us make contact with our families the night before leaving Kathmandu. The trip looming so close, my call is to Ath, just to say I've arrived safely - an excuse to hear his voice. I know I can be a bit of a drama queen, but after all, on trips like these...
I feel more unsettled than ever when I get off the phone. The time-lag makes our conversation more of a frustration than a comfort... especially if it had turned out to be our last!
Luckily I've been so disorientated by the mayhem of Kathmandu that the peace of mountains seems more seductive than scary, however challenging it turns out to be...


Sitting in the back of the bus, chicaning through the Himalyan foothills, isn't the best seat for decent shots of the landscape, but nonetheless I rack up a few, and take copious notes in an interestingly jagged and uncontrolled script (I've never mastered the art of writing beautifully while moving - but then again, this particular journey was never going to be a smooth one!)

The road follows the great river cutting through these immense valleys; the Marsyangdi according to my map. Jeff tells us much later that its powers join the Ganges in India.

I find it quite bizarre, seeing billboards advertising Lifebuoy soap and Tuborg lager alongside Nepali products and signs in Sanscrit. The houses frequently double as tiny cramped shops like those we saw in Kathmandu, often with a few lifestock thrown in for good measure. What I can't quite comprehend is how, living so much as an integral part of the landscape and beside such a dusty road, people keep themselves and their vibrantly coloured clothes so fabulously clean. None of the farmers or horsy people I've come across in the UK are able to maintain such fastidiousness when in such close contact with the earth.

At the armed police checkpoints, Jeff observes that machine guns have been replaced with wooden sticks. Given the amount of damage that a judiciously aimed club can inflict, I'm not wholly reassured...

Travelling through the valleys, a bright electric blue-plumed bird sails alongside the bus - a roller bird, omen of a good journey...