Delhi

Above: Living conditions in Delhi

Thursday 1st December 1983

Somewhere along the line in this hellish ordeal we passed into December. We rattled uncomfortably along, and I managed to doze a bit when a spare seat became vacant. The only “light in the darkness” were the tea stops during which I consumed 6 boiled eggs, 7 bananas and a whole host of monkey nuts. George polished off a similar diet as well as an omelette sandwich.

Dawn brought no relief. It remained fucking freezing and more passengers got on. We became cramped amongst vomiting kids, wailing babies, obnoxious adults and a growing pile of peanut shells and cigarette butts. With a sigh of relief we left our mobile hades and jumped onto a Delhi local bus (40 Paise) to Connaught Square.

We went into the Delhicacy and were sorry to discover that our previous good impressions of the place were illusionary. We realised why we has always had our main meals elsewhere. The choice on the menu was very limited. None-the-less, I had a splendid sweet and sour vegetable dish with rice and plenty of crunchy veg.

Next ensued a trudge to the YHA Youth Hostel at 5 Nyaya Marg. We took a “short cut” and ended up in a massive detour around the palace with its sloppy guards. We passed an Indian Navy band tuning up on the lawn and covered the last stretch to the hostel dragging our holdalls painfully.

We booked in with a mass of paperwork and were issued with sheets and pillowcases. We had used the Youth Hostel as a Post Restante address and I was delighted to get five letters and four cards from home, but George was disappointed to only get one.

I got news from my maternal grandparents (my paternal grandparents were dead by this time), my parents, my brother Nicholas, my sister Katherine, Liz Craythorne, Keith “Reggie the Dog” Nunn, and Rob Rowe from BP Research where I had been working.

I was also pleased to get one from Kerry, a girl in my Judo class, and a card from my uncle Don Vicary (mum’s brother) and his wife Auntie Barry. We read our mail over coffee in the restaurant in this most impressive youth hostel. We moved upstairs to the quiet library when a fat northern English beanbag started spouting his travel plans to a pudgy white bint.

I wrote to Rob Rowe (a fellow Research Assistant at BP Research Centre in Sunbury-upon-Thames) and George started reading “The Snow Leopard”. We hit the sack at 21:30 hrs. after another quick coffee.

Lucknow

Above: Destination Delhi

Wednesday 30th November 1983

My 25th birthday.

We were none too pleased to discover that porridge was not featured on the menu, but I settled for an omelette and George had a few Liliputian-sized jam toasts. We discovered that a coach called at the hotel at 08:30 hrs. which called at Ghorakphur, so we had coffee and waited for it to arrive.

It was a real luxury coach with leg room and a full contingent of Westerners with sunglasses and Sony Walkmans. Walkman was a brand of portable media players manufactured by Sony. The original Walkman, released in 1979, was a portable cassette player that allowed people to listen to music of their choice on the move. Its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for personal stereos of any producer or brand. By 2010, when production stopped, Sony had built about 200 million cassette-based Walkmans.

I sat next to an attractive and with warm thigh contact I fought to supress the stirring in my loins. On the journey we drove passed a man with a bear on a chain!

We made it to Ghorakphur fairly quickly, or at least it seemed so in such comfort, and headed into the Railway Booking Hall. The next train was at 13:10 hrs we were told. “Great”, we thought, unaware of the surprise in store for us. This poxy country did it again. “All Delhi trains are fully booked for ten days”, said the Reservation Clerk casually.

Pissed off, we walked to the Bus Station to be told “no buses to Delhi”, so we decided to get a bus to Lucknow and try our luck there. It was a stepping-stone on the way to Delhi and Lucknow is the capital city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and is also the administrative headquarters of the eponymous district and division.

We had a curry in the Railway Station café to cheer us up as we waited for the 13:00 hrs. bus. Our meal was only 5 Indian Rupees each, which was a pleasant surprise. We walked back to the Bus Station just in time to reserve the last two seats by me sitting on them while George battled his way to the ticket window to pay for them.

We were lucky that our seats in the back row coincided with the stairwell so we could stretch out our legs on top of our bags. This was luxury until the road started to deteriorate and the back of the bus leapt about five feet into the air with monotonous regularity.

Initially the bus was packed full and before we left we had the usual procession of beggars, hawkers and con men to add to the chaos as passengers tried to cram trunks and cases into the gaps not inhabited by humanity.

However, the bus emptied with each stop and it got quite relaxed and comfortable after we had moved forward to avoid being catapulted through the roof. We chatted through the dusk about girlfriends and “couples” at home.

We got to Lucknow at 22:00 hrs. and had ten minutes to transfer to a ropier-looking blue bus destined for Delhi. So far we had spent three hours on the Ghorakpur bus (15 Nepalese Rupees), nine hours on the Lucknow bus (31 Indian Rupees) and now we had fifteen hours of hell on this bus for the 338 miles to Delhi (61 Indian Rupees) ahead of us.

I suppose that we were lucky to get a seat on this old wreck, but we could have done without the missing window glass by our rock hard seat at the back. With as many clothes on as possible and wrapped in our sleeping sheets we shivered in the icy gale pounding us through the window cavity as we were tossed and heaved like dried peas in a tin while the coach careered along the rutted tarmac track. What a great way to celebrate my birthday!

Sunauli

Tuesday 29th November 1983

The music cassette-mending singer at the helm of the New Asia Hotel reception had assured us that the breakfast service would be in full swing at 06:00 hrs. When we came down at 06:40 hrs., however, the restaurant was bolted, and the staff were still pushing out Z’s in their cubby hole.

The new trainee reception desk man was most apologetic and nervous and did his best, but we ended up paying our bill and leaving hungry. We stopped down the road at the Holiday Hotel for porridge and eggs and despite our telling the owner that our bus was due to leave at 07:30 hrs. he was still pissing about at 07:25 hrs.

We got away and headed, hot foot, for the Bus Station arriving just in time. Our battered bus, number 107, pulled into the courtyard, swung a swift U-turn, paused and drove out again as we joined the other passengers in throwing our kit on and leaping aboard on the run.

In Britain this bus would have been considered a write-off about ten years ago, but here it was cheerfully labelled “Luxury Express” and plied a tortuous route between Pokhara and Sunauli every day. The “Express” misnomer was the best joke as it took nine hours to cover 195 kilometres at a painful crawl with abruptly short lunch and tea breaks, and ridiculously long stops for no apparent reason.

The driver must have been deaf as a post for the horn was painfully loud in the interior and he leant on it relentlessly and incessantly. Our travelling companions were a blond Danish couple (the female of which was always absent when the coach was about to depart, but the bloke looked a good sort), an Italian soapy couple (both with John Denver round glasses) and another Scandinavian wazzock who was “overlanding”.

Thus, we were well pissed off and fed up when we reached the border with India. Luckily, our crossing back into India was short and sweet with no hassles. We booked into the dormitory of the shabby six-month old Government-run Niranjana Hotel for 10 Indian Rupees each.

We hit the restaurant and were disgruntled to find that no food was served until 19:00 hrs. and it was only 17:30 hrs. George left me to read “Battle Cry” by Leon Uris and went off to buy bus tickets for Gorakhpur tomorrow. Gorakhpur is situated about 100 km from the Nepal border, and is a city along the banks of the Rapti river in the north-eastern part or the Purvanchal region of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

As souvenirs we had our trekking permits and maps acquired from the New Asia Hotel to remind us of our marvellous stay in the Kingdom of Nepal. George returned to report that there was a pay as you board bus system here so we left this for the morrow and put away an egg and vegetable curry.

The English holidaymakers at the next table soon had us writhing and cringing with their inane banter. Their podgy son hung a fag (cigarette) from his lip and the whole family pitched in with gusto when a girl joined them to discuss stomach ailments.

We moved to a café on the “no man's land” part of the border and sipped coffee. We returned to the dormitory, which we had to ourselves, to perform our ablutions. George ran through his usual two exercise routine (press ups and sit-ups) with much panting and wheezing.

Just as we were dozing off there was a knock on the door, and we had to admit two more guests. At least they got to bed with the minimum of fuss.

Machapuchare

Monday 28th November 1983

As we had breakfast, we watched a small army unit load up some porters with huge metal trunks for the uphill haul to Naundanda. We checked out and walked along the wide flat glacial valley into Hyanja, a fair-sized town.

We strolled along in the sun chatting about maps and compasses and this led on to talk of our old school days. The mountains were in clear view on our left, but the fish tail of Machapuchare was hidden now, showing only a single triangular peak.

We stopped at the Rabi Restaurant for a tea break at 09:30 hrs. From there it was a trudge along passed a huge quarry and along a track with increasing build-up of shops, houses, souvenir sellers and eventually those bloody noisy hooting cars and taxis.

We made our way back to the New Asia Hotel, recovered our stored kit safe and sound, and booked into room 216. We bought postcards and ordered a big pot of tea on the lawn, where we sat writing in the sun. Worried that the Post Office might close before we finished, we moved down there at about 14:30 hrs. to buy some stamps.

We joined the press and spent thirty minutes fighting off queue jumpers as the stamp vendor idly did sums in his book, stopping occasionally to deal out a few stamps. Eventually we were served and, as usual, we had three huge stamps to try to fit on each card without obscuring the addresses. Future advice: stick the stamps on before writing the address.

We sat on the Post Office wall to complete our cards and hand them in for posting. We then walked down to the Bus Station and were surprised to find a proper booking hall. We bought two 35 Nepalese Rupee tickets for the Pokhara to Sunali Express leaving at 07:45 hrs. tomorrow morning. Sjunali (Sunauli or Sonauli) is a dusty town on the Nepal/India border that offers little more than a bus stop, a couple of simple hotels, a few shops and a busy border post.

We wandered back munching monkey nut peanuts, shucking them from their shells, with a persistent little beggar scampering at our feet, and steamed into the shower at the hotel. Rivers of dirt ran off us and we emerged looking less tanned. The shower was cold as usual despite the “solar heating” that the reception idiot assured soapier customers was in operation.

We packed our kit and went into the slow service hotel restaurant for the usual egg curry. We read our books for a while and drank hot lemon drinks until 19:30 hrs. when we went to bed. We chatted for ages before dozing off.

Dhampus

Sunday 27th November 1983

We washed down our malaria tablets with mint tea and put away a bowl of porridge each, in the shadow of Annapurna. We were taking a weekly dose of Maloprim™ (dapsone/pyrimethamine) which was registered in Australia for malaria prophylaxis in 1979. It was phased out in 1990 after increasing resistance in malaria parasites made it ineffective. Maloprim is no longer available in Australia or the U.K.

We watched the village come to life and squatted in the crude latrine that had a classic view of the Himalayas. We waited for the Kraut to get ahead and settled our bill, getting a free hot lemon drink in the process. We then headed down the extremely steep valley side, going adrift once by following a path which followed the valley side like a contour line.

Our mornings walk from 09:00 to 12:00 hrs. consisted of crossing the colossal Modi River Valley. This was cultivated in stepped shelves or terraces running along the steep valley sides. Farmers battled to shoo water buffalo from their fields as we passed while others spread and dried the dung.

The bulk of the walk was taken up by the conception of “Swagman Tours”, our own trekking company. We discussed initially setting up guided Nepal holidays for soaps and our imagination and enthusiasm was fired. Future plans took shape, plans which we must definitely pursue on our return to the U.K. (we didn't!).

We paused at Ram Lodge to put pen to paper and take a couple of teas on board. Unfortunately, Joe Kraut caught up with us at this point (we had overtaken him earlier). We hit the road on another steep uphill haul through the woods and over the watershed.

From here it was down again along pleasant, wooded trails and broken rocky steps. We had our final tea stop before continuing along to Dhampus. This looked like a lovely village, full of colour but we decided to carry on to Suiket.

The trail weaved and split many times and at one T-Junction we took the wrong track. We’d been led to believe, by a porter carrying buffalo fodder, that Suiket was high on the hillside that we were following. Therefore, we were appalled to see the path plummet in a steep set of winding stairs to the flat valley bottom far below.

We struck out on a lesser path that appeared to be going in the direction that we thought we ought to be going in. Five minutes later we met a local who indicated our error and bid us follow as he danced sprightly back up the hillside. His nimble sure-footedness was amazing as he led us back to the T-Junction and he put us right.

We then had a short period of knee-jarring downward galumphing following a newly laid rocky stairway. With relief we emerged onto a wide sandy valley bottom with a tiny stream running along it’s left side. We walked along this “desert” expecting to have to climb again to reach Suiket.

We made our way to a collection of huts on the right side to ask directions and, to our delight, this turned out to be Suiket. We booked into the poshest looking lodge, the Shanti Hotel, at 17:00 hrs. Donkeys roamed the plain while the locals gathered, chatting and bargaining, near the old army jeeps that shuttled back and forth to Pokhara.

With an egg curry under our belts followed by a porridge for George (now his staple diet) and a rice pudding for me. We set contentedly in the brightly pressure-lamp (paraffin lamp) lit dining room. A marvellous week had passed with awesome scenery, integration into the environment and no end of surprises around every turn in the trail.

There was different terrain, different scenery, new villages and hamlets. Just as you thought that you had seen it all, something new would occur to keep your attention. We’d done the best by travelling light and we had enjoyed a natural rugged existence virtually free from the trappings of civilisation. This area was only accessible on foot or by beasts of burden, no motor vehicles could negotiate the terrain. Only helicopters could venture into the mountains for emergencies.

We read our books and polished off a bottle of raksi as the hotel boy went through his Bruce Lee martial arts routine. George began to deface the cartoons in the “Work your way around the World” book and I got on with “The Enemy” by Desmond Bagley.

We turned in at 21:00 hrs. as the dining room was also the lady’s bedroom and the local girls were standing about waiting for us to piss off so that they could go to bed. We crept cautiously up the rickety stairs and took the four-bed dormitory as our previously allocated double room was now occupied. The way to the toilet was long and complicated, passing through pitch dark storerooms and around rooms that had been securely barred for the night.

I found this out the hard way and gave up half-way, returning to piss out of the window of our room into a grubby alley that ran along the side of the hotel. It was warmer at this lower altitude, so we took our boots off! We soon fell asleep on our table-like beds dreaming of wedding feasts to come when we got back to England.

Ghandruk

Saturday 26th November 1983

A frost had descended in the night and we lay huddled under our quilts watching the vapour from our breaths. As we waited for our proprietor to get the fire going, we had breakfast, shook hands with our host, and struck off up an ill-defined trail.

We gained altitude quickly and followed a wooded ridge to Deurali. The base camp of Mount Machapuchare is situated at a 6 hours uphill trek from this village. Being the furthest human-settled village en route to the Machapuchare base camp, Deurali falls in an avalanche-prone region with the most recent incident of human casualty reported on January 17, 2020.

The Annapurna’s seemed almost touchable on our left, gleaming whitely in the early morning sun like a washing powder commercial. They were too dazzling to look at for long. Our “companions” on the road were an American who boasted of incredible “24-mile walks through The Rockies”, and his bird, plus the soapy couple who were robbed at Lahore.

We paused for hot lemon drinks at the Deurali Lodge before pursuing these wretches and their porters down the trail. The path followed a deep gorge carved by a rushing mountain stream. At times we negotiated perilous, almost vertical bits where we had to clamber down wet, slippery steps. Sunlight filtered through the trees and the roar and tumult of the river was ever present.

Occasionally the sun shafted directly down between the gorge walls to form a warm, well lit section. The soap that was robbed in Lahore had dropped his favourite hat on the trail and was delighted when I returned it to him.

We emerged from the shadows to a sunlit oasis with four tea huts/lodges. We sipped tea and the old Ghurkha in charge told us that we were only two and a half hours from Ghandruck, our projected nights halt. We tarried beneath a huge cliff in the settlement of Banthati as the lairy boys came in one after another. Banthanti (3180 metres) means jungle resting stop.

They gathered at a table, lost despite all their maps and guidebooks, and we listened to their chatter. “Where have you been”? “Where ya going to”? “How long does it take to get to . . . “? “Is it hard/uphill/easy/downhill”? etc. combined with the usual “I’ve been here, I’ve been there” boasts.

We wasted some time here before setting out on a long downhill haul through clumps of bamboo and thick woods. Along the trail we were both lost in thought. I decided that I might like to learn Chinese, what with this colossal country opening up to the West.

We reached the nadir of this track and found Fatty the Yank, veteran of many a Rocky Mountain expedition sitting dejectedly by a stream. He was worried about the porter who had remained behind at the Banthati Lodges with his mammoth backpack. We left him to fret in our wake and began to saunter upwards along a cool, damp channel through the forest.

The peace and tranquillity was shattered as we broached the top of a hill by a party of gaily coloured Yanks singing “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go”, as they skipped out of Tadipani on the wrong track. Tadapani (2630 metres) is the main stopping point for trekkers between Ghorepani and Chhomrong. The trail opens up here and when the skies are clear the views of Annapurna South and Fish Tail are Fantastic.

We stepped up onto the sunny forecourt of the hotel view top (another ex-Ghurkha job) and had a tea break while clouds drifted across the Fish Tail mountain, the only clouds visible in an intense blue sky. It was now 14:00 hrs., one hour and twenty minutes since we left the last lodge. We followed a wooded trail along a reasonably level stretch before plummeting once again and arriving at another lodge.

Here George dozed in the sun while I read my book for a while. From here it was a relaxing “English Country Walk” down to the bustling heritage village of Ghandruk, with its a relatively prosperous Gurung population. We were led to believe that staying in Ghandruk is a wonderful experience, as the village has a friendly vibe to it and offers amazing views of Himalayan giants Annapurna, Hiunchuli and Machapuchare (Fishtail). We arrived in the village at 17:00 hrs.

The trail passed through familiar looking woods, bracken and countryside and the peaks of the Himalayas just peeked over the rim of the nearer hills. Faint farmyard noises drifted up from the valley; the lowing of cattle and the crowing of a cockerel. The sun was behind the hills thus creating a false dusk.

We strolled along, each in his own mental world, as the track was not arduous enough to warrant paying much attention to the track. We came down into Ghandruk and plumped for the Gorkhali Lodge, rather than the more popular Himalayan Lodge, after a fruitless search for a more remote abode.

The village looks like an English one from the Middle Ages with slate roofs, flagstone paving and stone walls. Todays walk was very enjoyable in a tranquil way. According to the guidebooks, for todays walk a guide was essential, but we proved this to be not the case. For these treks all one requires is what you’d stand up in on a cold night and some shorts. We carried all our stuff in shoulder tote bags bought from the local market.

We went into the dining room, a mud-walled cave, to eat our solid vegetable noodle soup. We were joined by an unemployed Kraut (German) who peeled his boiled potatoes as numerous Nepali folk scrobbled about in the shadows around us. Granny turned in on her wooden bed and the children came to stare at us and give renditions of Nepali pop songs.

A little boy with a mans face stared stonily at us from beneath his coloured hat. His purple smeared face (probably iodine) only cracked into a grin when his brother started to manhandle him about. We steamed into the raksi, which was a nicer, sweeter version, and chatted with the Ausberg lad about his lack of job prospects in Germany.

When all the family had gone to bed we moved out to our room in the “barn”. We settled on the uneven, ungiving straw palliasses in compartment 4 and blew out the rum bottle candles. We fell asleep fully-clothed and tightly wrapped in a thin quilt to stave off the cold.

An early morning peep at the night sky revealed a very bright decapitated moon and the usual myriad of stars in vivid clarity.

Poon Hill

Above: Sunset over the Annapurna Mountain range viewed from Poon Hill

Friday 25th November 1983

We had our usual breakfast of porridge before setting off at 08:00 hrs. We wended our way along a winding, undulating mountain track by the side of a fair-sized river cascading downhill, in the opposite direction to our travel.

The path was thick with the usual donkey trains and locals with colossal packs on their bowed backs. We passed a cavalcade of elderly Scandinavians going towards Birethanti, but thankfully, we saw no other Westerners.

At one point we encountered a pair of obnoxious beggars as we came down to follow the riverbed into Baajgara where we stopped for tea. The next stretch took us further along the valley and predominantly went upwards. We overtook many familiar soaps who seemed “all in” (exhausted). We came to a small settlement and crossed a crude hanging bridge where the path began to ascend very steeply.

Then followed an arduous slog up a never-ending Jacobs’ Ladder of rocky steps. We climbed about 3,000 feet without pausing and overtook two Reinhold Messner look-alikes in the process. Reinhold Andreas Messner (born 17 September 1944) is an Italian mountaineer, explorer, and author. He made the first solo ascent of Mount Everest and, along with Peter Habeler, the first ascent of Everest without supplemental oxygen.

It was by far the hardest bit so far, each bend revealing a further flight of steep uneven steps. Eventually we staggered around a bend into Ulleri and a much welcome tea shop. Ulleri (2020 metres) is a stopping point located about 400 metres above the Bhurundi Khola. The village offers trekkers the first views or last views, depending on direction, of Annapurna South.

We stumbled onto the benches and replaced our sweat with tea and sundries. Prices increase with altitude here and George ran up a 16 Nepalese Rupee bill with Coca Cola and biscuits. Mine was only 6 Rs. as I stuck to tea. Little kids crammed rice and revolting lumps of gristle into their maws, which mingled with the snot running from their noses. Charming!

We set off again up a gentler uphill slope unhindered by donkey trains and children asking for pens along the route. “Nameste pen”, they chanted, holding out their grubby little paws. Namaste is used as a respectful form of greeting, acknowledging, and welcoming a relative, guest or stranger.

We passed several cafes run by ex-British Army Ghurkhas. One, an ex-para (Parachute Regiment) run joint, sported a picture of troops being despatched by parachute from a C-130 Hercules aircraft. At 12:30 hrs. we came into another small settlement and decided that a tea break wouldn’t go amiss, as again, we were well ahead of our projected schedule.

Coming up the steps the fish tail mountain and another pure white peak had crept into view above the nearer wooded hills. We supped our tea as donkeys and porters continued to pass and a couple of local blokes in British Army tropical camouflage appeared, evidently Ghurkhas.

The next stage was a rocky undulating path through the bush. A river carved a deep valley through the wooded slopes, dropping in waterfalls that formed clear, inviting pools. The track crossed and recrossed the stream on several simple bridges. It was nice to see quite a few elderly couples on the trail as well as porters, many of whom were carrying crates of soft drinks.

We came out of the shadow of the woods and stopped again for tea. We made our last push up through the woods again and gained Ghorepani at 9,300 feet in an hour. The place used to be a rest stop where ancient traders found water (pani in Nepali) for their horses (ghora in Nepali), thus leading to the nomenclature Ghorepani.

We booked into Holiday Lodge which boasted a fire and a hot bath (open air tub). We steamed in for 2 Nepalese Rupees a bed and chatted to the ex-British Army Ghurkha proprietor as he cooked our lunch on an open fire.

We were delighted by the rugged simplicity of the lodge with it’s open cooking fire. Our host kicked out the chickens as we put away eggs and vegetable fried rice with tomato sauce, followed by rice pudding for dessert, washed down with raksi rice wine.

From the lodge we set off on an abortive climb up the Jomsom Trail, mistakenly thinking that it was the track to Poon Hill. On the way back we discovered the correct track and struck out for the summit. Poon Hill पून हिल is a unique Hill station overlooking the Annapurna Massif range and Dhaulagiri mountain range, located on border of Myagdi District and Kaski District in Gandaki Pradesh of Nepal. This lookout is the key viewpoint in the Ghorepani Poon Hill trek, and observes beautiful mountain peaks, fog and valleys.

We battled, laboured, and panted in the rarefied air as we fought our way up passed the 10,000 Foot mark. There was a tower on top (3,210 metres or 10,530 feet) which we clambered up to. It already contained two Yanks and two Germans who were snapping away wildly in order to record the sunset for posterity.

Dhaulagiri (26,795 feet), The Annapurna Range (Annapurna I is 26,545 feet) and Machhapuchhare (22,942 feet) were splendidly visible as the setting sun threw coloured shadows on their white faces. We clambered back down in near pitch darkness and installed ourselves around the tin fire in the lodge dormitory.

In the dim smoky interior a few of the local lads lit up fags, flourishing them with bravado and began to play cards while George and I made a determined assault on the owners raksi stock. We got quite merry on the stuff and wished that all of the Hounslow Swagmen were here with us to share the moment. The rice spirit tasted like diluted whisky and had the same effect, aided by the high altitude.

An excellent day, and one for the Swagman annals. We bedded down near the fire under two quilts each as the biting cold crept into the valley. A pre-bed piss in the outdoor toilet revealed a spectacular night sky with probably every star and galaxy visible.

Birethanti

Thursday 24th November 1983

We were up early for a good breakfast and away up the hill towards Lumle (pronounced like Lumley with a Northern English accent). We made good time and stopped for a cuppa at Khanre in the company of a lad from Hong Kong. He did not seem concerned that he would become a Chinese citizen in 1997 and bid us visit Hong Kong and China.

We continued along the ridge high above the valley to our left and negotiated a “donkey jam” on a stretch of waterfall. We lost sight of Machapuchare, the fish tail mountain, fairly early on in our trek, but this morning we saw it in all it’s glory against a blue sky.

The fish tail mountain is at the end of a long spur ridge, coming south out of the main backbone of the Annapurna massif, which forms the eastern boundary of the Annapurna Sanctuary. Its double summit resembles the tail of a fish, hence the name meaning "fish's tail" in Nepalese. It is also nicknamed the "Matterhorn of Nepal".

The peak is about 25 kilometres (16 miles) north of the provincial headquarter of Pokhara and is 6,993 m (22,943 feet) high. It is believed that Machapuchare has never been climbed to its summit. The only confirmed attempt was in 1957 by a British team led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Roberts, although there have been reports of a New Zealand climber, Bill Denz, making a successful yet illegal attempt to the summit in the early 1980s, maybe while we were there! The mountain is said to be "sacred", but in what form, or to whom, is somewhat unclear according to Wikipedia.

We rambled on at a slow but steady pace and were already ahead of our schedule when we reached Chandrakot at 11:30 hrs., where we paused for mint tea and biscuits. So far we had met two Australians who we had seen in India and we were pleased to discover less soaps (slang: naïve, servile, obsequious, cringing, fawning, suave; unctuous; oily persons) on the trail as we got further away from Pokhara.

We sampled some Chhangi beer, which tasted like ropey cider, before making a steep descent down to the river. Chhaang, chang or sometimes referred to as Himalayan Beer is an intriguing drink, to say the least. A milky white drink with flecks of floating white chunks throughout. Sometimes referred to as Nepali beer, chang is a fermented rice beverage, making it similar in appearance, taste and production method to unfiltered varieties of Japanese sake. According to legends, chhaang is also popular with the Yeti, who often raid isolated mountain villages to drink it (see www.intoxicatedabroad.com).

We followed a donkey train down the rutted steps. The herder whistled and shouted, whipping the rear donkey as the heavily laden procession balked at the downhill gradient. At the bottom we stopped at a tea shack while the donkeys were unloaded.

A European bird with a headband said “hello” for the fourth time today and began to reel off her life story. Luckily her mates began to continue and she had to leave us and follow hastily to catch them up. We continued down to a primitive bridge across the river and discovered that we were at Birethanti, our projected stop for the night, and it was only 14:00 hrs.

Birethanti is a small village set at the foot of the Modi Khola Valley at around 1,100 metres. The village is one of the main stops on the Annapurna Circuit treks. We booked into the “Trekking Hotel”, where it cost only 4 Nepalese Rupees for a double room, and settled down for a meal to kill time.

Our host took little notice of our order but assured us that he had it in his head. While we waited we took photographs of the primitive bridge and the raging mountain river. This trek was becoming a ramble – Good Lord! The Hounslow Swagmen would murder this “6-day circuit” in 4 days without turning a hair.

We polished off lunch and hit the town to discover nothing other than to avoid the nasty oranges on sale. They looked good but were impossible to peel and tasted like lemons. I made a hash of one and gave the other two to some kids playing by the river.

We cleaned our teeth in the river before realising that it was the community latrine. We polished off a vegetable omelette with Tibetan bread. we aided our digestion with a syrupy bottle of changi (rice beer), which was reminiscent of bad cider and Airfix glue, and the consistency of slimy dilute wallpaper paste.

From the restaurant we returned to another on the outskirts of town where they sold Raksi (rice wine), a more refined and more alcoholic version of changi. An American girl who was reading “The Snow Leopard” (The Snow Leopard is a 1978 book by Peter Matthiessen. It is an account of his two-month search for the snow leopard with naturalist George Schaller in the Dolpo region on the Tibetan Plateau in the Himalayas.) recommended that we drank it warm like saki and found herself included in the round of drinks.

She said that she found the book “a bit too arty” and we ended up having an excellent chat that covered the nastiness and lack of organisation, manners, sexual equality, and honesty of India.

We culminated in a conversation about China, which she recommended we visit (2nd time today) based on extensive travels she had made there herself. Her previously ordered supper arrived, and her husband appeared, breaking the spell.

We returned to our hotel for another snack before turning in. I got up once in the night for a piss, which involved going outside, and was amazed by the intensity of the moon and the clarity of the stars.

Fishtail Mountain

Wednesday 23rd November 1983

We stowed all the kit that we wanted to leave behind at the hotel so that we could travel light on the trek. After breakfast we wrote postcards on the lawn while we waited for the Post Office to open at 10:00 hrs. George wanted to back up his phone call with a written message that could not be misinterpreted.

We posted the cards and set off north through the Pokhara bazaar area until (a miracle) we came to a track that was sign-posted. The main track wove a steeply winding uphill route which we shortened by cutting across the loops on even steeper footpaths.

We gained Sarangkot after a very steep stepped climb and we paused for a coke. According to Lonely Planet the view of the Annapurna Himalaya from Sarangkot is almost a religious experience. From here, you can see a panoramic sweep of Himalayan peaks, from Dhaulagiri (8,167 metres) in the west to the perfect pyramid of Machhapuchhare (6,997 metres), the tent-like peak of Annapurna II (7937m) to Lamjung (6,983 metres) in the east.

Here we re-acquainted ourselves with a soapy Northern (from the North of England) group that had left Pokhara at dawn and had blundered about aimlessly to get this far. One of these clowns was wearing fashion shoes. We moved on through a group of scattered huts followed by begging kids following a track with scenery reminiscent of the English Lake District.

We dispensed with the brats by whipping off their caps and interrupting their spiel. Two kids even proffered and exercise book with a list of previous donors to their “charity”. Water buffalo and pigs were also common on this pedestrian motorway.

We stopped for another coke, but soon moved on when we became exhibits for the locals to ogle at, leaving the stall owner to suffer a tumultuous monologue from his old dear. We stopped again on a grassy bank on a peaceful stretch to bask in the hot sun and the Northern team passed us with a gabble of inane banter.

We completed the short walk down to Naundanda which looked like a medieval English country village. We had completed trail to Naudanda from Pokhara, billed as one of the best scenic trails for experiencing the rural life of Nepal, superb mountains views including Annapurna, Machhapuchchhre and Dhaulagiri, Phewa lakes, Pokhara valley, Paragliding (in more recent years) and hilly farming terrace land.

We walked along the rough rocky main street (there was no other) and booked into the Machha Puchhre Lodge for 10 Nepalese Rupees for a double room. This lodge boasted “good toilets and electricity from 18:00 hrs. to 21:00 hrs.”. We settled into the restaurant with mint tea and got increasingly appalled by our “fellow” trekkers.

A gormless wazzock in orange priest robes engaged in a cocky exchange with the locals while a snidey looking kid tried to sell us marijuana. All in all, an easy day’s walk and we can see how the guidebooks have been written for the slow and ponderous in their daily recommendations. We had arrived at Naundanda at 15:30 hrs. and tucked away one of our best meals yet, special Nepali sweet and sour with plenty of rice and mint tea. I continued with a delightful rice pudding with raisins while George struggled with a rather nasty bowl of custard.

We wandered to the edge of the village, being oiked into the Police Permit Check Point en-route, where we sat down with a little girl studying us intently. The sun sank behind the hills and we got a smile from the little girl who was just happy to observe us mysterious strangers. We returned to the lodge for tea, arriving back just as the power went on.

A couple of mint teas later we left the mad hotel staff and went to our tiny compartment for the night. The droning downstairs testified that the soaps were still soaping it up as we dozed off.

THIS MARKS THE END OF MY FIRST A5 DIARY NOTEBOOK. I bought a Sartaj Super Fine Note Book, product of Jindal Traders, Chawri Bazar, Delhi, with which to continue.

Trekking Permits

Tuesday 22nd November 1983

Thankfully, breakfast was produced a lot quicker in the New Asia Hotel than their evening meal. We devoured this and set off down the smelly line of huts to the Tourist Office. From here we were directed to the Immigration Office for our Trekking Permits.

On the way we encountered a travelling ear-cleaning duo. “Just looking”, said the tall man as he tugged Georges ear lobe and produced a file of letters of recommendation from previous customers. We shook them off, amazed at their audacity, and put in our Trekking Permit Application Forms at an efficient office run by amicable officials.

Back in the sun we ascertained that there was fuck-all worth seeing in Pokhara (I am sure that it has changed radically and become a tourist paradise since 1983) and headed back north to the Post and Telegraph Office. George wanted to cable his mum with a request for more money after discovering and dismissing the colossal cost of phoning the UK from the prestigious New Crystal Hotel.

On the way we stopped for a coke in a café which was packed with the trekking “show people” (posers) with their daysacks, funny ethnic hats and exaggerated tales of the rigours of short easy local treks that they had taken.

Our next port of call was the Post Office where I spent about twenty minutes in a mob while the stamp vendor lazily dispensed a few stamps every now and then, in between adding up some figures in his book. The glue on the stamps was hopeless so I retained them to stick on with UHU glue later on.

Up the road in the Telegraph Office we composed a telegram requesting George’s mum to give Martin £500 to bring out with him when he met us in Delhi. It cost 10 Nepalese Rupees per word and the message comprised ten words. When the cashier started counting the words in the address, the cost became ludicrous and George crumpled the form into a ball and tossed it in the bin.

We took tea on the lawn back at the New Asia Hotel before trudging back down to the Immigration Office to pick up our passports and trekking permits, which cost us 60 Nepalese Rupees for 7 days in the mountains.

Our next endeavours to hire backpacks and sleeping bags in the shops opposite Pokhara’s simple grass airfield were an absolute dead loss. We walked on to find the New Hotel Holiday Restaurant, determined to continue with our trek ill-equipped as we were. Either the hire shops had bugger all equipment because they had hired it all out, or it was reserved for saps that had booked treks with them complete with all the trimmings.

We ate the usual egg curry after an exceptionally long wait and chatted to a Ghurkha who was home on his first leave in 5 years. After dinner we were joined by a Czech who lived in Australia. This marvellous old boy had just returned from a seven-day trek to Annapurna that was listed in the guidebook as a twelve-day affair (probably for the purposes of sensible altitude acclimatisation).

He had achieved this by long days walking with minimum kit. Apparently, he had also done the GB to Australia overland hippy trail in a VW Combi in 1970. Cheered by this chat, we walked down to the New Crystal Hotel so that George could ring home. This he did, to dubious effect, the phone having been answered by his dopey brother Darren for a one-sided conversation. Hopefully, the wretch would convey the request for money to his mum, but George seemed to think otherwise.

In near despair we headed back to the New Asia Hotel for a cuppa. My money (local currency) had run out and I was unable to change up more money in the New Asia Hotel or the New Crystal Hotel, where we sat in the lobby drinking expensive tea watching a procession of pudgy, pink, ill-looking residents filed in and out. With hindsight today, many had flown from other parts of the world to this high-altitude destination and had not acclimatised to the altitude yet.

George attempted to cheer himself up with a chocolate milkshake and a cheese sandwich. We went up to our room and decided against packing tonight and went to bed hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Pokhara

Monday 21st November 1983

We got a free breakfast by virtue of the Cristobel Huts 10% discount off food for residents and made our way on foot up the track to Tádí Bazár. The scenery was textbook with palm trees, mud huts, elephants, ox carts, cacti, natives in colourful clothes, rows of green sprouting crops and a clear azure sky over the Himalayas.

We waded across a stream and took a minibus to Narayanghat, riding on the roof rack which was a pleasant change from the jam-packed interior. We crawled to Narayanghat with frequent stops and half the passengers hanging from the back door. On arrival we had to trudge a kilometre to find the illusive bus station where we paid 20 Nepalese Rupees to board a ropey looking public coach destined for Pokhara.

Pokhara is located 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of the capital, Kathmandu. The altitude varies from 827 metres (2,713 feet) in the southern part to 1,740 metres (5,710 feet) in the north. The Annapurna Range, with three out of the ten highest peaks in the world (Dhaulagiri, Annapurna I and Manaslu) is within 15–35 miles (24–56 km) of the valley.

Pokhara is considered the tourism capital of Nepal, being a base for trekkers undertaking the Annapurna Circuit through the Annapurna Conservation Area region of the Annapurna ranges in the Himalayas. The city is also home to many of the elite Gurkha soldiers.

The Gurkhas or Gorkhas with endonym Gorkhali are soldiers native to the Indian subcontinent of Nepalese nationality and ethnic Nepalis of Indian nationality recruited for the British Army, Nepalese Army, Indian Army, Gurkha Contingent Singapore, Gurkha Reserve Unit Brunei, UN peacekeeping force and war zones around the world.

Historically, the terms "Gurkha" and "Gorkhali" were synonymous with "Nepali", which originates from the hill principality Gorkha Kingdom, from which the Kingdom of Nepal expanded under Prithivi Narayan Shah. The name may be traced to the medieval Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnath who has a historic shrine in Gorkha. The word itself derived from "Go-Raksha" meaning Protector of Cows in Nepali.

Gurkhas are closely associated with the khukuri, a forward-curving Nepali knife, and have a reputation for fearless military prowess. Former Indian Army Chief of Staff Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw once stated that: "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or he is a Gurkha".

Two Nepalese Nancy-boys joked with two poor looking strumpets wearing a coating of cheap jewellery whilst a nasty woman with gaudy baubles puncturing her nose struggled with a faulty cigarette lighter to ignite another foul-smelling fag. Leg room would be O.K. if you had another hinged joint at mid-thigh, but as we lacked this facility we had to sit diagonally in our seats.

A woman at the front of the bus managed to keep the chickens off the driver as we pootled along accomplishing 100km in only five hours! The bus emptied as we got nearer to Pokhara and we had the luxury of having the correct complement of passengers that the bus was designed to carry.

We were greeted at Pokhara by a hotel tout who we took notice of for a change as his hotel was mentioned in our Lonely Planet Guidebook. A short bus ride later and we were basking in the luxurious New Asia Hotel, which was a palace by the standards that we were becoming used to, but at 35 Nepalese Rupees for a double room we didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Chucking our bags into the room we rushed to investigate the hotel restaurant, and after a record-breaking long wait, we polished off a bland meal. After eating we had a short walk into the road outside the hotel. Sewerage disposal consisted of a shallow dug trench and the stench and the filth gave us the impression that this was the crudest, dirtiest town yet.

George bought some Chinese toothpaste for 5 Nepalese Rupees and we returned to the hotel badgered by a very persistent begging little brat who received the usual short shrift from us. We turned in at 21:00 hrs. for an early night under comfortable continental quilts.

Rhinoceroses

Sunday 20th November 1983

Up again at 04:00 hrs., out from under the mosquito nets and into our army shorts (fantasies of National Service in Burma). We joined the guide and two couples from another hotel and set off. Our first rhinoceros sighting was made just down the road where one of these beasts had wandered out of the National Park, having decided that the farmers crops were more succulent than their wild counterpart, the park vegetation.

A young boy held a blazing brand aloft and chased the lumbering brute towards the village (we later saw tracks to testify that it had escaped into the river). We continued for a while and waded crossed the river and saw several more rhinoceroses in the poor misty light. We went on to the less-exciting deer-spotting bit as the sun was really getting up.

The girlfriend of a huge red-bearded bruiser kept infecting me with her giggles as we followed the nervous deer herds with bored indifference. We regularly saw herds of deer in Richmond Park in West London. A good walk back put us in the mood for a good breakfast and we steamed in with relish despite the slow and confused service.

I wrote a bit more of my letter home and then we set off on a walk along the riverbank. We sauntered along watching elephants cross the river and cattle grazing while a host of exotic insects buzzed lazily about us. We waded across the rapid flowing tributary to the main river and on the other side we basked in the heat and enjoyed the tranquillity.

Our little chum with the tea cosy hat, who we had seen on several occasions, came up to watch us with a couple of his friends. We walked back discussing Australian job opportunities, pausing to take elephant photo’s, and we arrived back at camp at 14:00 hrs. We lazed about reading, sewing on buttons, George taping his two log/diary volumes together etc. until nightfall.

We then moved like moths into the central hut congregating in groups around the petrol lamps. George started reading “Jabberwocky”, the hilarious book which I had just finished reading. I started on “The Man from St. Petersburg” by Ken Follett as George giggled beside me.

We tucked into a mammoth feast: soup, curry and rice pudding and chatted with the English couple that we had met on our Saturday morning safari. Stripped of their snooty façade they joined us in insulting the Yanks as they whooped and drawled, uttered crass stupidities and fell off their chairs.

We retired to our hut leaving the Yanks to laugh ridiculously loudly and boast of their inadequacies in the trekking department. Abdul the counter boy chortled with glee as he added up our days bill, switching to his serious look when we made jokes. He hit us for 90 Nepalese Rupees each, which included this morning’s guide fees.

We read our books for a while before bed while the Americans got louder as they were suckered in the old beer trick, paying over the odds for beer fetched from “The Peacock” opposite. Staff paid 23 Nepalese Rupees for a bottle and then made 5Rs by selling them to the “septics” for 28Rs.

Cockney Rhyming Slang: Septic Tanks = Yanks. Citizens of the United States of America.

Safari

Above: Crossing the Narayani River into Chitwan National Park

Saturday 19th November 1983

We were awoken at 04:00 hrs. by a tap on the door from our budget “safari guide”. George peeled off his shit-spattered trousers and pants and changed into track suit bottoms. I whipped on my black cotton Chinese Kung Fu slippers and we were off into the pre-dawn darkness to await our companions, a soapy British bird-spotting couple.

For about an hour we followed a track that terminated at a river that we were obliged to wade across. This formed one of the borders of the Chitwan National Park and by this route our guide avoided the payment kiosk at the main gate. After wandering about on dewy trails in the morning mist for a while we were beginning to think this a fruitless excursion when we came across two rhinoceroses.

The guide, with my camera, and the English chap stalked the grazing beasts in an effort to get photographs. Suddenly all hell let loose when three elephants bearing “Encounter Overland” tourist idiots festooned with cameras and smiles came crashing into the clearing.

The rhino’s lumbered about trying to escape and the hither-to quiet English girl said “Fucking Hell!“ and scampered away behind us, in search of a tree to climb. Further exploration revealed another rhino, some deer, and a troop of monkeys. Joe English picked up a leach in the process, despite his nylon gaiters.

The sun was fully up now and we steamed back to the camp for breakfast – omelette and rice pudding! After breakfast we got down to washing, both ourselves and our clothes in the mud walled showers and at the pump (reminiscent of the manual water pump on Pete Willis smallholding on England, which we referred to as Pete’s Farm).

With all our laundry strewn about on hedges, thatched roof tops and on the grass, we sat in the sun drinking coke and perusing a book called “Work your way around the world” for job opportunities. This book was researched and written by Susan Griffith who is a freelance editor and writer who has specialized for more than 25 years in writing books and articles about travel, especially working and volunteering abroad.

The first edition of her best-known book “Work Your Way Around the World” was researched in 1982. Covering a whole world of opportunities, it reveals the best places to find work, how to get the necessary permits, tips for travelling safely and much more, including: practical information on a broad range of jobs from the everyday to the extraordinary.

At 12:00 hrs. we took a walk “around the block” to relieve the boredom and returned two hours later for our afternoon siesta. At 17:00 hrs. we ordered dinner and I sat by the window of our hut awaiting the usual procession of elephants that returned this way to the stables at sunset. They went passed when it was too dark to take a photograph, but I took one anyway to justify my wait.

As it was dark now everybody gravitated towards the lamplit central hut to await their evening meal. A newly arrived English couple launched into broadcasting their travel itinerary as the shrewd staff of the huts bought bottles of beer from the hotel opposite at 23 Nepalese Rupees each and sold them to this soapy gullible duo for 28 Rs. It would appear that these wretches came here overland by car; is nothing sacred?

George has been making a lot of trips to the toilet, diarrhoea being a convenient excuse to spy on a comely Swedish girl in a poorly partitioned shower stall opposite. After dinner we retired to our hut and read our books for a while before passing into the oblivion of sleep.

Chitwan National Park

Friday 18th November 1983

A misty dawn filtered through the bamboo slats of our hut door and, grateful for the day, I got up for breakfast. We lingered in the central hut reading for a while before sauntering down to the park entrance where we looked around the display stands giving information about the wildlife to be found in the park. George was feeling weak and opted out of further exploration and returned to his bed in hut 101.

In the park the typical vegetation of the Inner Terai is Himalayan subtropical broadleaf forests with predominantly sal trees covering about 70% of the national park area. The wide range of vegetation types in the Chitwan National Park is the haunt of more than 700 species of wildlife and a not yet fully surveyed number of butterflies, moth and insect species. Apart from king cobra and rock python, 17 other species of snakes, starred tortoise and monitor lizards occur. The Narayani-Rapti river system, their small tributaries and myriads of oxbow lakes is habitat for 113 recorded species of fish and mugger crocodiles.

The display stands promised that Chitwan National Park is famous for being the best wildlife-viewing national parks in Asia, where we would have an excellent chance of spotting endangered One-horned Rhinos, Royal Bengal Tiger, Deer, Monkeys, Wild Boar and up to 544 species of birds.

Leaving George to recuperate in bed I set off westwards on the north bank of the river to suss out the “free” bit of jungle that stood outside the park boundaries. The East Rapti River flows from east to west through the Chitwan Valley in Nepal, forming the northern border of the Chitwan National Park. It joins the Narayani River inside the protected area.

Entrance to the park cost 65 Nepalese Rupees so it was worth investigating all of the cheap or free alternatives. I followed the riverbank until the path was cut off by a tributary river. It looked deep and fast, but I watched a local native wade totteringly across it and it did not pass his mid-thigh.

I took off my boots and trousers and waded across. On the other side I was acutely studied by a boy and three girls as I sat in the sun to dry before dressing. In the jungle now I crept about on small trails without seeing a thing, save for several grazing wild water buffalo. The air was alive with insects, especially dragonflies and butterflies, and birds honked, quacked and cackled from the river.

I settled in the blazing sun on the riverbank to write my logbook and stare across at the wilder-looking national park savannah. The return journey sapped my energy as I plodded along through the jungle trying to follow the trail as it weaved about and often came to a dead end.

At one stage I was confronted with a solid wall of vegetation and rather than go back the way I came, I plunged onwards. The huge crackling and rustling that my incursion caused disturbed a large animal of some description. I stood still with my heart thumping as a rapid commotion disrupted the foliage to my right and then the unidentified beast rustled away, lumbering through the brush.

I continued along the riverbank with waning strength and arrived back at 15:00 hrs. George was awake and reading his book when I slumped down on the bed and crashed out into an exhausted slumber. Later I joined him in the dining hut and at 18:00 hrs. I dined on omelette and rice pudding. We sipped hot lemon and read as two soapy girls carried on a naïve and gleeful exchange.

Eventually we pilfered two lamps and retired to our hut. I wrote a letter home and then, fully dressed, we dozed off.

Tádí Bazár

Thursday 17th November 1983

Up at 06:00 hrs. with a fond farewell to the pigsty and off to the Bhimsen Tower to catch a bus of dubious destination (do you feel lucky, punk?). At last the conductor confirmed that the bus was intending to call at Tádí Bazár and we leapt aboard.

The journey was rough despite a rare lack of overcrowding and by the time we reached Tádí Bazár we were both feeling sick. A stop at Mugling did little to help our stomachs and we fed most of the crappy food that we bought to a lucky haggard dog.

Our companions on the bus did little to discourage our malady, a gay Australian knob-jockey, a scruffy junkie and a pair of exceedingly ugly kraut birds. At Tádí Bazár we took to Shank’s Pony (walked) for the 6.3-kilometre track to Sauraha where the gateway to Chitwan National Park was situated.

As soon as we left the main road, we appeared to have entered Africa. Dusky natives tended cattle on the banks of a sluggish river in which fishermen cast nets with poetic flourishes. Women watched from thatched huts among the palm groves as we stitched up the canoe ferry wallah by declining his services and walked on amongst the hordes of leaping frogs.

We found a welcome haven in the Cristobel Huts where 15 Nepalese Rupees secured us for a double room. The clean airy thatched hut was a welcome change after the squalor of Kathmandu accommodation. We settled down to a vegetable curry as a pleasant Kiwi (New Zealand) girl gave us a run down on the national park.

Chitwan National Park is the first national park in Nepal. It was established in 1973 and granted the status of a World Heritage Site in 1984. It covers an area of 952.63 km2 (367.81 sq mi) and is located in the subtropical Inner Terai lowlands of south-central Nepal in the districts of Nawalpur, Parsa, Chitwan and Makwanpur. In altitude it ranges from about 100 m (330 ft) in the river valleys to 815 m (2,674 ft) in the Churia Hills.

Since the end of the 19th century Chitwan (Heart of the Jungle) used to be a favourite hunting ground for Nepal's ruling class during the cool winter seasons. Until the 1950s, the journey from Kathmandu to Nepal's south was arduous as the area could only be reached by foot and took several weeks. Comfortable camps were set up for the feudal big game hunters and their entourage, where they stayed for a couple of months shooting hundreds of tigers, rhinoceroses, leopards and sloth bears.

After lunch we retired for an afternoon siesta and when we awoke it was dark. I settled in to sweet and sour vegetables with rice, but George’s stomach was in turmoil and he returned to bed after reading his book for a short while. I went for a walk around the locality and found the park entrance. The moon was nearly full and the area was well lit, the air vibrant with insect noises.

I returned to Crisobel’s central communal hut to read “A Walk in the Sun” by Harry Brown by lamplight. The book was published in 1945 when the author, Harry Brown, was just out of the service, and went immediately to Hollywood, where it became a successful film. Brown himself never saw action in WWII--he was a columnist for Yank magazine--but he captures the flavour and language of troops in action with brilliant accuracy.

When I turned in for the night George was retching and shitting like a good’un. Sickness, far from being “an alien feeling” was becoming an all too unwelcome visitor to his camp. I dozed on and off through a cold night as George vomited into the wicker waste bin and made several toilet trips behind our hut, number 101.

Narayanghat

Above: George on bed in Number 1 Kwality Nepalese Hotel Room!

Wednesday 16th November 1983

Dawn was a welcome relief, bringing light and warmth to us as we lay curled in the foetal position on our grubby mattresses in all our clothes. Our task for the day was to find the bus stop for Narayanghat and after breakfast in the Ashok Pie Restaurant we set off with this aim.

Narayanghat was linked to more spiritual mumbo-jumbo designed to bewilder Asian children growing up in Birmingham, England. On the bank of river Sabarmati a holy place comes as ”NARAYANGHAT “. As our epics Narayanghat is above from all 'tirth' (a holy place). In ancient time this area was known as “ DHARMARANYA”. Dharmadev and Murti devi did hard penance to please lord on the bank of Sabarmati at Narayanghat. When Lord Narayan appears to them and asks for boon.

They want 4 sons like god himself. As a boon, lord incarnet himself in 4 forms of’HARI’ , ‘KRISHNA ‘,‘ NAR and’ ‘NARAYAN ’so Narayanghat is a birth place of Lord Narnarayandev. Whenever lord Swaminarayan came to Ahmedabad he used to come to Narayanghat everyday with all saints for bathing in Sabarmati river. This place is as pious as Akshardham.

The puppet in the Tourist Information Office directed us to a chaotic side of central park where minibuses in an appalling state of repair pulled up and instantly became packed to the roof with human cargo and then left again, seemingly without rhyme or reason. We leaned against the wall in a fog of black exhaust fumes which exuded from these randomly departing junk heaps and tried to glean some idea of system in the melee.

We had to admit defeat and retired to a nearby hotel roof garden for a cuppa. I asked another customer in this café where the bus stop was, and he directed us to the small offices clustered around the Bhimsen Tower. Here we were quickly able to buy two tickets for 26.5 Nepalese Rupees to Tádí Bazár leaving at 06:45 hrs. tomorrow. Tádí Bazár is about 4 kilometres north of Sauraha, a village which is the eastern gateway to the nearby and large Chitwan National Park, that protects part of the Terai-Duar savanna and grasslands ecoregion.

Our task complete we waded through stinking streets to the British Council where we restored a modicum of happiness by reading English periodicals and travel books. As the light began to fade we left for the Ashok Pie Restaurant to assuage a hunger that both of us were feeling strongly. A handful of peanuts had been our only nourishment since breakfast.

We engaged in our usual sport of “soap-spotting” on the way back to Durbar Square identifying the most pretentious idiots roaming the streets. In the Ashok Pie Restaurant, we crammed in another heap of unfulfilling food, followed by slices of pie and cake, while we read our books. We eventually decided to return to our grubby pit and on the way we found that a local power cut had hit our hotel.

We trod cautiously up the dark slimy alley that led up to the reception and we were greeted by the imp at the desk requesting that we pay for our room for tonight. I broke into a fit of giggles at the pathetic nature of the situation. We stood in a cold reception hall which resembled an old dirty storeroom, scrobbling about in our wallets to find the right money in the pitiful light of a small candle.

George asked for some candles to light our room and was presented with two birthday cake candles which the imp lit from his candle. Both giggling now, we protected these fragile pinpoints of light as we carefully tiptoed along the pitch-black corridors until George said “fuck this”, and we went back outside in search of an establishment with light.

Pausing to piss up the front of the G. C. Lodge, we went into the “Lunch Box” café next door, which at least had a sensible number of decent sized candles. When the power was restored we went back to the G. C. Lodge to find that it was still devoid of electricity. We went to another pie shop, which offered a wide selection of apple pie or nothing, and sat down with a couple of slices to cheer us up.

We talked of getting to civilization in Australia, our romantic visions of exotic Asia destroyed. Kathmandu was a dirty, filthy, smelly, medieval hole populated by idiots (I did not appear to have sympathy for poverty and lack of education at this time) and money-grabbers. Also, our financial resources were trickling away more noticeably as our pool of funds diminished.

Back in the room we put on all our warm clothes in preparation for bed. What a filthy room. Yuk!

Jabberwocky

Tuesday 15th November 1983

We were up at 05:30 hrs. to watch sunrise over the Himalayas, but cloud cover completely blanked out the view so we returned to bed. I re-emerged at 09:00 hrs. to join George on the terrace for porridge. I felt a lot better as we sipped tea and watched the wretches set off in an endeavour to walk back to Bhaktapur.

A one-kilometre walk brought us to the bus stop for the 10:00 hrs. minibus, which was already crammed full, but we squeezed aboard. The bus crawled down the hillside at an infuriatingly slow pace, stopping every ten yards to pick up more passengers. It got ridiculously packed and we jostled and were jostled back, unable to even stand up straight. Two kilometres from the centre we got off and walked into Durbar Square, unable to stand the crush any longer. En-route I bought a new toothbrush (whatever happened to Jordan’s toothbrushes?).

From the Nyatapola Temple, after a quick photo session, we decided to walk the seven miles back to Kathmandu. The road was pleasant with it’s line of trees on each side screening it from the activity of harvest in the fields on either side. We stopped once for a coke and again on the outskirts of the city where we dozed in the sun by a bridge while two dogs growled and barked at each other in the shallows of the lazy river.

We trudged wearily into town and did the rounds of the lodges off “Freak Street”, getting increasingly angrier with each statement of “no vacancies”. Eventually we found a grubby side street place with a double cell for 22 Nepalese Rupees (with no blankets, 33 Rs if we required this luxury).

We returned our hired rucksacks and sleeping bags and hit the Youngdung to replace our lost energy with some solid fuel. I enjoyed a good sweet’n’sour vegetable with egg fried rice, followed by apple fritters and custard. George settled down to what he described as the worst meal that he had ever had in his life. This comprises of gristle fried rice (always best to avoid meat in India and Nepal as the animals are valuable for milk and eggs and only become meat when they die of old age!) with a pancake covered in a nasty brown sauce.

This left him so unsatisfied that we moved on to the Ashok Pie Restaurant for a decent meal. I sipped tea as George ate and we made plans for getting to the Chitwan National Park (Nepali: चितवन राष्ट्रिय निकुञ्ज) which is the first national park in Nepal. It was established in 1973 and granted the status of a World Heritage Site in 1984. It covers an area of 952.63 km (367.81 square miles) and is located in the subtropical Inner Terai lowlands of south-central Nepal in the districts of Nawalpur, Parsa, Chitwan and Makwanpur. In altitude it ranges from about 100 m (330 ft) in the river valleys to 815 m (2,674 ft) in the Churia Hills. Chitwan has the largest population of Indian rhinoceros in Nepal.

Our disgust at the Kathmandu posing community was renewed. One wanker in the Youngdung ordered his food and then struck up a meditation pose in the lotus position! On departing the Ashok Pie Restaurant we browsed an expensive second-hand bookshop before returning to our filthy unwholesome room in the G. C. Lodge. It was quite the dirtiest room we had stayed in yet, so we photographed it for posterity. This dreadful room broke the last thread of resolve in Georges struggle in paying an extortionate 28 Nepalese Rupees for a bar of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut Chocolate (21.9 Nepalese Rupees were equivalent to £1 sterling at this time). “I need it to cheer me up”, he quipped as he set off for the shop.

The wafer-thin walls of our room led us to inadvertently earwig (eavesdrop) a foreign bird in the next room being ripped off by one of the local money-changing, drug dealing scum that frequent this unsavoury area.

Dogs barking and loud alien Indian and Nepalese music added to the destruction of our tranquillity. Instead of chocolate I bought the book “Jabberwocky” for 14 Nepalese Rupees to cheer me up. "Jabberwocky " is a nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

However, this book by Ralph Hoover (A pseudonym used by American writer Paul Spike) was related to the Terry Gilliam film rather than the poem. According to the blurb on the back of the book:

What the press said about Terry Gilliam's film of Jabberwocky:

Eurgggggghhhyowww! - The Times of India

Oh! Arhh! OhnoOhnoOhno .. (thud) - Daily Telegraph

Ayeeeeeiiiiioooaaaargh! - The Economist

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit! - The Sun

Now read for yourself the amazing story of the Jabberwocky - the monster so terrifying that people caught the plague to avoid it.

Set in the filthiest period of history, as the Middle Ages were collapsing around the well-dandruffed head of King Bruno the Questionable, it is the story of the King's attempts to save a cast of thousands (filthy peasants, scrubber maids, dim princesses and overweight knights) from the threat of the Jabberwocky.

He is helped by Dennis Cooper (a peasant's peasant) who, enflamed by undying love for 19-stone Griselda Fishfinger, gives up a quiet country life for the fleshpots of the city where after many expensive adventures, he wins the hand of a Princess and the Middle Ages are saved.

We dozed off fully clad, me wrapped in my YHA sleeping sheet and George in his red nylon anorak.

Nyatapola Temple

Monday 14th November 1983

Up at 07:00 hrs. and with a bit of fuss we settled our hostel account (a double room for 12 Nepalese Rupees per night was a bargain). We got short shrift in the Blue Fox as the cooks were not up yet so we wandered down to the bus stop. An elderly Canadian “schoolmarm” put us on the right track and we transferred to the Chinese trolley bus at Bagmati Bridge. We arrived at Baktapur for an outlay of 1.5 Nepalese Rupees each and made our way up to the Nyatapola Temple.

We were very impressed with this grand building with it’s stone guardians. There were wrestlers, elephants, lions, griffins and goddesses in increasing order of strength. The Nyatapola Temple is a 5-storeyed (Nyata "ङाता" = 5 Storeys "तल्ला & Pola "पोलँ" = Roof "छाना") Hindu Pagoda-Style temple located in Bhaktapur, Nepal.

The temple was erected by Nepali King Bhupatindra Malla during a 7-month period from late 1702 to 1703. It is the temple of Siddhi Lakshmi, the Tantric Lakshmi who bestows auspiciousness. It stands on five terraces on each of which squat a pair figures, two famous wrestlers (Malla), two elephants, two lions, two griffins and two Baghini and Singhini, the tiger and lion goddesses.

We found a pleasant restaurant where we retreated for breakfast leaving the locals to the frantic activity of the grain harvest. We went on to a whirlwind tour of Durbar Square and were very impressed. It was clean and well maintained despite a reputation for filth and primitive squalor.

We cut north and east out of town on the Nagarkot road and left the heaps of drying rice and grain behind. After several kilometres we came to the “short cut” predicted by our guidebook, where the track cut steeply uphill. After changing out of our long trousers and into shorts we plunged up with zeal.

We left a group of soapy travellers in our wake and followed a rutted rocky footpath as it weaved its way up a steep valley. We apparently missed our turn off and meandered onwards as the trail became vaguer and tributary tracks branched off. The power lines were still occasionally visible high on our left, so we were on the right track, but thirst and fatigue began to nag at our confidence.

We decided that we had definitely taken a wrong ‘un when the path culminated in a precipitous drop to a waterfall down below. This signalled the start of a long uphill slog to where the road was visible to our left. We reached the road panting for breath and dying for liquid sustenance.

A milestone informed us that we were four kilometres from our goal so off we set. Around the next bend was a hotel which relieved us of 9 Nepalese Rupees for a coke and two teas in the company of two cosmopolitan Frenchies. A couple of hotel touts provided company for the next stretch, both nippers intent on leading us astray to an expensive hotel.

We found the Nagarkot Guest House below a gaggle of coach trip tourists, on a ridge with a commanding view of the Himalayas on a clear day. Unfortunately, it was cloudy today, but the snowy peaks made an awesome sight through the mist.

We tanked up on Coca Cola and rum tea while a rowdy mob of walking haystacks sang mocking songs from a track to the north. We booked into a pleasant double room with a bamboo façade and no lighting for 25 Nepalese Rupees. We hit the road when a busload of wombats came into the guest house bickering about the prices and grizzling about the lack of power and sanitation.

George fucked up my bog roll (roll of toilet paper) by smearing shit all over it in an attempt to “plug his bum”! We wandered higher up the road to find the town of Nagarkot, but this didn’t appear to exist. We watched the sun go down from a prominent spot with a 270 ° degree radius of view before returning the Nagarkot Guest House.

We ordered dinner which was due to be served at 19:30 hrs. Until then we had to wait in the darkened inn-like dining room trying to read by candlelight as bell-ends and soaps took turns to provide a background babble of boastful travelling tales. A pathetic English couple held sway with their “you name it, we’ve been there” approach. The male of these turtles continued to hold forth on the buying and selling of gems until his audience got bored and drifted away.

An Aussie wazzock gave up in disgust when the avid listeners began to question and dispute his elaborate yarns of alcoholic drinking prowess. STOP PRESS the c*nt has just returned and launched into a tale of trekking bravado. A dozy Kiwi bint spelled out her dreams of a three-storey house, how unusual!

The English bird, not to be outdone, fought off all comers and became the “Kiddie of the Hour”. To her everywhere in the world was primitive and basic, but she soldiered on regardless, gracing the citizens of the world with her much welcomed but fleeting visits.

At last our Nepalese meal arrived and we polished off the soup, rice, dhal, vegetables and omelette in a jiffy. We rounded off the meal with a rum tea, but I was feeling none-to-well and let George finish mine. We went to bed in peace leaving the yarn-spinners to talk away the night.

I felt rough and was only comfortable when I lay on my back. If I rolled onto my side I felt like vomiting and by lying on my front the threat of shitting myself became a factor. I dozed off while George launched into fits of coughing, but later on, I was forced to get up and flee to the external bogs (toilets) to regurgitate my supper.