One night in Bangkok

Our trip towards New Zealand would be made in stages. There are, unsurprisingly, no direct flights from Kathmandu to Auckland, so you have to go to the nearest travel hub in-between; in our case, Bangkok, Thailand. Bangkok holds the dubious world record for the world's hottest capital city. Bangkok would be a stopover for us, as we would be unable to make the next-scheduled connecting flight, which would prompt one of the air traveller's most famous questions; should I sleep at the airport, or make the trip into town?

But I get ahead of myself. The plane trip was actually quite entertaining. Amy and I sat next to a Nepali man, his first trip on a plane. Through our fragmented conversation in English and Nepali we learned he was flying to Indonesia (I think) to take a job in a relative's television factory. It wasn't a long flight, but he was just nervous enough to keep us from getting too distracted. My favourite moment though, was during the in-flight meal; it was dal bhat, ie., rice and a curry. As we finished our tv dinner portions, he flagged down a passing stewardess and demanded more rice, to which she responded that "she'd see what she could do," which left him very confused. Of course, for him, dal bhat just naturally comes with unlimited portions. He would, sadly, depart the flight disappointed.

Bangkok's new airport is very flashy; smooth finishes, rounded edges, and wide-open spaces. There is plenty of room to get around, and plenty of signs to make sure you know where you're going. After some thought and deliberation we decided it made sense to make the most of our short time in Bangkok and head into the city, rather than seclude ourselves in the sterile airport. Leaving the airport was fast and efficient; as well, we were unencumbered by our large bags, as we had elected to have them passed through to the Auckland flight.

As soon as we passed through the automatic doors to locate the downtown bus, I realized that Bangkok wasn't just extremely hot, but extremely humid. The airport is climate controlled, so every interior space is a brisk eighteen degrees centigrade and pleasantly dry. But outside, Bangkok was (at nine o'clock in the evening) around twenty-eight and you could feel the air dripping with humidity.

Kao San Road.
The bus took us through Bangkok's continual rush hour, and dropped us at Kao San road, the tourist epicentre of Bangkok's downtown core. The area is always bustling, and nighttime is when it truly comes alive. The road is probably only about four or five city blocks long, but the buildings are festooned with colourful signs, each reaching out a little further than its neighbour until it's just signs as far as the eye can see. The profusion of accents is impressive, but the language is almost always English. The area had a lot in common with Thamel, except it was just more efficiently laid out in a straight line instead of rambling lanes that went off in different directions.

We strolled down Kao San road, letting the crazy night scene play out around us. The average denizen was under the age of thirty, had a few piercings or tattoos, or if not that daring, necklaces or bangles. Lots of product in hair. Cheap party clothes and plenty of exposed skin. It seems this is where the foreign crowd comes to let it all hang out.

Standing out from the loud music (techno, rave and current American chart-toppers) at the other end of the road was a Christian missionary, his deep booming voice competing with stores' sound systems for peoples' attentions. He was very old school, dressed in black slacks, white short-sleeve Oxford shirt and black tie, bible in one hand and fist in the other. Like most street evangelists, it's hard to wander in to the sermon as it seems to ramble; however, to his credit, he did have a number of people tuned in to what he was saying.

As we passed him, a guy came up and offered us a place to stay, and we decided to go check it out (we really had very little to go on with Bangkok, not having a guide book to work from). It turned out to be perfect for our needs and we spent the night, paying a little extra for air conditioning. An air conditioner is in all the rooms, but your extra payment gives you the remote control that activates it. And given that we were already sopping with sweat by the time we got there, it would prove to be well worth the extra investment.

We slept the sleep of the jetlagged.

The next morning we had our whole day ahead of us, by now extremely pleased with ourselves that we had chosen to venture into town rather than hunker down in the airport, curled up on a bench. Even at eight in the morning the temperature had crept up to a balmy thirty-two degrees, but a light breeze kept it from being too terribly oppressive. The hotel restaurant was open-concept, seated on the ground floor. We were served by a pleasant young man wearing a t-shirt sporting the Starbuck's logo; at least, that's what it looked like, until you looked at it more closely to realize it said "Starfuck's".

Kao San Road.
The day would be our oyster, as we didn't have to get back to the airport until after dinnertime. We decided we would just stroll the streets, leaving our bags at the hotel, and see what was worth seeing. We wandered through some shops; back down Kao San road, this time in the daylight; tried to find some markets. We weren't out for more than thirty minutes when a Thai couple started chatting with us at a crosswalk, asking us the usual questions: how long had we been in Thailand, where had we gone, what did we think of the country; and, in an unusual twist, which of the city's monuments we had seen. When we replied we hadn't yet seen any, the lady got quite animated, telling us that we were very lucky, for today was "Buddha day," a state holiday in which many local monuments were open without an admission fee. And moreover, if we took a government-owned tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw) to tour us around to them, we would only pay twenty bhat as a flat-rate (around three dollars Canadian). Excited for us, she went on to hail us the appropriate tuk-tuk, spoke to the guy rather harshly and sent us on our way before we could even think twice.

Bunches of Buddhas.
Thus, we went on a Buddha sight-seeing spree. As it turned out I think the whole flat-rate tuk-tuk scheme had been underwritten by the city's larger jewellery chains, as part of the sight-seeing tour involved us making stops at various shops to ogle their beautiful (and relatively pricey) collection of gems and jewellery. Our driver was fairly chatty, and apparently he was supposed to be fed by the jewellers as part of his compensation, so for the few side-trips to the jewellers we acted as interested as we were supposed to act, but didn't buy anything.

The Buddhas themselves were quite impressive. The first monument stop we went to was closed temporarily for a service; we decided not to wait. The second was to the "big Buddha", a sixty-foot tall golden statute of the demigod, complete with a giant Buddha sun-hat. Regardless of the free admission, there were still plenty of people around the monuments, intent on selling us things, be it refreshments, souvenirs or caged doves we could release at the Buddha's feet for good luck.

Decorative carving.
The decoration on the Buddhist temples was exquisite; ornate carving decorates practically every surface of the buildings and statutes, and if it's not covered with gold leaf, it's decorated with inset gems and precious stones. You're required to remove your shoes whenever you walk into a holy space, if you're allowed at all; the floor feels luxuriously slick and cool, made out of marble. The roofs of the buildings have delicately structured curls at the ends, making you wonder how they stay intact, and more to the point, how the keep the water off.

Our final stop after yet another jewellery store was a temple on top of a large hill (it probably has a special name, but I can't recall it). Our tuk-tuk driver abandoned us, with our consent; I think he realized that we hadn't bought anything from the stores, and since I think the way they made this scheme work was that the drivers got a commission from sales, he was more than ready to find someone else with looser pockets than ours.

The hilltop temple was exquisitely designed, surrounded by exotic plants and flowering trees. You climb to the top via a circular staircase which ascends the structure on both sides; one for climbing up, and the other for climbing down (though plenty of people seemed to just take whichever staircase suited their fancy). The view from the top would have been particularly astounding, if not for the gloomy haze that covered the city. The sun still managed to pierce through, and without the benefit of my sunglasses (they had been thoughtfully packed away, en route for Auckland) it was one of the brightest afternoons I can remember.

Prayers before Buddha.
Another giant Buddha statue capped the temple on its roof, and a short set of stairs brought you to it. It seems to be customary to walk around the statute counter-clockwise, probably several times, and if you're particularly devout, you kneel and pray, and leave donations, at several points. Everything seemed to be packed into the space: prayer wheels, banners, small statues, candelabras; as well as non-devotional items such as coin-operated telescopes for seeing deeper into the haze.

After several hours of full-on Buddha sight-seeing, we reached our saturation point and decided we would head back to the hotel for a late meal, some caffeine and air conditioning. The walk back wasn't that hard - Bangkok, at least downtown Bangkok, is pretty well laid out and it's surprisingly easy to navigate with the usual crop of shoddy tourist maps - but the sunshine and humidity were taking their toll. By the time we piled ourselves into the seats in the hotel café, we were knackered.

It was a neat, whirlwind tour, and I could have easily been persuaded to spend more time in Thailand. But we were already anticipating New Zealand, and after a day of punishing heat and humidity, the relative cool of eighteen to twenty-two degree weather looked very appealing. Getting back to the airport was a fairly painless exercise, and the flight to Auckland was exceedingly cushy, with touchscreen televisions on every seatback. The hours spent crossing the Indian ocean passed quickly and entertainingly - and we were quickly touching down in Auckland.

Nomads in New Zealand (part 1)

Arriving at Auckland's international airport put me in mind of our last long-haul flight; from Ottawa to Paris. I don't think I'll ever truly adjust to jetlag, as our first day in Auckland was only slightly less surreal than our first day in Paris after an eight-hour flight. The body rebels, reeling from the mismatch of time and space. It's like your spirit travels at its own pace and gets separated from your body, and the spirit just has to catch up on its own time.

New Zealand has a rigorous environmental security program. When you arrive, you are obliged to fill out a form declaring anything remotely objectionable in the realms of animal, mineral and vegetable. There are bins on your way from the arrival gate that allow you to toss anything you think might get confiscated; there are heavy fines for anything the environmental screeners might find you trying to sneak into the country. There are spot checks and sniffer dogs. It's not actually that big a surprise; to know a bit of New Zealand's history with introduced species, it makes an awful lot of sense that they are being so cautious. We declared anything and everything that we thought might not stand up to scrutiny, but in the end, we didn't have a problem, and we even got to work our shoes onto a special cleaning matt to remove any traces of foreign soil.

Outside the airport, and away from the stress of environmental security, the familiar other-worldliness of jetlag began to creep into the edges of my psyche. In theory, we should have been fine: we boarded the plane near the end of the day in Bangkok, had a period of darkness on the plane, and got off the plane around noon in Auckland. To look at it on paper, it more or less resembled a day. But the body knows differently, and lets you know about it. For me it just comes in the form of an insistent, subconscious demand: YOU WILL SLEEP NOW.

A few phone calls and a bus ride took us to the Oaklands Lodge, a hostel in a suburb outside of Auckland. It was a fair adjustment to pay seemingly outrageous prices for room and board; we weren't in Nepal any more. But the place was nice and friendly, and perfect for collapsing in a heap at three in the afternoon and sleeping solidly for seven hours.

We had figured out on the plane coming over that we wanted to adjust our schedule in New Zealand and Australia slightly; instead of spending two months in each country, we would spend three months in New Zealand, and one month in Australia. Both countries have so much to offer: there was just no way we would be able to see everything we wanted to see in Australia in two months. By contrast, you can see a lot of New Zealand in three months. The only question that remained was how we were going to see it. There were essentially two options: going with a tour, or going under our own power. While a tour is the most efficient way to go, there are all the limitations involved with it. Little choice about where and when, and they were also quite expensive. Going on our own meant getting our own wheels, and in that respect we could rent or buy a campervan, which as well as giving you the freedom to go where you want, saves you a lot of money on accomodations and food, as you can cook your own meals.

After crunching the numbers, we decided to see what we could buy in the second-hand backpacker van markets. Given that we were going to travel for about two months, we would be looking at spending about the same if not less money than on a rental, and if we sold it to someone else, had a good chance of getting our money back. Essentially, in the worse case scenario we could leave it on the side of the road at the end and be no worse off than if we had rented. In the best case, our cost of travel would basically be free, less the cost of petrol.

We quickly discovered we were in a great situation as buyers, which drove us more towards a decision to buy. The tourist season was ending with the end of summer, and people that had been travelling in campervans were now selling; many more than people that were buying. So we had our pick of a large selection of vans, and we decided to be very picky. We wanted something with automatic transmission, so we could both drive; we wanted diesel rather than petrol for the cheaper fuel. We wanted something relatively new so we wouldn't constantly be worrying about something going wrong. We saw many vans, met many couples trying to sell, felt badly when we figured out we couldn't help them out. One couple became quite desperate; their flight leaving in six hours, stuck with a van they couldn't sell, the guy told me I could have it for a thousand dollars. But it just wasn't what we wanted, and as the old adage goes, if it looks too good to be true...

Our van, nicknamed P.B. - Pinot Blanc.
After a week of biding our time and adjusting to New Zealand, we finally chanced upon a newer vehicle, a 1996 Ford Econovan, equipped with just about everything you could think of for a cross-country adventure. We decided to go for it, and bargained a great deal. Within the next two days we had bought a few extra things, a few days of groceries, and set off. The Ford was a manual transmission that ran on petrol: in other words, exactly the opposite of what we had been looking for. But as a 1996 model, it was actually one of the newest vans we had seen, which meant we would have an edge when it came to selling it in two-and-a-half months' time. Seeing the misery that some sellers were experiencing, we knew we wanted all the help we could get when it came time to sell.

Our road trip itinerary was pretty wide open, in my opinion, the best itinerary you can get for a road trip. In case you don't know the general geography of New Zealand (which was us when we got there), the country consists of two islands: north and south, separated by a four-hour ferry ride on the Cook strait. As New Zealand approaches the winter months, the south island gets colder than the north, so we decided that we would make a relatively quick pace to go south, and then head back north at a more relaxed pace.

The day of our departure from Auckland was a bit chaotic, and we set off later than expected; in the end we made our destination for the night a campground about three hours to the east of the city, in the Kauranga valley. It was definitely a trial by fire for us both, with me as driver and Amy as navigator: not having driven since France, on an unfamiliar side of the road, again with manual transmission, in a van that drove like a bus (well, maybe not a bus, but bigger than the mid-size cars I was used to). As if that wasn't enough, there was a constant clanging coming from the back of the van that we couldn't immediately identify; and just as we were getting used to the drive, the sun went down and plunged us into darkness just as we left the major highway and entered the very rural backwater. The campground was ten kilometers down a narrow gravel road that twisted and turned, climbed and dived, and caused the clanging in the back to turn into a full-on scrap metal cacophany. By the time we pulled into the campground, our nerves were shot. But we made it.

The next day was spent sorting out the contents of the van to see what we had purchased. Boxes and bins of all kinds of bits and pieces; blankets, pillows, fishing gear, a cooking stove (the source of the rattle, and easily muffled) and propane tank, tent, sleeping bag, books, maps, everything. By the time we had reorganized everything into a way we could actually find things, it was noon. So began our new schedule, dictated by the sun and the moon. Because we didn't want to risk the car's battery by keeping the interior lights on, when the sun went down, that was essentially the end of the day. And because we would go to sleep relatively early, we would be wide awake an hour before the sun would rise. We did look into other options to give us some light to read by: battery-powered lights, rechargeable and not, but they were essentially not worth the effort and cost in batteries. In the end we found some great candles, which not only warmed up the van in the cold south, but gave a very cozy light.

The way out of the campground was much easier to navigate by daylight without the clanging, and so, we made our way eastwards towards the northeastern coast of the northern island. I figure the whole of our trip has, in a way, prepared me for driving in New Zealand. Driving in France introduced me to roundabouts and re-introduced me to the mysteries of manual transmission. Driving in the French alps with Mary and the Ardeche with Ronna steeled me to seeing perilous drop-offs out the car windows, breakneck turns and narrow roads. Driving in India acquainted me with unusual road obstacles and hazardous weather conditions. Even so, none of it really prepared me for what we were to drive through in New Zealand.

New Zealand is essentially a mountain range running north to south through both islands. People say that the south is more mountainous than the north; but to my perception, they're both chalk full of mountains. To make a road across and around the country, you would follow the path of least resistance, where it is easiest to construct said road. The end result of this is a road which is constantly turning left and right, up and down. You are never bored when driving these roads, which are helpfully signed with the appropriate speed to make the turns. While the speed limit for main highway roads is 100 kilometres per hour, the speed on curves averages around thirty, and at some points, fifteen. You'll climb up a mountain side, switching back and forth up a road, only to drive down the other side. The engine temperature will rise dramatically as you spend twenty minutes climbing, and then you can effectively put the car in neutral and coast downwards for the next twenty as you ride down the other side. You feel like you are rarely heading towards your destination. And to top it all off, the countryside is just so interesting to look at.

We began to tell people, when they asked us for our impressions of NZ, that the nature of New Zealand is very similar to Canada: it's just compressed into a tiny island-sized package. Every ten kilometres or so, the countryside completely changes. One minute, you're driving through a gorge, twisting and turning perilously; the next minute, you've entered a plain, stretching wide open for kilometres. Meadows of sheep will graze next to meadows of cows, and in the background will be a forest of coniferous trees, shooting up in the incredibly fertile soil to fuel a rich lumber trade. In the rich pasture lands, you see impossibly lush green hills, rolling into the distance, so pudgy the look like moss-covered balls of play dough.

Sunset over Napier's coastline.
Crossing the north island towards the east through the twisting-turning gorge, we emerged onto the coast at Tauranga, which gave us our first view of the Bay of Plenty. The road followed alongside the water (rising and falling, but not turning so much). As an Ontario boy, it's uncommon for me to see a body of water that goes on over the horizon. Our driving took us through Whakatane and Opotiki, normally bustling towns whose tourist trade was waning from the end of the season. From there we wound our way towards Gisborne and Napier, regions famed for their grapes and vineyards. We actually over-indulged a bit with the region's grapes, so we didn't sample as many vineyards as we might have liked, but from what we tried, we very much enjoyed. As we stopped for the night on our way, we began to learn the ropes with what the locals call "freedom camping" - essentially, finding a place out of the way to stop, closing the curtains and hoping no one would mind. No one did. Napier was an excellent place for freedom camping, the local city council actually setting aside a small space of land looking out onto the ocean for the motorhome set to park on for two nights and then move on. It was the windiest night I've ever spent, the van rocking on its wheels, the wind howling and the waves crashing. I slept like a baby.

We visited "opportunity shops" as we drove cities and towns on our way, looking for little things to make our van more comfortable. After months on the road with just our packs and fragmented possessions, it was an opportunity to spread out, and be reminded of what it's like to have a place to keep your things. Our previously loved acquisitions were small but significant: a lid for a pot, a new sweater of infamous New Zealand merino wool, a new teapot. After drinking one too many glasses of wine out of plastic mugs, we lucked out at a wine shop, who sold us some fancy Spiegelau glasses for a pittance because they had actually just taken over the shop, and couldn't access the store's computer.

As we pressed further south to tour that island before the onset of winter, we passed through Carterton, the defacto paua shell producer for New Zealand. Paua shell is that distinctively irridescent, rainbow-hued shell that adorns much of the jewellery that comes from the country. It's harvested from a clam-like sea creature (the Paua) by hand, with a carefully-regulated code of conduct for the skin divers who pluck them from the sea bed. It's actually illegal to use any kind of SCUBA equipment to harvest them, as a few years of over-harvesting dwindled the numbers of Paua to dangerous levels. But now with these regulations the Paua is flourishing and business is booming. After they're brought up from the sea, there's a long process of sanding and cutting, polishing and perfecting, to produce a dozen or so pieces that are sculpted into various forms of jewellery. Amy found several raw pieces that will undoubtedly make unique items when we return.

From Carterton we drove the next day to Wellington, to catch the Bluebridge ferry to the south island. These ferries are massive ships, capable of taking thousands of passengers and dozens of cars at a time, with multiple levels, cafes, lounges and even a movie theatre. As it's a four-hour crossing, it can get pretty boring, and there are a variety of things to keep you occupied. Apparently if the wind gets choppy enough the ferry can get stranded on heaving waves until it's safe to dock; fortunately, this didn't happen to us. We stayed out on the deck, watching the land retreat until the wind made it too chilly, and then spent the rest of the time below decks, waiting for our arrival onto the South Island.

The whole rest of Nepal (for us)

Our day in Jomsom prepared us a bit for what we're likely to expect for the rest of our trek towards Muktinath. Every day the weather seems to turn out the same way; it starts off very calm and sunny, but as the day gets hotter the winds pick up, until in the middle of the afternoon it's a veritable wind- (and hence, dust-) storm. The clouds develop, sometimes there's rain, sometimes there's not. Either way, people go indoors because it's no fun to get pelted with dust outside. In the more bored recesses of my mind, I nickname this effect "the weather machine."

[But first, a note of clarification regarding these notes about our trek in Nepal: I'd mentioned the plight of Gavin and Jade, how Jade had come down with giardiaisis, and how if you didn't bring your own medications with you, you could be in serious trouble. I didn't go on to reassure our mothers that we were carrying a pretty good pharmacy of our own. The point I was making, to myself, it seems, was that we weren't carrying a readily available medicine to treat giardiaisis, as we were hoping to avoid that particular bug - you tend it catch it by drinking local water. We were carrying water purification tablets, which we used liberally.]

After getting the best of a first impression from Jomsom, the next morning we packed up and set off on the road towards Muktinath. We passed by groups of children bound for school, all dressed in the same uniform: grey jumpers and black trousers or skirts, depending on whether you're a boy or girl (just in case that's not clear: the boys wear trousers, the girls wear skirts). They didn't pay us much attention as we go: tourists are common here, especially as many choose to fly into Jomsom and trek back to Pokhara. It's a slightly easier variation of the trek because you've got more downhill than up.

It was a fairly easy stretch towards our destination for the day, Kagbeni. As Jomsom is a very critical location for the area (military, travel, judicial focal points) the road to and from Jomsom was probably one of the first to be completed. Consequently, our travel goes pretty quickly, and we're passed by several motorcycles (with and without extra passengers) as we go. We pass by a very interesting collection of houses, seemingly built out of the rocky crag of a mountain, and all the same colour of yellowish-brown.

The stone-filled basin.
While we could have probably taken the road all the way to Kagbeni, Bhakta preferred the scenic route of the stone-filled basin. Walking over the millions of mandarin-sized rocks filling the chasm floor is only a small challenge on the ankles, but the real challenge is coping with the boredom, as it takes a while for the scenery to change, and the path is invariably straight and flat. Bhakta tells me that if you're lucky, you'll find a fossil among the rocks. Indeed, this route towards Muktinath is regularly scoured by fossil-seekers, as they're particularly precious to Hindus of the brahmin (religious) caste. So, it turns out to be a great way to pass the time, convenient because you're already looking that way to avoid ankle-destroying stones. I don't find any, however, which isn't a surprise as the route to Muktinath is travelled regularly by pilgrims who have much better eyes for this sort of thing than I do.

As we round a gentle bend in the basin, the mountains reveal two settlements in the distance: Ecktabeni, the closer, and Kagbeni, actually set onto a plateau a few hundred metres up from the basin. Ecktabeni, by contrast, is at river-level, and it we would reach it first: we stopped for tea. The sun was high in the sky just before noon, but the weather machine hadn't really picked up yet: it was blazingly hot. Ecktabeni is a collection of lodges, a staging point between Kagbeni and Jomsom, which is a bit odd as Kagbeni is really only another hour away of fairly easy walking. An hour later we were walking into the outskirts of Kagbeni, passing one of the many contrasts you'll note in Nepal: lush, green, grass-filled terraces overlooking the dry rock bed of the empty river basin. As we approach the town, I can't help but note an odd zig-zag pattern scarred into the side of the mountain on the other side of the town; it carves a path from the base all the way to the top.

Kagbeni occupies an interesting position in the Annapurna sanctuary for tourists; it's the farthest north you can go with your ACAP (Annapurna Conservation Area Project) trekking permit. Crossing into the zone north of Kagbeni takes you into the Upper Mustang province, which requires a separate permit worth USD$700. In addition you have to go with a licensed trekking tour operator, and you have to have a completing accounting of the gear you intend to take with you. When you come back, you have to go over the accounting again, and there are serious fines if you don't bring everything back - including your garbage. They take littering very seriously in the Upper Mustang, apparently. But for us, it just meant that our visit to Kagbeni was done with an awareness of which streets we could walk on and which we shouldn't. Even crossing the border by accident can incur a fine of USD$200.

Our stay in Kagbeni would be at the Red Lodge, so named for its choice of exterior colour scheme. Walking through the town to get there, we pass two shops that clearly know their target market: the first, a shop with a hand-painted 7-11 sign hanging proudly over the door; the second, a small restaurant named "Yak Donald's", complete with hand-painted golden arches.

We have to walk up six sets of stairs to get to our lodge, so by the time we get there, we're out of breath. But we're received warmly, shown to a room and told we can order some lunch whenever we like. When I mention that we'll have dal bhat with everyone else, she tells me that they have dal bhat for dinner in Kagbeni, not for lunch. It's just one of those things. The place has a very Tibetan influence in its furnishings and general decor (there are several pictures of the Dalai Lama): as you go further north, the proportion of residents of Tibetan heritage increases.

In one of those coincidences that can only happen when you travel in a small country, we run into Beranice and Monica in the Red Lodge (we met these two in Tatopani at our lodge there) and share some stories while waiting for lunch upstairs on the rooftop solarium (the Red Lodge was a bit fancier than some lodges). They tell us about their trek up the nearby mountain with the scar on it in the early hours of the morning to catch the sunrise. The scar, as it turns out, is a newly constructed walking path carved out by the hotel's owner and a friend of his. It's a long, and slightly dangerous ascent, given that the wind picks up dramatically as you climb and the path isn't really finished yet. But when you finally reach the top - 4,800 metres, by the end - you have an unparalleled view into the Upper Mustang. As they talk, I find myself wanting to scrub our plans to go to Muktinath and climb this mountain instead, but I also want to get to the end of our road in Muktinath as well.

Dust storms in Kagbeni.
The rest of our day is spent wandering around Kagbeni, doing some laundry, and marvelling at the approaching dust storms as the wind starts to pick up in the middle of the afternoon. We find a device that looks like a cross between a satellite dish and a mirror, aimed at the sun with a pot of water at its focal point: yes, it was heating the water, and the water was plenty hot. I asked Bhakta at one point why there wasn't more use of wind power in this area, given the extraordinary wind activity that occurs almost every afternoon. Apparently there are some issues with the "feast or famine" level of wind in the area when it comes to wind as a power source, but the real issue he decided, was that the people of Nepal aren't the greatest when it comes to technical maintenance. He cited a few examples of infrastructure investment in Nepal which had run down to ruin, owing to the lack of technical training to keep them running.

At dinnertime the guests of the lodge congregate in a hitherto-unseen dining room, complete with under-table heating, for piles of dal bhat. Amy and I are joined by Beranice and Monica, a french couple named George and Marie, and another Parisian named Julian. After dinner George and Marie retire for bed, but the younger set stick around. It's only a little while before some decks of cards are assembled and the rules for Racing Demon are passed on to some new players. In the end there were five players - our largest number yet: myself, Bhakta, Padam (playing with a helper), Tanzig (the hotel's owner) and Julien (who alternated with Beranice). It was fast and furious, as it usually is with larger groups, but great fun.

The next day we rise and head out for Muktinath, taking Beranice with us. Monica only has a few days to get back to Pokhara, so she figures she's got some long trekking days ahead of her on her way back down towards Jomsom. Before we leave Kagbeni we take a tour of a Buddhist temple, but no one can really translate for us, so much of the details of the place, while being clearly made with high quality craftsmanship, are lost on me.

Otherworldly blue.
We begin our ascent towards Muktinath. The trail is carved into the side of a mountain range, for the most part, so we get fabulous views over our left shoulders. I'm stopping every couple of moments to take pictures, it seems: but the sky is just so blue, and every look brings a different composition of mountain and sky. The mountains themselves are radically different than what we've seen so far: bulbous areas on top leading towards flat plateaus, and as they stretch downwards into a long valley, their walls have eroded into complex cave patterns. And the coffee brown against the royal blue of the sky is a colour combination you'd have to work pretty hard to replicate. My theory on the intensity of the blue colour of the sky is that normally, if you look straight up pretty much anywhere in the world, you see the same colour of blue, but it thins and lightens as your eyes drift to the horizon. So it doesn't look as impressive. But here in the mountains of Nepal, the horizon is masked by mountain ranges, so all you can really see is the deep blue.

Hard to describe, but it's quite something.

The trek upwards is more difficult than anything we've yet done, owing to the altitude: crossing the threshold of four thousand metres seems to be like adding a stack of bricks to my pack. It's a lot of vertical movement and it's extremely aerobic. Fortunately, Bhakta has been expecting this, and we take many breaks. As we get closer to Muktinath, we see something we haven't seen since the beginning of our trek into Annapurna: sales tables, replete with the same selection of Tibetan-style jewellery, scarves and paraphernalia. I would have died laughing if I saw a "I trekked all the way to Muktinath and all I got was this stupid T-shirt," but alas, none is to be found. We also encounter something we haven't really seen yet in rural Nepal: the hard sell. The sales pitch is the same: there are no tourists, we're hungry, there is no business, please buy something.

We stopped in Jokpath for lunch, which was surprisingly hard to find: the cooks had gone down to Jomsom for the afternoon. Eventually, Bhakta finds a lodge with someone willing to rustle up some dal bhat. Beranice, being on a much more open schedule than us, decides she's going to hang out in Jokpath for a few days. We say our goodbyes and head onwards to Muktinath.

A sadhu on the road to Muktinath.
The last bit of the trek from Jokpath to Muktinath wasn't so long, but it was a grind; it's a fairly steep trekking path, and what would normally be a slight bit of work is intensified by the altitude. But finally we were there, walking through a large arch welcoming one and all to Muktinath. We found a hotel, the Bob Marley Inn, a room and crashed. A bit later a stroll through the village: this wasn't going to be the place to buy souvenirs, as everything is a bit poorly made and too expensive. There's also a lot of hassle to buy, including being taken by the arm and having scarves thrown around your neck. These folks don't take "just looking" for an answer, and they've heard it all before. If you say you'll be back later, they try to extort a promise out of you to return. But despite it, it still wasn't as aggressive as some parts of Delhi.

Muktinath wasn't much of a stop, for us at least - for someone to whom Buddhism or Hinduism was important, this is a very significant place, with dozens of temples in the area, and two of the biggest in Nepal. But for me, the trek was more about the journey rather than the destination, and we were certainly afforded some pretty amazing views.

The Bob Marley Inn seemed to be pretty inactive in the low season, but it was fairly well populated. It must be a welcome sight for people arriving from the Throng La pass: lodges on the eastern side of the circuit are less cushy than the western side, and the BMI was certainly cush. A bit cold, owing to the season, but cushy. The under-table heating was welcome, and it was entertaining for a while to play racing demon in the dark (or near-dark) until the solar-powered fluorescent lights came on. With everyone staying at the hotel huddled into the two under-heated tables, it was quite cozy and familiar, and our game kept people entertained at our table.

We didn't visit the temples in Muktinath. We'd seen enough of the temples, and Amy had a headache that could have been aggravated by a further trip upwards. So we made our way back down, encountering many of the same vendors that we met on the way up. As we wound our way down, we barely had time to react to the voice of someone saying "I'm sorry, I'm sorry" before a mountain bike careened past us. We scattered to the side of the path to see a rider and a very expensive mountain bike blaze down the trekking path, the first of about six on a Himalayan circuit that actually took them over the Throng La pass. At that altitude it's got to be hell. I managed one acceptable photograph as we had precious little warning before they skidded past us, probably set off in intervals.

The rest of the walk back to Jomsom was windy and other-worldly: while we had timed our travel towards Kagbeni to take advantage of the still morning, we wouldn't be so fortunate on our return, as we decided to take a short cut and go directly from Muktinath to Jomsom with a short break at Ecktabeni. When the wind picked up in the early afternoon, we put scarves over our faces and hoods over our heads: I felt like an astronaut walking on the moon. It was especially comical to take photographs. It was a long haul but we finally arrived at Jomsom, trudged through the village and returned to the Anka Marco Polo.

There were lots of little things to while away the day. A brief walk through town, a hot shower. Beer and lovingly hand-made apple fritters. Eventually we reconvened with Bhakta and Padam and started a game of Dal Mara (so we would remember the rules) - and then the biggest Racing Demon game we'd played, with six in total. Utter chaos, but good fun chaos.

A chaotic morning followed: we awoke on schedule with lots of time to prepare for our 7:45 arrival at the airport (across the street), but Bhakta was at our door at 7 AM to alert us that the "airlines-man" had advised him that the plane was coming early and that we needed to be ready much sooner. It all happened very quickly - we had to hurry, but Bhakta seemed certain we still had time for breakfast. Our Tibetan bread had barely arrived when we heard the drone of an airplane and Bhakta said we had to go, now. Tibetan bread hanging from my mouth, we slapped some money in Bhakta's hands to pay the bill, lumbered across the street with our bags and sped to the departures lounge. It was then a matter of hurry-up-and-wait as we watched people get on board "our" plane, while we waited at the check-in desk. It turned out we were still scheduled for the second flight, that 7:45 would have been well sufficient, and we would never have made the first plane anyway as we still had to go through security.

Armed with this extra time, we got a chance to say some decent goodbyes and went back to wait for our plane. I'd love to tell you the full story of "going through security" but, the internet being the funny thing it is, it has some details that could get people in trouble. So I'll tell anyone who asks, the story, in person. Suffice it to say it left me shaking my head in wonder, and happily, no invasive body-cavity searches were required.

Our plane touched down. It was a small, twin-propeller job that held eighteen passengers and their luggage, and (as Ghorka airlines' literature glibly promised), "every seat is a window seat." Our flight back to Pokhara was an eyes-glued-to-the-window affair, with views of the whole Annapurna range from an unrivalled aerial perspective. It was amazing to think that the journey we had made on foot in seventeen days took us a mere thirty minutes by airplane.

Without much fanfare, we arrived in Pokhara. Pokhara is lovely and laid back, a small city with excellent weather, a launching point for excursions north into the Annapurna Sanctuary or south into Chitwan National park. Unfortunately there's a power cut between six and nine at night which puts a dent in nightlife, but there are a lot of generators in town to prevent too many tourist dollars from staying in tourist pockets.

We had a great, relaxed time in Pokhara: the city tends well to people who are looking to relax and spend a few dollars. It tends ever better to those who realize that the exchange rate between pretty much any major currency and the Nepalese rupee and the local prices make almost everything really cheap. So without too much of a dent in our wallet, we lived pretty well. I think for many people this is a major attraction to many countries in this area of the world.

We met many interesting people in Pokhara, and had a few fun days trotting around, but to give all the details would probably become pretty boring. So I'll choose one highlight: our hike to see Mount Sagarkot. On a clear day, Sagarkot is one of the closest peaks you can see from Pokhara, but you have to leave early because as the day heats up, a light haze fills the air, and visibility is dramatically reduced. We had some fuzzy directions from our guidebook, and armed with our intuitions, we set off out of the main road south of the city.

We made decent progress up the back hills of Pokhara, past people's houses and gardens, climbing ever upwards to get to a precipice from which we could see our last panoramic mountain vista. As we got further up though, we quickly lost our bearings as to which path would continue taking us up. We encountered several young children, each one offering to be our guide, for ridiculously low sums of money. We didn't want a guide: we wanted to do this on our own. For each we graciously thanked them, but said we wanted to go on our own.

We arrived at a point where the paths really didn't make any sense: they went directly into people's back yards, which we thought probably wasn't a good idea. Just milling around drew attention, and soon a child of around six years of age was asking us if we knew where we were going. We gave him the usual, but we didn't even get through our gracious denial before he shouted out something in Nepali, to his friend Basanta. I didn't need to know the level of Nepali required to know it translated as "Basanta! Tourists who want to see Sagarkot!"

This is how we met Basanta, a Nepali pre-teen who, along with his extended family, all live in the surrounding area. He was a really nice guy, and offered to take us to see Sagarkot: by this point I was willing to pay for a guide, but when I asked him how much he'd like to show us for, he replied, "some things you do because you feel proud of where you live, not everything is about money," which made me feel very small.

He then took us up a hitherto unseen path, which scaled the side of the mountain; he was wearing flip-flops and negotiated the track with no trouble, while us, with hiking shoes, were taking extra time. Walking these trails is something you clearly grow up with around here (the routes some of these mountain kids take to school will turn anyone into an athlete), and Basanta was no exception. The only time he paused to consider whether a particular path would be the next leg of the journey was to leap across a five-foot wide chasm on the side of the mountain: he looked at us and said, "I think this is too far for you, yes?"

We climbed further and further up his family's back forty, passing terrace after terrace: many had been planted with mustard, which had bloomed into a bright yellow carpet of flowers, some were left fallow with grass. He showed us a terrace that he and his youth group were expanding so that they could use it as a cricket pitch. He was very proud of the accomplishments made by his youth group: they had built a shrine, installed a water system and a welcome sign for their village, and their next focus was this pitch. Clearly, these kids aren't hanging out at the convenience store for fun.

As I began to wonder if we would ever get to a point where we could see anything but mustard, we arrived at the top of the mountain, which opened up to show us not only Sagarkot and its neighbours, but also all of Pokhara, spreading out before us. It was about eight in the morning and the activity in the city was clearly underway, with smoke rising from dozens of houses, and a light smog filling the air. Sagarkot was a more fulfilling view, interesting in that the haze had already begun, but from the ground up: the mountain appeared out of a misty base, along with the peaks beside it. We took pictures, promised to send copies to Basanta (we did), gave him a donation towards his youth group, and descended back to Pokhara

After our stay in Pokhara, it was back to Kathmandu by tourist bus. Our bus was set to depart at seven-thirty in the morning, so we woke early and paid our bill, and proceeded to the bus depot in the early, misty morning. The only reason Western tourists walk around in the early, misty morning in Pokhara is to catch a bus or a plane, so every taxi who passes slows down to see if you'd like to fork over some cash for a ride. We knew it wasn't far. We were walking.

We'd already figured on an empty stomach for the bus: we'd even bought a few small things to take with us for the ride. We knew there wasn't going to be time for breakfast. At least, this was what we'd planned on, but when the guy on his bike stopped beside us, with a platter of freshly-baked goods balanced on his shoulder, one look at what he had to offer told us we were in for a treat. Croissants, fresh from the oven; jelly rolls; cinnamon buns; you name it. All of them still steaming, and the price he commanded was a pittance, especially if you consider the mode of delivery. We bought a few and ate them as we walked.

And then realized that he wasn't alone, that other guys on bikes were making big dollars ferrying freshly-baked goods to the bus depot for the consumption of passengers. Ingenious. We were hailed by a guy as we arrived, who seemed eager to help us out and direct us to the right bus. He looked at our tickets and pointed us to a certain bus, which we boarded and waited. More guys came by with freshly-baked goods. The bus departed.

It must be a common theme among buses in India and Nepal: big, old, clunky, slightly uncomfortable, but workable. We settled in for a long, bumpy ride. We read, we lounged, I remarked how we must be taking a different route because I didn't recognize any of the scenery. We stopped at a roadside restaurant for a break. While there, I chanced to chat with a girl from Denmark, there to study for a semester at a university in Kathmandu (Denmark apparently has big ties to Nepal). It was only by turn of chance during our conversation that she let us know that the bus we were on was not going to Kathmandu; it was going to Chitwan national park, some four hours south of Kathmandu. As we headed back to the bus, we confronted the driver about this, who confirmed that we were indeed going to Chitwan.

Here is a lesson to be learned by one and all when travelling in countries where transportation systems are more "thrown together" than carefully regulated. Make sure you know where your bus, train or rickshaw is going before you get in. And in a case such as ours, rather than having someone tell you that this is the bus you want, ask them where the bus is going and then confirm that it's the bus you want. Because here's how the money flows in the bus system in Nepal: you buy a ticket from an agent, and then give your ticket to the owner of the bus. The bus takes you to its destination, and then the bus driver takes the ticket to the agent, who redeems it for a certain amount.

However, there's no incentive for a bus driver to be honest: all he wants is butts in the seats, and preferably, a completely filled (or over-filled as the case may be) bus. If we hadn't asked, he would happily have driven us to Chitwan and left us at the side of the road with no options. Informed of our problem, there wasn't much discussion, but a wavery committal that at the next stop - a larger town - he would find us a connecting bus towards Kathmandu.

And he did - a minivan, packed full of people - but staunchly refused to pay for our transport to Kathmandu. Not his problem. Legally, he's probably right - it's probably our responsibility to know where the bus is going. But that didn't help us from feeling pretty resentful towards the guy. The minivan was packed with fourteen people. There wasn't much room for anything but to enjoy the scenery. Conversation was slight. There was the fun game of waiting for the subject of payment to come up, and not wanting to give in too early. But we did.

When we finally arrived in the outskirts of Kathmandu, it occurred to us that in the smaller vehicle, we actually made better time than in the bus. However all of this was for naught, as we got caught in a nasty snarl of a traffic jam. Vehicles vied for position, but eventually, everything ground to a halt and we sat there for a half an hour, weighing our options. We could wait it out; we could get out and walk. Waiting was easier, however, we don't wait easily. Walking would have been more attractive, except we had only a sketchy idea of where we were. No one in the van could speak English, and even when we produced a map, it didn't really register to the kid who had taken our money for the tickets. Armed with a compass and a feeling, we got our bags and marched.

We marched for a while, but eventually, found some landmarks that inspired us with the confidence that we were marching in the right direction. However, we marched for an hour and realized that we were only a third of the way to our destination: Jonnche (a.k.a. "Freak street," so named for its hazy, hippy-era past). Feet started to complain, and we found a waiting taxi who agreed to take us to Jonnche for a very reasonable price.

We walked around the Freak street area for a while, until we saw a hotel that Beranice had recommended to us: the Annapurna Lodge. Four stories, reasonable rates, a decent restaurant and an attached bathroom: we were sold, and stayed there for the four nights prior to our departure from Nepal.

The next few days in Freak street were fun - even more fun than in Thamel, probably because there are fewer tourists in Freak street. We found a restaurant a mere block away from our restaurant - it had no name - simply because our guidebook had pointed us to a place that no longer existed. But this place served up the tastiest, cheapest Indian food we'd ever had, so we went back several times. I'm not kidding: we stuffed ourselves for the sum total of about seventy-five cents each. The best part was paying: we had to point out the items we had on the menu. This place doesn't deal in receipts. And then there was the place next door for dessert: a cake and pie place with drawings and paintings on the wall, preserved from the seventies. Cakes and pies to die for.

We hooked up with Bhakta again and he took us around Kathmandu. We did some more shopping, we had some tea, we said a proper goodbye. We shopped for gifts, we ate well for little, we saw some sights. We whiled away the rest of our time in Kathmandu. We decided to send a whole bunch of things home. This proved to be more complicated than we anticipated - isn't it always?

Our first stop was at TNT, an international courier akin to FedEx. They answered all our questions about international shipments and cheerfully told us it would cost us about two hundred dollars to ship our box - the cheapest option for them. Obviously reading the colour our faces had turned, he suggested that the post office might be a bit cheaper. He did help us out enormously, not just by filling in the blanks on many of our questions: but he also gave us a big box we could use.

Walking back along the crowded thoroughfares of Kathmandu to Freak street, with a five-foot by four-foot folded up box, was surprisingly fun. Not only do people look at you because you're from the west, but they look at you extra-long because you're carrying something weird.

We weighed the pros and cons of making two boxes or one box for shipment; Nepali post is supposed to be only partially reliable. We settled on one large box for everything and a roll of the dice. We packed everything in; we added stuff to protect our goods; we wrote out a list of everything. We taped it up. We went out to dinner, confident in tomorrow's postal task.

The next day we lugged our parcel down to the post office; it had rained, so we had swaddled our package in our pack covers. We were practically the first in line. The bureaucracy of the post office suggests why companies like TNT exist, to deprive the consumer of the giddy processes required to send a package from Nepal. The steps involved aren't indicated anywhere; it's learn as you go.

The first step was to tell the guys in the processing office what you wanted to ship, how big it was, and where you wanted it to go. We looked at our options: air, air express, or sea. I don't know the difference between the first two, only that it was actually cheaper to go air express, and no one could satisfactorily answer why you would ever choose the other. And while sea was less expensive, it would take four to six months. We chose air express. The guy I was speaking to gave an encouraging nod, and then directed us to take ourselves and our parcel to customs clearance, the second step.

At customs clearance, we were given a form to fill out. The form was, of course, in Nepali; helpfully, they supplied us with an English version of the form, laminated, with which we could divine the meaning of the boxes, and helpfully, which ones we actually had to fill out. We filled out the form, asked for some clarifications. Then the customs guy asked us to open up our box and show them everything. With internal reluctance, we cut through the four layers of tape, and showed him everything, item by item. They don't leave much to chance. But he was convinced that we were shipping what we said we were shipping, and then we were allowed to repack it and tape it all up again. He prepared a bill for "customs services rendered." But the best bit, worth absolutely every penny of the customs clearance experience, was watching an old lady sew up our package in canvas, and seal up the seams with wax. You don't get this kind of service with Canada Post.

We then took our package back to the processing office with the appropriate forms, to pay the bill and send our package on its long journey back to Canada. It was less than TNT charged, but ten times as entertaining.

The rest of our time was pretty much a blur. We cabbed it to the airport, where we waited in line for no reason at all until it was our turn to go; I made no less than three trips around the airport in order to do some last minute stuff like changing money; we met a really nice Aussie named Rosemary; we dined on dried fruit. We waited for our plane to arrive, and when it did, we got on and took a long flight to Thailand.