Off to climb a mountain - back in 10 days.

No cyber cafes at altitude so we won't be online for a while. Wish us luck!

Day 197. Pokhara, Nepal. Preperation, preparation, preparation.

If all goes swimmingly, this time next week we'll be sitting 4000 metres up admiring the view and congratulating ourselves on half a job well done (we'll have to come back down remember).

This is going to be no Sunday stroll along the South Downs however, so today we wrote about 15 lists detailing all those boring but important things we'll need to take. Diarrhea pills, water purification tablets, chocolate, torch batteries, long-johns, chocolate, woolly hats, vests, chocolate and so on.

Of course, deciding what not to take is the tricky part. We'll be lugging our bags for up to 7 hours each day, so the lighter they are, the better. Pack, discard half of what's in your bag, then pack again is the serious hiker's mantra and that's pretty much what we did today.

I still might sneak in some more chocolate when Wend's not looking mind.

Day 196. Pokhara, Nepal. Sensible Fokker.

Another flight vs bus dilemma this morning.

We opted to fly, but this time it wasn't time or monetary considerations that swung it. It was the fact that the roads in Nepal are among the most treacherous in the world. 30 times more dangerous than those in the UK according to our book, with buses particularly vulnerable on the narrow mountain passes.

So we took the 30 quid air fare on the chin and boarded our Yeti Airlines (sic) Fokker (snigger) and were lakeside in the gorgeous little town of Pokhara half an hour later.

Not a great deal of time to enjoy the scenery mind, as we've lots of planning and sorting to get through before we set off on our 10-12 day hike.

Day 195. Kathmandu, Nepal. A walk in the Himalayas.

Took a self-guided walking tour of the city this morning. And despite the bamboozling layout and complete lack of any legible street signs we pulled it off admirably.

Well, I should say Wend pulled it off, I just kind of tagged along really.

Loads to see along the way - the obligatory temples and pagodas, some unusual stupas adorned with prayer flag bunting and all-seeing Om eyes, and lots of little market squares.

These were rammed with folk peddling everything from pashminas and yak apparel to saris, copper urns and weird musical instruments. At one point a bloke even walked by with a wardrobe on his back, no idea how much he was asking, but as Wend pointed out, it'd never have fitted in our hand luggage anyway.

We also passed countless outdoor adventure type places, all advertising the ultimate Himalayan high. I'm sure they'd deliver, but a bit of originality with their names wouldn't go amiss. We saw 'Ultimate Everest', 'Everest Trek', 'Go Everest' and 'Everest Expeditions'.

Tempted to call in and see what kind of packages they were offering but a couple of things put us off.

For starters, we're not going to Everest. The trek up to base camp is only gets interesting after 2 or 3 days trudging across non-descript tundra, and, from what other hikers have told us, it can also become very crowded on the trail which kind of defeats the object really. More importantly though, these places all want ludicrous amounts of money for organising straightforward stuff like flights, accommodation and guides.

So instead, we've invested in a decent travel-book and a good map. If we need a guide there's bound to be a retired Ghurka hanging about who we can hire.

The Annapurna sanctuary, high in the Himalayan foothills is to be our final destination, and as long as we can avoid any unpleasant encounters with Maoist insurgents, it should be well within the capabilities of a couple of codgers like us.

Very excited, can't flippin' wait.

Day 194. Kathmandu, Nepal. Hopelessly unprepared.

So, 20 minutes after landing in Nepal we realise we've made a big mistake mailing home our waterproofs and warm clothing from Bangkok 3 months ago.

Kathmandu is about a kilometre above sea level and there's a definite nip in the air, especially noticeable when you've been sweltering in India for a few weeks.

We're planning to do some hardcore hiking while here and without the right gear there's a chance this could become more of an ordeal than a pleasure. Fortunately, the enterprising Nepalese have ripped off every reputable outdoor clothing manufacturer known to mankind. So we tog ourselves up with four hundred quid's worth of North Face clobber and haggle the price down to a fifth of that for the privilege.

Quite novel this cool mountain air mind, we're loving it already.

Day 193. Agra, India. Ridiculous to sublime.

A horrible, horrible start to the the day when we witnessed Dubey running across the hotel carpark in his loincloth.

"Oh my god sir, I am oversleeping"

My god indeed, Dubey, out thoughts exactly.

20 minutes later this apparition was but a foul memory as we were feasting our eyes on something far more wholesome - the Taj Mahal.

A few Taj tidbits:

* Built between 1631 and 1653 by Emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his second wife Mumtaz Mahal who died giving birth to their fourteenth child.

* 20,000 artisans knocked it together, some travelling from as far as Europe for the prestigious gig.

* They'll have wished they hadn't bothered though if there's any truth in the story that Jahan ordered their hands to be chopped off when the job was finished. He reasoned (and he was obviously a reasonable man) that without the availability of such a skilled workforce, no-one else could recreate a building to equal the Taj's beauty.

* The construction bill ran to over 3 million rupees, equivalent to about 40 million quid today.

* The four minarets, which are purely decorative, lean slightly outwards so that in the event of an earthquake they would fall away from the precious Taj.

* There are thought to be more Taj Mahal curry houses in the UK than Red Lion pubs.

* None of them are a patch on the original.


The place fair takes your breath away. We arrived at dawn to beat the crowds and for a full three hours just stood and gawped like a couple of love-struck teenagers. A seminal, life-affirming morning if ever there was one.

Later, we took in Agra's huge Red Fort and Akbar's mausoleum, which ordinarily would've had us running for our dictionaries to dig out some new superlatives. Not today though, today was all about the Taj Mahal.

Dubey was back on form and managed to steer us through Delhi's diabolical rush hour traffic in time for our final vindaloo before heading north to Nepal. We had three days in his company that we'll never forget. An unflappable and genuine character, he's one of the nicest blokes we've met on our entire trip.

We'll be adding a link to his agency on our homepage, if ever you're in Delhi give them a call and put a request in for Dubey the driver - you certainly won't regret it.

Day 192. Fatehpur Sikri, India. Lost.

While we were quick to sing Dubey's praises yesterday, i'm affraid the bugger had a shocker today.

We were supposed to be visiting the ancient abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri, and although we did eventually get there it was a long and painful process, taking in every road, village and field in the entire northern province.

From Delhi the journey should have taken 3 hours, maybe 3 and a half during monsoon or if there happened to be more livestock than usual grazing the central reservation.

Well, pathfinder Dubey managed to pull it off in just under 6 today.

100km out of Delhi he swerved off the highway and started heading across what can only be described a dirt track. Great we thought, he knows a short cut, we'll be there by lunchtime.

An hour later he was stopping to ask directions, an hour after that he was scratching his head and looking to the miniature Shiva on his dashboard for inspiration.

"We're lost aren't we Dubey?"
"No sir, not lost"

Another hour passes, now we're in a tractor traffic jam.

"You don't know where you're going do you Dubey"
"Oh yes sir, just crazy traffic today sir, we'll be there soon"

Another hour.

"Howay Dubey, admit it man, we're rudderless"

And so forth and so on, until eventually, by some freakish good fortune, we found our destination.

The upside to this protracted trawl, was that we got to see a big old chunk of rural India. The real India you could say, where the nobby bars of Mumbai and Delhi are a million miles away. We drove through small, remote communities where the living is simple, and to our eyes anyway, very tough indeed.

Fatehpur Sikri, when we finally arrived, was a fascinating place. A ghost town that was the short-lived capital of the Mughal empire between 1571 and 1585 during the reign of Emperor Akbar. It's main palace and mosque buildings remaining impressively intact to this day.

Unfortunately they didn't quite think things through when constructing this mighty citadel, as the nearest sizable water supply lay over 20 miles to the north. Once Akbar popped his clogs it only took a couple of blistering summers before everyone hot footed it up to Agra to start the building work all over again.

Day 191. Delhi, India. Magical mystery tour.

Rather than fanny about with trains and tuk-tuks we hired the services of the redoubtable Dubey for the next 3 days, who, with the help of his trusty Austin Ambassador will act as our guide and driver.

Today he pulled off the herculean feat of carting us around all Delhi's major sites in under 7 hours. Some achievement this, given the ludicrous traffic and lunacy of some of the drivers.

One by one we ticked off: The Indian War memorial, the Parliament buildings, the former residency of Indira Ghandhi (poignant this one - some fantastic black & white photo's of her as a young girl playing with dad and a touching memorial at the section of garden where she was assassinated), the Jama Masjid mosque (largest in India), Humayun's Tomb, the multi-faith Lotus temple and finally, the spot where Ghandhi was cremated in Raj Ghat park back in 1948.

It was a brilliant day, and overall I have to say we've been pleasantly surprised by Delhi. My brother Gordon visited three years ago and had painted a pretty grim picture on his return to the UK. So the last thing we expected were the green open spaces, imposing civic buildings and - perhaps the biggest shock of all - the complete lack of any litter. The ubiquitous discarded plastic bags and bottles that we've seen all over the rest of Asia (including Goa) being gloriously conspicuous by their absence.

Shattered by the time Dubey dropped us at our hotel, but did muster the energy to stagger to the nearest curry house. And here's something me and Gordon definitely will agree on; you've never had a Mutton Dahnsak until you've had one in Delhi.

Day 190. Delhi, India. Hot, hot, hot.

A few days ago the searing heat finally wore us down and we took the executive decision to abandon our plan to end the travelling with a stint in the southern Indian state of Kerala.

A great shame, not least because Perry's brother Brian had kindly arranged to let us stay at his firm's sumptuous holiday accommodation and we'd invested some serious time researching the places we particularly wanted to see.

Fourteen days in a furnace is quite sufficient for the Smiths these days though, so the revised idea is to spend a few days taking in the sites of Delhi and Agra before heading up to the cooler Himalayan climate of Nepal.

A hectic morning then, rushing about trying to get ourselves photographed and visa'd before the Nepalese embassy closed for the weekend at noon. How come these places all work a 15 hour week? Where the hell does all this visa money we keep handing over actually go? And is there a more cushy job in Christendom? Dunno, but I quite fancy coming back as a diplomat or ambassador in the next life.

Explored our hotel's immediate neighbourhood in the afternoon. Connaught Place is something of a hub in New Delhi. Seven major roads radiating out from its large central park where there's also a terminal for the city's spanking new underground system.

Lots of swanky shops and restaurants too, all giving the impression that this is a metropolis on the way up.

Wend warned me that I'll see a seedier side of the town tomorrow when we venture further afield, but on first impressions we're liking Delhi very much.