As you can see I'm now in Kathmandu the capital of Nepal, which incidentally is brilliant. Over the last 2/3 days I've been gorging on the rampant commercialism that is the tourist ghetto of Thamel in the city, a welcome change from India.

The last blog was from the town of Gangtok in the northern eastern state of India called Sikkim. Unfortunately due to a lack of willing participants amongst the tour group, I couldn't do a 2 day trek in the surrounding mountains. Instead we did a trip up to a lake that stands at 14,000 ft an hour or so drive from the town. It was a slightly odd place and not quite the spectacular setting we were led to believe, the drive there however was spectacular. The main reason for going there was to get a ride on a yak (mine didn't have a name so I called him Simon), one of those big hairy bull things and get the associated picture on the back of one.

From Sikkim the tour headed south, back to the town of Siliguri where we had previously overnighted. From here we could make the short drive west to the Nepal border. Nobody was looking forward to this place as it is a bit of a dive and the hotel likewise. However we were there the first night of Diwali, which is a big festival celebrated all over the country. Its the 'festival of lights' and the Indians go to town with fireworks. Being India, the general flagrant disregard for personal safety extends to firework displays and this made for an entertaining evening (I don't care what anyone says, there's a lot to be said for playing with fireworks). Only the first 50cm of the 'retire 10m after lighting' warnings are observed and the concept of keeping spare fireworks in a sealed container isn't popular - they often pile up a load of fireworks and light them all at once.

The next morning it was time to enter Nepal. The first destination was the Royal Chitwan National Park, home to Rhinos and allegedly tigers. The drive wasn't possible all in one day to we had a bushcamp in between and arrived in the park the following lunchtime. On arrival I signed up for a walking safari, worryingly led by two guides armed only with sticks. I never did get very far outside the confines of the hotel lodge we were staying in as it turned out I was allergic to the Chitwan park. As soon as I got near crossing the park entrance my eyes went crazily sore and started streaming with water so I had to turn back. The next morning we did an elephant safari which luckily I managed ok with the help of a couple of antihistamines. The mythical tigers, of course, failed to materialise. In fact pretty much everything failed to materialise and the most interesting thing to report back on was a few mushrooms. I did though get to drive a elephant near the end which involves sitting behind its head and kicking it behind its ears to steer. I've got a short video of this which I'll try and upload at some point.

Next stop Kathmandu. After a long tortuous journey we arrived in the city and the traveller haven of the Thamel district.

Nepal is officially fantastic:
- good fresh coffee without 14 sugars already added (tick)
- western food and restaurants that know how to cook it (tick)
- breakfasts that don't arrive stone cold (tick)
- bars (tick)
- less people (tick)

....all this and I haven't even seen a single facae yet that isn't mine! Nepal is hardly the anti-India but still a refreshing change.

Today was particularly exciting for a man who's favourite word is 'breakfast', the discovery of a breakfast specialist restaurant! Huge tasty portions and a dish called 'eggs benedict' which I hadn't known existed but can now see me ordering on many occasion in the future.

Desperate for a bit of exercise, I headed out on a day's mountain biking on my first day here in the city. It was a great day riding around the city's surrounding hills, between rice paddy fields, and through rural villages - even the packed lunch they provided was good. Only slight blot was the two fat scottish couples that I was doing it with held me and the guide up all too often.

Yesterday a load of us from the tour group chartered a plane and did an 'Everest flight' This involves a hour our round trip from Kathmandu in a small plane to fly alongside the Himalayan range for stupendous views of a load of the big peaks, including good views of Everest itself. I've uploaded a couple of pictures taken through the plane window.

I say goodbye to my tour group at the end of this week as I get off and the truck continues on its loop around India. Overall it was a good trip in the truck, overlanding in the truck gives you a good feel for the size of the country and a look at the non touristy bits off the traveller beaten path. I have two trips booked with another tour company here in Nepal, one is called 'Nepal Adventure' and consists of trekking, rafting and other general sightseeing. Then in a fortnight I'm on their Everest base camp trip and a bit of serious altitude trekking.

Thanks for the messages on the message board. Its reassuring to know people other than my mum are reading this! bye.