This article was written back in 2008. Today in 2013 the situation for the vast majority of Nepalese has not improved: access to clean drinking water is sporadic, increased powercuts, the price of commodities doubled, the poliitical situation in deadlock, and increased lawlessness.

As there is yet another power cut I am writing this email by the flickering light of a candle and the gentle glow of my laptop.

I am back in Kathmandu after an epic motorbike trip back from Pokhara, through the mountains from west Nepal.

On the city limits of Pokhara I watched a defenceless bystander get beaten up by the police. It was very brutal and so unsettling as it is so rare for most of us to see such violence firsthand.

In towns throughout Nepal this has led to rioting in support of the injured. And It took me an hour of gentle persuasion to get through a roadblock set up by the local bus owners, who were demanding fuel.

Along the way I gave a young teacher a lift to Dumre, where he would not let me go on until we had chiya and dhal bhatt (tea and the main Nepali meal of rice and lentil soup).

He offered to pay me 100 rupees for the trip. I felt so humbled, and told him that I wanted to pay him for the experience!

I then left the main road and travelled up, and up to Bandipur - a wonderful old Newari town set on a ridge with beautifully restored mansions which used to be owned by Newar merchants. I couldn't believe it, and I was astonished at the opulence of the architecture.

Bandipur used to be a trading station between India and Kathmandu. However, when the main road was built the town fell into disrepair, but has now risen again from the ashes. The Newars' were traditionally traders who bought and sold goods between India and Tibet. In exchange for salt from Tibet rice was transported north to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet on caravans of yaks and horses acclimatised to climb over the high Himalayan passes. The trade expanded to all types of goods including metal work, household items, clothes, and silks. Tobacco was banned, but firearms were freely available.

Everyone in Lhasa owned a gun and bullets were sold on the streets spread out on a blanket. In later times even Swiss watches and BSA motorcycles were being imported to Lhasa. The bikes came up in parts and had to be reassembled in Lhasa. However, later they were banned because they frightened the horses, which formed the major mode of transport in Tibet. The merchants used to travel through the mosquito infested Terai region bordering India in the winter when they were less likely to catch malaria. They would then stay in the Kathmandu valley to wait for the snow in the high passes to melt so they could then proceed north to Tibet.

On the ride back down, through wonderful forest, I gave an old chap a lift back to Dumre where he was trying to get to Pokhara. No buses or trucks were running. Only children skipping a long the road and the occasional cyclist ambling slowly by.

Halfway to Kathmandu a petrol station was open near Mugling with no queues and I managed to get five litres just before the owner locked up the pumps. I had bought petrol on the kalo bazaar - the black market - in Pokhara. I felt guilty for doing so, but if I had not been able to get the fuel, I would not have given the two men a lift.

The road to Kathmandu was empty, the truck drivers were too scared to drive the tankers up from the border to the The Kathmandu Valley. The only trucks I saw were carrying gravel for the building boom going on in Kathmandu. Even with all the trouble going on the Dollar was still king.

There is now widespread violence and killing in the Terai - the plains which border India, and there has been rioting and killing in Bhaktapur the sister city in the Kathmandu Valley. A night-time curfew has been imposed.

A briefing at the British Embassy reports that due to the power cuts and the lack of fuel for the generators hospitals are starting to refuse to take in any more patients, and they will inevitably have to shutdown.

The power cuts currently last up to eleven hours a day and rumour has it could reach 18 hours. This is not only in Kathmandu, but throughout the country. The Indian and Chinese governments have promised to provide power, but nothing has happened yet.

I pray every morning that my shower will have hot water. Strangely I could always get boiling hot water in Pokhara.

If there is no improvement over the next week families of diplomats and other expatriates are going to be evacuated out to their own countries.

Tourists are now flying out, because the buses down to India are not running. The speculation is that the army is going to be called out to guard key installations and to escort the petrol tankers.

The shortage of food and the kerosene to cook it with is making the life of the people here very desperate indeed. I get the sense that it It is only a matter of time before rioting against the shortages breaks out in Kathmandu - days even.

In light of the unstable conditions, I have booked a flight back down to Delhi for an onward connection back to London. The Delhi flight is only an hour long and the plane can carry enough fuel for the return leg.

If Nepal's only international airport: Tribuhuvan Airport in Kathmandu, runs out of fuel the talk on the radio is that the long haul flights will travel via airports in India.

The hotel I am staying in is in the tourist area of Thamel. When I first came here 18 years ago it was all trekking shops, U2, the Doors, and the remnants of the hippie era. Nowadays it is full of "Dance Bars", massage parlours, and street children high on glue.

The dance bars and massage parlours are little more than thinly disguised brothels. I heard a story of a couple of guys who went into one of the dance bars in January, due to the cold, the girls were dancing on stage in Duffel coats.

It would be funny if it were not so tragic.

I have just been moved to another room as the other had no water and the telephone doesn't work. But they don't work in here either!

The two ladies, Asme and Kuamri, who clean my room have just sat and had a cup of tea with me. They get paid a mere £40.00 ($60.00), a month. I just don't know what to say. They were both up at 4am this morning in the cold and fog to queue up with hundreds of others for water and just two litres of kerosene for their cooking stoves.

The people of Nepal deserve better and the current situaiton saddens me deeply.

Benjamin Disraeli once said: don't ever apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth. I won't.