Sorry but this blog has grown into a monster, and it has nothing to do with the children at DNC. We have an unexpected spare day for Nepali type reasons to do with moving from flat to hotel (No, you don't really want to know.) and I've got carried away on the computer. It's done now and I've decided to go ahead with it and if you get bored half way through you know what to do.

This is the men's section - the Nepali version of Top Gear. Visitors to Nepal are strongly advised not to drive and, once you've seen the roads and driving, this is clearly the best advice you could ever be given. The roads are renowned as some of the most dangerous in the world. It is very difficult to hire a car here as no visitor would dream of doing so.

The journey from the centre of Kathmandu to the Disabled Newlife Centre is 6 miles. It takes a minimum of 45 minutes, often an hour. The roads are crowded beyond belief, not only with cars, motorbikes, lorries, buses, carts and cycles of all sorts but pedestrians, dogs, cows, goats, men digging holes, men in wheelchairs in the fast lane, men carrying 8 x 4 sheets of plywood across bicycles and every other obstruction you couldn't possibly dream of. The state of the roads on most of the journey is appalling. A bad farm track would be an Englishman's description. Potholes can be 2 feet deep and 2 feet round but even 'small' ones mean a detour across the road. We are constantly bounced from side to side and you shouldn't sit upright or your head may hit the roof. For part of the journey there are no main roads and the journey is along, what we would call, winding narrow city backstreets with no pavements.

Driving on the left is generally the rule but you must expect to find vehicles of all sizes heading straight at you. Turning right, for example, is not done at a right angle to the road. From about 50 yards you aim diagonally across the road towards the turning. Approaching traffic passes to your left, into the flow of other traffic behind you. Do you get the picture? Drivers go straight across junctions, often not even looking. Joining main roads, you just drive straight into the throng. Other drivers just stop or avoid you. It's every man for himself. You dive into a vacant bit of road regardless of the blockage you may cause. Horns blare continuously. But there's no shouting or rage. Other drivers just accept it and the traffic slowly moves on. Nepalis seem to remain calm in all circumstances. We must be missing something here because this way of driving is understood by Nepalis, even though it seems chaos to us. Only once have we been involved in an accident and that was when we were not with Krishna, our regular taxi driver. A motorcycle went into the back of our taxi and fell on its side depositing the driver and, perhaps, his mother in the dirt. They just picked themselves up and the taxi driver went on without even getting out. We are lucky in that Krishna has more concern than most for his car bodywork, suspension and passengers. It can only be the general lack of speed that prevents more accidents and deaths.

But get out of town and speed is added to this glorious mix and our first real taste of this was our 3 hour journey to the wedding along Nepal's major road, the main road to India along which travels 95% of the commercial traffic south. Once out of Kathmandu, an hour of the journey was along steep, narrow roads with hundreds of hairpin bends and precipitous drops. One way, heavy lorries slogged up in first gear and the other way they sped down. No self-respecting Nepali stays behind a slow lorry for long and whole strings of traffic, including buses, overtake continuously on blind bends often causing on-coming traffic to stop or swerve to the side. We had a good, patient driver but he was blasted by the horns of buses behind telling him to get a move on. The ancient vehicles frequently break down and partly block the road. In six hours, there and back, we only saw one accident and one lorry perched precariously on the edge so perhaps we did well. On Monday we're on this road again, for 7 hours to Pokhara, so we hope our bus driver is good and patient but, if so, we didn't see him on the road on Friday.

So on to Monday and that 7 hour trip to Pokhara. We felt we needed a holiday. What with the journeys to and from DNC and 3 - 4 hours a day with the children we're finding it hard work - at our age. But by Monday afternoon we'll be relaxing in a lake-side bar. Oh, foolish optimism! This is Nepal.

After a bit of a queezy night, we were up at 5.30 to catch the 7am bus. It took an hour to get out of the filthy air, mess and traffic of Kathmandu and into the 1½ hours of downhill hairpins. From the bus we could see our road winding thousands of feet below us with tiny lorries crawling along it. We even cracked jokes about what you'd have to pay for this experience at Alton Towers. After 4½ hours we reached the end of a traffic queue but our bus driver went on regardless, on the wrong side of the road to get as near to the front as possible. This is standard procedure and it leaves the road on both sides of a blockage completely jammed so that, even when the block is cleared, no traffic can get through. We stopped and when, after a few minutes, the Nepalis in buses around us began to get their luggage down from the roofs and set out on foot we knew this must be a bad sign. It was, as we were to learn over the next 5½ hours. The blockage was an accident but the delay was caused by two things. Firstly, as many drivers don't have insurance, vehicles involved in the accident and any cargo were seized by the locals and the road was blocked until compensation was sorted out. Secondly, there was the problem of clearing the road. So the first two hours were spent backing buses up to clear a way through. Not even the ambulances could get through and many other vehicles heading in the opposite direction to us were trapped. Some buses had to back up through narrow gaps for a quarter of a mile. Vehicles on the correct, left hand side had to move and squeeze up to make room for them so every engine was running. Among the glorious scenery we were trapped in a tube of fumes along the road. It was the drivers' mates who organised this with much banging of bus sides and shouting, much scraping of vehicle sides and smashing of wing mirrors. For the first time we saw Nepalis lose their cool.

For the first time Kathie and I had a serious sense of humour failure. In Nepal you must observe all the goings on with patience and a sense of humour. If the lights go out, you go to bed. If there's no water, you don't wash. If there's no wifi, you don't send the blog. If the hotel is rubbish just look for the Fawlty Towers jokes. Etc, etc, etc. But where were our lakeside bar, sunset and mountain views? So many aspects of life here make it difficult and so much is self inflicted. None of this chaos, noise and fumes was an accident. It was all man made. The flight from Kathmandu to Pokhara is 25 minutes and I said to Kath that next time we'll fly. "There isn't going to be a next time!!!"

I went to read my book in the sun on the low wall which, in theory, prevents buses from plummeting into the gorge below. (The number of gaps in these walls worries me.) The view of the gorge and the torrent rushing along at the bottom was beautiful but all around me was thick with rubbish thrown from the thousands of vehicles that have passed this spot. It covered the ground and hung from bushes. By this time a hundred sellers of drinks, sweets, crisps etc. had materialised from nowhere, selling their wares through bus windows. Out of these windows came back all the rubbish - crisp packets, biscuit boxes, orange peel, plastic water bottles, a cardboard box and even a finished-with newspaper. After a few hours the road was covered with rubbish. Why do Nepalis, and I suppose some tourists, spoil their beautiful country like this?

After 5½ hours a cheer went up as vehicles in the distance started to move. It then took us 40 minutes to get 2 miles past the town where the accident had been because many of these pre-historic vehicles couldn't be started and the roads were blocked again by moving vehicles refusing to give way to traffic coming in the opposite direction. Our bus pushed into the spot alongside a broken down bus. We couldn't move because of the queue back from a similar situation a few hundred yards on. But nor could the traffic in the opposite direction move because of us. When we were in the clear the driver drove like a maniac and we gripped on and hoped for the best. But still we were overtaken by buses going even faster. After dark we were very pleased that he slowed down considerably. Eventually we arrived in Pokhara. 125 miles in 14 hours. Even the 8½ hours driving meant we only averaged 15mph.

The rant is over. The hotel was great, staff eager to please and they prepared a meal for us at 9.30pm. Pokhara was quiet, clean and pollution free - a totally different world to Kathmandu. We will have that holiday, just a little late. If you keep your sense of humour Nepal is a great place. Nepalis are very proud and defensive of their nation and we have not included many criticisms because Nepalis are generally such nice people and patiently put up with so much. The 10 year Maoist Insurgency, as it's called, that ended in 2006 wrecked so much of the infrastructure and destroyed the economy. Kathmandu has doubled in size in 10 years because people fled from the countryside dominated by Maoists. Nepalis all tell you that they'll catch up and Nepal will be a great place again and we hope it will.

And never mind our rants. Bear a thought for Prakash and Pooja, on their way to meet Prakash's new mother in law. We've heard they were a few miles back in the same jam and didn't reach Pooja's home village till 2am. As my mother used to say in this sort of situation, "There's always someone worse off then you".

Continuing the subject of driving habits, we also enjoyed a Nepali ambulance ride. Even though Kath 'only' had a fractured wrist she was taken to hospital in the nearest large town, Bharatpur, by the local ambulance. As the driver approached Bharatpur there was a lot of traffic. He put on flashing headlights, blue light, bells and siren. Nobody took a blind bit of notice. At one point when there was a chance to pass a coach and four lorries, the coach suddenly pulled out in front and slowly overtook the lorries, blocking our view of oncoming traffic.

And finally the drive back from Chitwan to Kathmandu was almost pleasant. We had that careful driver we'd longed for and a front seat so we could see all that was going on. The heavy lorries being repaired by the side of the road; a back axle fallen off, gearbox off and in pieces being repaired by the roadside, brake drums off and brakes being repaired in situ. How do these ancient vehicles survive the constant wrecking from the road surface? How does the crumbling road surface survive the constant pounding of heavy vehicles? We saw our first accident that had most likely been fatal - two lorries with cabs totally crushed. Not a happy scene. And finally here's a question for discussion over a beer or two.

A heavily overloaded lorry, loaded with tree trunks, some projecting 4 feet beyond the rear end is stopped on the steepest part of a sharp hairpin. Rear suspension is totally collapsed with the load resting on the rear wheels. Front wheels are barely touching the road. In our six weeks I've not seen any mobile heavy lifting equipment or breakdown vehicles. How do you move it and clear the major road along which nearly all Nepal's trade flows?

We're enjoying ourselves. New hotel in Kathmandu is great. This negative stuff is just to amuse the petrolheads. A little bit about the holidays later. Wish you were here.