From Clare: Written in haste before a power cut ... and without contributions from all ... but just so you know what we're doing. We'll write more about this leg soon!

I don’t know if it was a touch of ‘travel weariness’ or a bout of Delhi belly (probably acquired in Kenya but got worse as soon as I saw the Delhi sign at the airport) ... but I’ve felt a bit disengaged from Asia so far. In Nepal we are staying with old friends who are here with the British Gurhka’s and that has made things very easy – we have booked our trips through the camp, taken advantage of the GP to get antibiotics and generally been very well looked after. The boys have enjoyed having a friend to play with, boys toys and a large pile of DVDs and having a No 4 army haircut! However – you can’t get much more engaged than swimming above a submerged elephant while it bathes, and getting showered by river water as it splashes its back! My love affair with elephants continues – though it has been odd to get into the mind set of Indian elephants being bred here to work rather than the conservationist attitude to keep a healthy wild population in Kenya. We bathed with them, and then rode on their backs – each at a corner of a wooden ‘basket’ through a community forest that borders Chitwan National Park. Extraordinary to be at a height – brushing against the trees, spotting deer and wild boar and coming across rhino who were more scared of the elephant and backed away into the leaves.

I warm to the Nepali people. The gentle ‘Namaste’, the combination of south asian and Tibetan heritage. Hindiusm and Buddhism are mixed up here and shrines are every few metres on the streets. We walked down to Patan Durbar square which has such a plethora of shrines, temples, ancient palaces. Every inch of heavy dark wood intricately carved and each roof line fluttering with red and gold material borders.

Tomorrow we head off to the mountains for trekking. Hopefully the humid haze will have lifted and we’ll get some views.