We arrived in Kathmandu last Friday. It is less crowded than India and feels calmer. We have been relaxing, doing laundry and generally mooching around. There are many shops selling colourful hippy type clothes, it is apparent that they had lots of western visitors in the sixties, Eric had not taken two steps out of our hotel on the first morning before he was offered 'good smoke/hash', and we have had the same offers everyday since.

The Kathmandu Guest House is our base for this week, and it was the first hotel in Kathmandu and the Beatles stayed there in 1970's. It is an old Nepalise nobel family's manor house and is built around a courtyard. There is a tranquil garden in the middle and our room faces onto it.

The electricity in Nepal is quite intermittent. It is only on from 4-8 am & pm, and not always even this much. We have had the pleasure of a shower by candlelight.

There are many Hindu and Buddhist temples. the Hindu temples look very different from those in India, they have pagoda type roofs. We visited the big Buddhist temple in Kathmandu, climbing the 365 steps for the privilege. There were fantastic views from the top. Many monkeys live on and around the temple, a gang of them surrounded us whilst we were eating our lunch they distracted us and stole Abby's croissant from behind. Good team work from the monkey thieves!!!

Abby really wanted to fly over Everest, but it cost about £120 each. So now Eric, being the tight fisted git that he is, has insisted that we economise. So everyday we go to the german bakery that sells all its stock at 50% off after 8pm, and many evenings dinner has consisted of a piece of cold pizza each at less that 30 pence for the two.

As we haven't had many birds to spot, we have bought a book on Hindu and Buddhist symbolism and gods. So we can now tick off temple objects and statues as we spot them on our travels.

Mangey dogs are still everywhere, but none have yet to beat the one in Delhi.

On the 20th of Feb, to improve our fitness in preparation for trekking we walked from the area in Kathmandu that we are staying in (Thamel), south crossing the most disgusting smelly river you can ever imagine to Patan. Patan used to be a separate kingdom to Kathmandu, so has its own central palace (durber) square. Less tourists and nicer temples although on a smaller scale to Kathmandu's durber square.

The dust and pollution from India and Nepal has given us both sore throats, so we have purchased face masks. We now resemble Japanese tourists.