Despite all our fears of her flying with Air India, Alison arrived safe and sound in Kathmandu after no problems with overflowing toilets on the planes, so first hurdle overcome! We started with dinner in the Summit and a gentle exploration of Patan the next day and acclimatisation was all going to plan. Unfortunately as we had realised from living here, nothing goes according to plan for very long in Nepal!

Anyway, we decamped to Pokhara and the Fishtail lodge where the first issue arose: despite Alison's best efforts to avoid any gastric problems - religious use of antibacterial hand wash, consumption of vast amounts of pro-biotic yoghurts - she quickly fell foul of the dreaded Kathmandu quickstep! Fortunately I had also recently fallen foul of this - I think you can just breathe it in here - and had taken the precaution of getting a second lot of anti-biotics just in case! So the miracle cure was quickly provided but not before a few frantic rushes to loos!

Anyway, we set off to Jomsom with our lovely guide BJ in a tiny 15 seater plan giving us fantastic views of mountains and hillsides so close you feel you can reach out and touch the trees. After landing we had breakfast while Bj tried to find a pony for Alison to use. Eventually one was located and off we set. The first day to Kagbeni was very flat so Alison walked and rode and we had a lovely time until about 11am when the wind started to get up. This valley is notorious for horrible dust winds and its best to walk as early as possible. But at least we were facing the right way so the wind was behind us And we reached Kagbeni in good time. We found a lovely tea house with great views of the mountains and went for a wander. It is a lovely little town and the monastery was fascinating. We also had a lovely evening at the tea house as there were far more fellow trekkers than we had ever seen in Langtangs and we stayed up chatting to all of 9.30pm!

The next day we had to climb about 1000m up to Muktinath so Alison decided to give the pony a break and take the jeep up while G & I walked with the guide. We left our big bag with her to take on the jeep and a very petite nepali girl from the hotel helped her get it up to the road - all the men in the hotel were of course too busy to assist! We met in Muktinath after a short panic trying to find A and the bag, had some great momos and then walked up to the the temple. This is an important religious site for hindus where they can go to be cleansed before they die to make sure they have a good after life/reincarnation. Don't know about that but the views were fantastic making me feel like I was on top of the world! After that and exhilirating/frightening jeep ride back to Jomsom where we spent the night with Alison trying the local apple brandy - not quite like calvados!

After our early flight back to Pokhara we had a lazy day at the pool and then a few more lazy days pottering in Pokhara, going on the lake to see the sunset, taxi ride to Sarankot to see the dawn and cycling round the lake not to see any solar features but just for fun. We also caught up with some other holidaying volunteers and had a very nice time!

After 3 nights, off to Bandipur on a nice tourist bus to Dumre and then a not so nice jeep ride up the hill with me and G in the back getting soaked and my seat half collapsing! But we made it and were welcomed by Ram who pretended to remember us from last year but promised to make sure it was dahl baht for dinner as this had been my best experience of the dish in Nepal. A & I had some lovely walks looking at mountains, flowers and talking to locals and then had the promised dahl baht which was as good as I remembered and A's first taste of quality, Nepali style food.

Next day back down the hill in a better jeep only to find our next "tourist bus" was a clapped out vehicle which only differed from the public buses in that there was nobody sat on the roof yet! They had also managed to double book our seats so A & I, after refusing the offer to sit on the roof, were stuck on the engine block facing the opposite direction from the bus while G had to squat on the fold away bench the assistant usually gets. Not very impressive though at least the journey was only 90mins.

Arrived in Chitwan and were collected by Hem, our guide for the start of our 3 days of jungle adventure. This felt more touristy and organised than in Bardiya but was still really nice and we saw far more wildlife so on the whole was actually better! With jeep rides, walking tours, elephant rides and bath time, canoe trips and visits to a Tharu village we managed to do everything on offer and saw rhino, deer, wild boar, Jackals, crocodiles and lots of big birds really close up so we were pretty happy with our time there - despite seeing hardly any monkeys! - and it was great that we were always just the three of us with our guide rather than having to tag on to another big group. Hem was also great as a guide - like Bj really wanting to make sure we had a good time, and this became really important on our last day when we were supposed to be getting the 1pm flight back to KTM. We were in the airport in good time and waited and waited for our plane to arrive. It happened to be raining but surely in the 21st century a bit of precipitation isn't going to stop a plane? But of course these planes are the tiny ones and low cloud does indeed stop them. By 4pm we were told all planes were cancelled till at least 2pm the following day. The next idea was to go up in a car and Hem who was still there as he was waiting for some people who were supposed to be arriving from KTM tried to get something organised for us immediately. I wasn't too keen on the idea of driving back in the dark and in the pouring rain on a road with sheer 100ft drops off the side and when the car didn't turn up we decided to abandon the idea, stay another night there and get a car first thing in the morning. This we duly did but after constant heavy rain all night the next worry was landslides. Alison was skeptical thinking G was being melodramatic and a "gloom monger" but sure enough within an hour we came up to a rock fall blocking one lane of the road, the car in front of us drove through and then a rock the size of a large TV came down and blocked the open lane. We had to stop and G and our driver got out to assess the situation. The rock was too big for just the two of them to shift but by now of course lots of other vehicles were drawing up behind us and there was a gang of people to help. Only problem was G had noticed a huge rock being held up by a small twig right above so it was real hearts in mouths time while the rock got shifted with small stones continuing to rattle down! Alison was now eating her words from earlier especially as when we'd got through this one our driver was constantly praying the rest of the 10km up this stretch of road. But we got through OK and shortly turned on to the main Kathmandu road. Our problems were not yet over as we were almost immediately behind a 5km traffic jam which held us up for about two hours and then had further hold ups for the rest of the day. So we got back eventually, after taking almost 12 hours to do a journey that would usually take about 5! All part of the adventure!

So two more days left to explore Kathmandu visiting temples and seeing lots of monkeys to make up for the lack of them in Chitwan, souvenir shopping and nice meals out. So a pretty successful trip apart from the unsolicited adventures and even with the appalling rainy day, very good weather - not too hot in Chitwan while being warm in the mountains with clear views. Roll on the next set of visitors!