Things to like about Kathmandu:

1. Babies with kohl around their eyes. It's something Hindu, I think, but it makes them look like little rockers. Alice Cooper etc, eat your heart out.

2. Chocolate and Banana cake for 16 pence. No guilt.

3. Bodhnath, the tibetan buddhist area. Prayer flags, monks and stupas a-go-go.

4. The smell - a mixture of every city i've ever been to.

Things not to like so much about Kathmandu:

1. Sadhus - fake holy men who try to bless you with red powder on your head then charge you - I seem to spend half my time running down the street out of the clutches of these yellow wearing, bearded, surprisingly swift men.

2. Horn-honking - more than one a second on current auditory analysis. Somebody mute the things.

3. Slow internet connection meaning I cannot share with you my interminable pictures of temples. What? You're pleased?

I have met my trekking group and am off on the Annapurna Sanctuary trek tomorrow, so will be out of internet contact and deep in the Himalayas for the next fortnight.