A Nice Cup of Tea

I’m enjoying the food here in Nepal. The national meal, which everyone eats at least twice a day, is dal bhaat – rice with sloppy dal (lentils), vegetable curry and sometimes a bit of ‘pickle’ – potatoes or vegetables in a sharp or mustardy sauce. Very tasty. My favourite dal bhaat so far is happily

And she’s off

Here I am in Nepal. Pokhara, to be exact. I arrived in Kathmandu on… er, well, recently, and stayed there for a few days, then made a snap decision at about nine o’clock yesterday evening to come to Pokhara today. Kathmandu is a crazy crazy town. There’s a very touristy bit called Thamel where I’m

The One Other Book

I’m packed, booked, splattered with visas and ready to go. The Chinese Visa Application Centre near Bank is an absolute traveller’s dream – sparkling new, terribly efficient and well-organised. I picked up my passport with its Chinese visa yesterday and walked down Cheapside grinning like an idiot – in fact I had to stop myself

“When someone put a gun to my head I decided it was time to leave the country”

I am now the very proud owner of a Mongolian visa. On Wednesday I went down to the embassy with my application form and a bit of paper from the bank to prove I’d transferred money in their account. The set up was familiar to me from the Uzbekistan Embassy – a basement room underneath

The Best Laid Plans

Tibet is now officially closed. Even groups who have just been issued perfectly good permits are now being turned away at the border. Over the last few days the rumours at the Lonely Planet Tibet forum have turned into concrete accounts from the tourist agencies in Kathmandu and Chinese border towns with Tibet. The Land of