Three male dogs picked up on the scent of our breakfast about a quarter of the way towards our destination. In need of human companionship and a bite to eat they followed us up the trail which undulated like a dragon's spine coming to a terminus at Smaug's 'head'; A large, igneous-rock outcrop. There we found a flat, breezy, alpine meadow shaded by tall, slender evergreens and carpeted in a thick mat of pine needles. All around our picnic site the earth fell away into picturesque valleys. Their floors quilted with agricultural fields. We are in Bandipur, Nepal and we love it. I had flown back into Phokura 4-days earlier to make Karen's birthday. After the dressed-to-kill ladies fortified themselves with a couple of celebratory 'Cosmo' cocktails at Zorba's bar, we headed to a local dive
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