England, Ireland, Switzerland, Portugal

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I've finally met up with my fellow travellers for the Nepal part of my trip. First to arrive was Mark from Switzerland who had come from Delhi. The rest of the group was arriving later but our tour briefing with Raj went ahead anyway with just the two of us. Raj is very jolly and likes to joke a lot and this will no doubt make for a lively tour. The briefing took us through what we would be doing, a bit about the culture, dos and don'ts so as not to offend people, and what to expect when we go trekking. We also got our kit bags - only 10kg per person as we have porters to take most of our stuff.

The Irish group of six girls - Sinead, Naimh, Sharon, Linda, Michelle and Helen (I'm sure I've got that wrong!!) and Philip from the UK but living in Portugal, had the same briefing when they arrived and I heard the tail end with Raj saying that we could ask him about anything EXCEPT politics! Linda, who I'd been emailing for about a month before the trip wouldn't be arriving until much later.

We went out for a group meal to get to know each other better and we had only been sat down for about 5 minutes before Raj was talking politics!! The food was lovely and the company was too. Looks like we'll be having a blast together.

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