"So...I need to wear a fox hat"

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And so the crew of us, GP, Guy and Liffy (the South Africans) returned from the intensely beautiful mountains to the chilled out vibe of Pokhara where we stayed at a fantastic lodge we feel we really need to sell. The owners of "Tranquility" are incredibly friendly and accommodating, plus for 400Rs per night you get a spacious double, with fan, bathroom including bath, comfy beds, a huge grassy garden and a relaxed atmosphere. Definitely a top budget place to stay on Lakeside.

Our group expanded again in Pokhara as Ling and Annie, a truly lovely and very interesting couple from Malaysia, who were friends of the South Africans, joined us. So this was it - the final crew with whom we would take on the rest of Nepal had assembled. We couldn't have wished for anyone better!

Pokhara passed in a mellow, laid back haze as the place requires. Our side street really embraced the spirit of the town and had a great sense of community. The little cafe we frequented with our presence was run by a warm friendly family who treated us as such. While mum and dad sat across the road in the shade of the launderette talking to the sweet owner who lacked any concept of personal space, their cheeky son would chat away to us and serve food in between finishing his school work.

This cafe was also memorable on account of their somewhat unusual choice of music on one early morning occasion. As we sat eating muesli fruit curd and playing with the dog with the bad leg, we were a little surprised to be blessed with a blaring compilation of James Blunt, Blue, George Michael, Hotel California and the theme tune from Mission Impossible. Priceless.

One night we experienced the delights of Nepal's street food. After the crew’s heavy afternoon of drinking the unbeatable Playboy Whiskey, the ever accommodating "Tranquility" owners were totally fine with GP and Guy roping in the services of the local chat man and having him wheel his cooking cart on to the lodge's lawn. The food was phenomenal and for 20Rs a head, we were enlightened to a whole new world of edible possibilities.

This is the point where our mother's should STOP READING - tattoo day... After seeing Harry's (tattoo artist) sketches and a spur of the moment exchange of money on the street, we embarked on the controversial, not at all sensible and SUPER GOOD IDEA of getting a tattoo. Clare had the distinct pleasure of being first to put her unmarked foot skin in the hopefully capable hands of Harry, whilst Rosie grimaced at her in a consoling way. Harry was kind enough to begin by producing a vast number of needles from a pressure cooker and systematically showing them to us describing how they scrap away the skin whilst miming a clawing action. So Clare's right foot was covered in various concoctions presumably to prevent infection, and the slightly ominous needle pen got to work. Clare actually laughed initially at how unpainful it was, however the following four layers hurt a fair bit more. Rosie's turn involved her straddling a chair with cotton wool stuffed in her pants, much to the amusement of her spectator's, GP and Clare. Rosie found the process quite uncomfortable according to Harry, because of "tough skin". After a couple of hours work, Rosie had a beautifully crafted buttweed and Clare had a rather adorable yak.

While we were in Pokhara, we took full advantage of Fewa Tal and did a few pretty eventful and highly enjoyable boat trips. When our crew temporarily disbanded so that Ling, Annie, Liffy and Guy could visit Chitwan National Park, Clare, Rosie and GP had the bright idea to attempt the climb to the World Peace Pagoda. The "War Pagoda" doesn't ACTUALLY exist despite our utterly futile attempts to spot it from the lake under GP's instruction. It was a far harder task than it sounds and we failed to get there twice due to rain. However, it did mean we got to watch as GP fell around in calf deep mud following his elegant disembarking from our dinghy.

After a hell of a lot of bumming around, we finally decided to bite the bullet and get on with something cultural. To add interest, we hired bikes and cycled a few kilometres out of the town to a Tibetan refugee village. It was incredibly sweaty, a fact not help by our realisation that neither of us had ridden bikes in a considerable while but it was a stunning view - tropical vegetation right on the road side and small, stone traditional houses. The green hills stretched into the distance broken up only by commercial advertising signs for Quiks Cheeseballs. Being a Tibetan village, there were prayer flags EVERYWHERE and a large monastery which we visited. We were shown around by a monk who had seven years training left. It was extremely interesting, especially the huge mundala made my hand out of coloured sand in the centre of one room. We wandered through the narrow paths between the little houses and met the tiniest lady in traditional dress who invited us back to her home to drink tang whilst gesturing wildly to us and laughing. Three guys directed us to the river side so we spent a magical time sitting on rocks in the valley far away from the tourist crowd gazing at the awesome view of the rocky river, grazing water buffalo and red clothed women working the land.

Since the rest of the group had escaped to Chitwan, we were left with the duty of baby-sitting GP or rather to act as his "bitches". One evening we were hanging out on GP's roof, talking and minding our own business. We were therefore shocked to turn around to see in the window a little Indian man wrapped in a white curtain with only his face showing gawping unashamedly at us. Even after we stared back and made encouraging "stop hiding in a curtain and leave us alone" gestures, he continued to watch us.

Our greatly anticipated return to Kathmandu, and what felt like home, didn't go all that smoothly. An impromptu farmers strike left us stranded in a small roadside settlement for six hours, turning a seven hour drive into an epic sixteen hour slog. Luckily for us and GP, the bus turned out to be seriously good fun, albeit until the last couple of hours when the novelty wore off. One man a few rows in front of us had an irritating and unnerving habit of turning in his seat to stare intensely for long periods of time. In an attempt to deter him, every time it happened, Rosie signaled to Clare who, whilst lying out of sight, would extend her pus covered mosquito savaged yak foot into his eye line. This kept us thoroughly entertained to the point of peeing a little for a good portion of the journey but only seemed to intrigue the guy. We spent the rest of the wait eating roadside lychee, being dragged around by the helpful bus driver to find sev and playing cards with the general population of the bus. At 10:45pm we made it to Thamel. Unfortunately, someone had stolen Clare's flip flops (kindly donated by Beth) which had slid down the aisle leaving her to walk barefoot through the dark, faeces covered streets carrying her massive trek bag. Her feet were considerably more hobbit-like afterwards.

We decided to stick with tradition and live in scabby but friendly Marco Polo - the scary balaclava and black parka wearing lady (feared by even the most hardcore of our Thamel friends) was still living in room 303 but this time we were in the company of Ling, Annie and the South Africans.

On the full moon, it was Buddha's birthday. To celebrate, we joined the MASSIVE crowds converging on Swyambu. All the renovations had been completed for the holy day - the stupa was brilliantly golden and all the statues were gleaming black, freshly coated in oil. Watching everyone complete their individual rituals was fascinating and so beautiful with row upon row of flickering candles interspersed with coloured petals and scattered rice grains. We had a highly mature morning taking "dance like a monkey pose" and "giant tika on oversized foreheads" photographs much to the (bemusement and often amusement of the locals) and pointing out several distended dog anuses. In accordance with Nepali time, the 9am helicopter fly by happened at 10am, where heaps of coloured and glittering paper and flowers where released from the skies on to the crowds below.

From here the day turned into a cultural tour of Kathmandu commencing at Bodanath stupa, which despite Rosie being adamant that she couldn't be bothered to see yet ANOTHER Buddhist stupa, turned out to be pretty amazing. Yes, it is just a giant stupa but there is something very special about the sheer size of the structure and the coloured of the weathered dome. After several rounds of the stupa and a chocolate brownie stop, we made a spur of the moment decision to walk over to Pushpati - the city's burning ghats. Having been to Varanasi, the South Africans had a fair idea of what to expect, however for us the experience rendered us silent as we witnessed the cremation of four people along the Bagmati River and saw a dead child about to be taken to the ghats. We all stood on the bridge to watch the Puja ceremony - a visually beautiful dusk display where student sadu's lead the Hindu prayers using candles, bells and chanting. Moreover, since Pushpati ghat is relatively small, the site is very intimate and the rhythmical Hindu chants, bell ringing and drum beat really draws you into the spirit of this worship ritual.

Guy was lucky enough to celebrate his birthday in Nepal; or rather it turned into an entire week of various birthday fun. One evening we all went to Namo Buddha for a slap up meal for basically free. We had given the lovely, hilarious owners a doughnut and candle (in substitution for a real cake) and spent a great deal of time briefing them on the western concept of bringing out a cake at the end of a meal as a birthday surprise. Unfortunately, parts of this explanation must have been lost in translation and, immediately after we had all sat down, all the owners came over, put the doughnut with unlit candle on the table in front of a slightly bemused Guy and all gathered around us looking incredibly pleased with themselves. After some exceptional food and listening to the same Beyonce song on loop for two hours, it turned into a somewhat heavy night of a seemingly bottomless about of neat vodka leading to Rosie falling into an Asian toilet and Clare sleeping on the steps outside Marco Polo. However, it didn't stop there and GP and Rosie went on an alcohol hunt ending up in a dark, isolated car park buying spirits from a dodgy guy with a secret stash buried under everything else at the bottom of his stall. Rosie was convinced that she would be shot in the name of cheap booze. Thus the evening continued and by morning GP and Guy were confined to bed for the entire day.

Fortunately, Liffy was on good form as she was flying back to England for a friend's wedding. So, as Guy's replacements we dropped Liffy at the airport. Loosing crew is definitely one of the hardest but annoyingly frequent things about traveling and this one was particularly sad as Liffy had been such an awesome friend. Watching her disappear through the departures gate made both of us very aware of just how ridiculously easy it would be to go home - just a short hop on an airplane - and although traveling is THE BEST THING EVER, we did feel a pretty strong longing for home.

Given that we are traveling and bowel movements are fair game to discuss on at least a daily basis, we were having a standard chat about crappy puns with GP over supper. The topic shifted but Rosie with her limited attention span, failed to notice. So whilst Clare and GP discussed how "where the fox hat" sounds remarkably same same as a slightly less polite phrase, Rosie mistakenly took it as a euphemism for doing a dump. Hence, "have you worn the fox hat today?" has become a new discreet way to ask about bowel motions and "the fox is breathing..." you can most likely guess.

Our final few days in Thamel were spent doing the things we love, namely the orphanarium, La Dolce Vita pizza and of course hanging out with the mafia/Buddhist friends at Reggae which never fails to turn into an eventful night.

The last couple of hours in Kathmandu are something neither of us will forget. Nothing at all of importance happened and it was a mundane morning in every way. We went for a final walk and our last cup of china and the depression we felt for leaving our new home was nearly overwhelming. Nepal is a beautiful country it every aspect of its being and there is an endless list of what we will miss - the landscape we fell in love with trekking, the hospitality of mere acquaintances, the loyalty and generally awesomeness of the friends we have made and the diversity and strength of their culture.

As we were kindly dropped at the airport by Guy and GP and said a final goodbye, we knew that we would most certainly be returning as soon as possible - it is a place we have fallen irreversibly in love with, good and bad times included. Now on the plane to Kolkata, the Indian Airlines pilot has just announced word for word "Kolkata is currently experiencing one of its annual storms with thunder shocks, wind and there will be associated turbulence. Our passengers’ safety is of our paramount concern so we will TRY to land safely in Kolkata. Please do not worry." So things are looking good for India! But we are sure we can take on the challenge.

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