On our first full day in Nepal I awoke in our border-town hotel in the deep, green and misty valley that led off the desolate Tibetan steppe and down into the lush and fertile land of Nepal. The hotel backed onto a heavy river of swirling melt-water that would lead us away from the desert of Tibet and into the hinterland of the Himalayas. The deep, green gorge wound slowly past, and petered out into much drier scenery, small villages and homesteads, and people driving livestock. Eventually, after passing several towns and steadily less amazing scenery, after Tibet anyway, we arrived in Kathmandu. We found a small hotel with no difficulty and set down for the night. The next day Kathmandu was spread before us, hot, dry, dusty and busy. We marched towards the “monkey temple”
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