Nepal behind us but in our hearts

Supply chain: donkeys with provisions for remote villages in Nepal's Annapurna region

In the dark the rickshaw-wallah stumbles, mumbles and stops. "This India, you get off."

It seems we somehow managed to avoid both the Nepalese and Indian border controls, but no matter, because they're closed in any case, we're told (it's 6.30pm, after all). Come back tomorrow.

So it happens that we spend the night in the veritable shit-hole at the bottom of all shit-holes, a no-hope place where one would prefer to be neither man nor beast. A place where one wouldn't want to be.

Next morning we forego the pleasure of another Nepalese stamp - too far to walk - but decide to keep it legit in India, so pay the customs officer a visit.

His official table is outside the office, which has no roof. He has a moustache worthy of a life-long bureaucrat, is very pleased to meet us, and meticulously enters our details in his heavy ledger. "Your are visitors 923 and 924 this year. Many, many people come to Raxaul." Not by choice, I think. And not that many either.

We chat about cricket, and as we discover later, he represents all Indians in his utter incredulity over India's exit from the ICC Championship. South Africa would be his next choice, but there is Herschel Gibbs and the match-fixing thing, you know.

The serenity of the passport formalities, sitting in the morning sun with only a faint whiff of urine in the air, is complete when we are served a cup of steaming hot chai. Ah, how different could that queue be in Heathrow.

2AC (two-tiered sleeper couch with air conditioning) Mithil Express train (only 20 hours) turns into an unexpected luxury, with clean sheets and a pillow each, as well as two fellow travellers who, apart from the occasional burp, do not fart, spit or rub their genitals excessively.

We arrive in Calcutta at 7am and immediately like the vibe of the city. The moment - and maybe the shock of being back in big, bad, mad, smelly India - proves too great for Amanda and she develops a severe fever of 40 degrees, which we're still struggling to bring under control.

Blood tests for malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya, and checking platelets, ERS and probably the presence of green aliens too, come up alright, but we await the typhoid results with bated breath. And Coups continues to feel grim.

A few random pics:

We saw this amazing 'fairground wheel' in Ghandruk, our last stop on the Annapurna trek, on the last night of the religious festival Tihar (Nepalese version of Diwali, festival of lights)

Celebrating the last day of Tihar with Rajesh, our porter, and Sibrenne from Holland


At the end of Nepal trek there was room on the roof of the bus only - a very refreshing 3-hour ride

One up to the Chinese - their obscene finger juts outs disrespectfully across the square from the Potala in Lhasa

Boogeying down to Madonna in the jeep to Everest Base Camp