After the chaotic welcome at Tribuvhan Airport the Summit Hotel provides a welcome oasis of calm. This is one of a number of good quality bases for westerners seeking comfort. For a really exotic experience try a meal at Dwarika's and ask to see the rooms of visiting VIPs! A real highlight at the end of our trek was the invitation to meet our guide Karma's wife and 4-year old daughter, Junma, for lunch in his rented house on the outskirts of Kathmandu - guides are clearly relatively well paid by Nepali standards.
Our daily pleasure, though, was to use a map to plot an hour-long walk by various routes in to the heart of Kathmandu and to spend our time watching the vitality, energy but also hardships of city life. Commerce, religion, transport, noise, scenes ancient and modern, animals - the mix simply overwhelms you. We never felt insecure and just wanted the chance to spend as long as possible absorbing the culture. One final pleasure was spending time with some of the amazing VSO volunteers from around the world trying to support the people of Nepal - to get a flavour of what they do read ex-Devon head Ann Marcer's blog .

To see the photos click here and the Picasa screen opens. Click on Slideshow and the photos will run through. Click f11 to have a full screen view. By clicking on the map on the RH side you see where the photos were taken. If you use the Full Screen option enter f11 to exit again.

Photos Main : Days 1-4 : Days 5-7 : Days 8-10 : Days 11-13 : Days 14-16 : Days 17-19 : Days 20-23