Ghat

So here I am in my tent in Ghat.

Sometimes I feel paralysed, I can't speak up for myself in a strange culture. I'm scanning the eyes of passers-by for contempt. I don't see it, but maybe it's there.

We spent the morning getting to Lukla, by Twin Otter, and then waiting for lunch. Cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

This afternoon we walked along rocky paths above the river, making our way towards Ghat, and donkeys and yaks and porters carried things around us - we were keeping pace for a while with two teenage boys carrying giant loads of plywood. They stopped to rest a lot.

At one point we came around a corner and a wizened lady in traditional clothes came out of her house into her little garden, lettuces and chickens, with the mountains and a flowering tree in the background, and I thought, I'm really in the Himalayas.

After hardly being able to eat in Kathmandu, I'm eternally hungry again. The kitchen staff are cooking outdoors on primus stoves and it's amazing to watch them get the food ready, food for us, and for the porters; huge pots of rice and daal. We have 25 porters, a cook, kitchen boys, four guides, a leader, and sirdar, who is in charge of ops. Lots of people to feed.

One of our group has very hairy legs, and today he was wearing shorts and gaiters. A group of schoolgirls in red skirts, four of them walking home arm in arm, overtook him, pointed at his legs, said something in Nepali, and ran off in gales of laughter.

Everywhere there are teahouses and lodges. We are self-contained, mostly, though, with our camping.

Some of the lodges have solar panels, but I think they're powering the internet to be rented to tourists - and a few lightbulbs. There are no cars here, everything goes by foot. Vegetables are growing in the fields.