We did, honestly, love Nepal.

So here’s my favourite pictures of Nepal.

The alpenglow catches Everest behind Nuptse, seen from Kala Patthar.

A man selling coloured powders for ritual purposes in Kathmandu.

And an offering to Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, made with these self-same dyes.

We were in Pokhara for Deepawali, and these little girls were going from house to house in their best clothes dancing, rather as children might sing carols in the UK.

My favourite mountain ever — Ama Dablam — from our Everest Base Camp trek.

Serried ranks of Shiva shrines at the temple of Pashupatinath in Kathmandu.

Idling holy men, or sadhus, posing at Pashupatinath.

Sunrise from Gokyo Ri.

Boats on Lake Phewa, in the lakeside town of Pokhara.

And the father of our host in Pokhara garlanded for Deepawali.

Prayer flags in the Himalayas, on our way up Machermo Ri.

The gorgeous colours of the Tibetan monastery at Tengboche.

And a loo with a view in that self-same spot.

Ama Dablam again, with a chorten and juniper in the foreground. I LOVE this mountain.

A Sherpa mother and her baby namaste-ing on our way out from Namche Bazar to Everest Base Camp (you can read my Everest Base Camp FAQ here, if you’d like).

And these absolutely adorable miniature down jackets, their sleeves sealed in lieu of mittens, sold for the Sherpa babies in the Khumbu.

We didn’t see as much of Nepal as we’d have liked.

But I guess that’s a reason to come back…

You can see more Kathmandu pictures here.

The post Pictures of Nepal appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

The internet seems to think our flight is two hours late, but I figure it’s a good idea to get to the airport on time anyway, since, ever since Lukla, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.

And then some.

Further, if I’m going to have excruciating conversations with Gurkhas in front of an unimpressed twelve-year-old, or, rather, extricate myself from said twelve-year-old to go through aforementioned yes-I’d-rather-have-the-needles-under-my-fingernails-please discussions, I might as well do this while I’m not under time pressure to boot.

It emerges, as with a previous attempt at Atatürk, that Kathmandu airport isn’t an ideal starter airport, what with the electronic departure boards insisting we enter by one of three specific entrances.

Bickering savagely, we discover that “our” entrance (B) is being hosed down with dubious chemicals, although the door is open, C entrance is locked down, and therefore we should just join the queue for the main entrance, A.

Zac, after a few wheelies with our baggage trolley, and one unfair bollocking from an overweight American in camouflage gear which leaves him feeling aggrieved and me feeling stabby, successfully finds the correct checkin desk, navigates security, and gets us through to our “gate”, which is one of a few doors off a particularly depressing tiled area with bus station metal benches and some dismal cafes.

My share of our load, I note as we weigh in, has risen from a perfectly reasonable 18kg (40lb) to a bracing 35kg (80lb).

Right, I figure, pushing doom-laden thoughts of disease to the back of my mind and trying not to panic about being thrown out of China. Time to get on with some work.

We have a hellish 11-hour overnight layover in Kunming before our flight to Bejing, and the boy’s fixated on sleeping at the airport.

For all I know Mr Darcy is still in a giant sulk about my insults to Nepali womanhood. All in all, our respective travelling companions have the potential to make an intrinsically awkward conversation quite epically uncomfortable, even by my rarefied standards.

Now, it would not be entirely accurate to say I am avoiding the Gurkhas.

I have every faith in the White Knight’s ability to make any discussions perfectly civilised and even pleasant and, further, I have applied makeup so that in the event of having to have these discussions I can do so with my head held high highish — well, at least not looking like I’m 80.

I just don’t particularly want to be fielding Zac’s laser eyes while doing so, and I figure Mr Darcy may still be in a giant sulk about my insults to Nepali womanhood, not to mention whatever ear-burningly awful conversation the pair may or may not have had this morning.

All in all, our respective travelling companions have the potential to make an already awkward conversation really quite epically uncomfortable, even by my rarefied standards.

Frankly, after a day that started with a diagnosis of a Vile Lower Half Disease, proceeded to the most embarrassing phone conversation of my life and shows every sign of going steadily downhill, I want nothing more than to curl up into the foetal position and go to bed until everything’s gone away.

But I can’t, because we need to fly three hours to Kunming, spend the night there, then fly another three and a half hours of Beijing, where we finally, finally meet our friends.

Immature of me, I know, but, all in all, if I had an invisibility cloak, I’d wear it. As it is, I just try to keep my eyes from swivelling.

“Are you going to the restaurant?” asks the man outside the Thai Airways lounge, endeavouring to steer us away from his clearly insanely upscale space which, for all I know, has actual gold taps and, ya know, wifi.

For the avoidance of doubt, Kathmandu airport is not a large airport. A 1980s estate agent might perhaps have described it as bijou, though even the most florid of pre-internet estate agents would have struggled to make Tribhuvan International Airport sound appealing.

The dirty tiled area seems remarkably small for the number of “departure gates” and, further there are very few tables, no wifi and no plug points.

OOH! A sign to an “airport restaurant”.

Upstairs! Past the airport lounges. Away from the gates!

“Are you going to the restaurant?” asks the man outside the Thai Airways lounge, endeavouring to steer us away from his clearly insanely upscale space which, for all I know, has actual gold taps and, ya know, wifi.

“Yursss,” I say, in my finest British accent.

And… It’s kinda nice. There’s no one in there, what with the less-than-welcoming attitude at the bottom of the stairs, but I guess this is a state-owned enterprise, so in Maoist Nepal it’s more important to keep the riff-raff out and the staff employed than actually make any money, so who cares?

Anywise, it’s open, with big windows, plug points, highbacked chairs and oodles of entirely empty tables, including one with an excellent view of the door that’s discreetly positioned but not in the least bit hidden. Because hiding would be childish.

And, best of all, there’s an electronic departure board on the wall. We eat some indifferent food, plug in, discover the ludicrously expensive internet is broken, and settle down to maths The Simpsons (Zac), and work miserable navel-gazing (me).

I figure that if the White Knight actually wants to talk to me he can call me. But our chances of inadvertently running into each other, let alone doing so with travelling companions in tow, are close to zero here.

He is Nepali, after all, so his countrymen who guard the entrance will doubtless bring out torches and pitchforks lest his skintone lower the cachet of the place.

I’m so riven with misery, self-hatred and guilt that the only thing I can cope with is tidying my desktop and cleaning up my hard drive with the odd bit of trying to get Skype Wifi to work. There! Productive AND organised! Go me!

After my recent experiences of Nepalese aviation, AKA four hours waiting at this airport for a 25-minute flight to Lukla, and then over four days waiting in Lukla for the 25-minute flight back, I’m inclined to believe the various internet sources that claim our flight is late over the departure board that insists we are on time.

However, I’m not so stupid as to put 100% faith in either Nepalese electronics or the internet, particularly on a day that’s shaping up like this one, and it is a Chinese airline, after all.

They seem to be calling the flights one by one over the tannoy, which is good, so at least the tannoy’s working.

And we have checked bags, so they shouldn’t leave without us.

A day like today, however, particularly after the last fortnight and heading into the year 13, really requires at minimum a triple failsafe, so I ask the guy at the bar whether our flight is delayed or not.

“Wait a minute,” he says, and walks down to the end of the restaurant, and checks the board.

“OH!” I say. “So the departure board is working?”

“Yes, yes,” he says.

Jolly good. I now have a triple failsafe: the departure board, the tannoy, and the man behind the bar in the restaurant. Just to add another layer of security, I send Zac down – yeah, OK, I AM avoiding the Gurkhas – to check whether the flight’s on time. Apparently it is.

I tuck into a coffee and try and do some work, which, when it comes to writing, is not impeded by the absence of internet but rather the reverse, although I’m so riven with misery, self-hatred and guilt that the only thing I can cope with is tidying my desktop and cleaning up my hard drive with the odd bit of trying to get Skype Wifi to work.

There! Productive AND organised! Go me!

Their flight has been called. Ours hasn’t. Yay! OUR flight is DELAYED! No awkward conversations at the departure gate! For OUR flight has not been called in either Chinese or English.

Time ticks on. The White Knight doesn’t call.

I assume that everything that needs to be said has been said over that excruciating phone call, and, since he’s one of the most genuinely interesting people I’ve met in the last three years in addition to possessing that rare and valuable quality of niceness, I would now like one or the other of us to get the fuck out of the country now so that I can get on with the rest of my life, most immediately China.

Ideally me. Provided I don’t have to bump into him and Mr Darcy first.

Oh good! The KL flight has been called.

Ours hasn’t. Yay!

OUR flight is DELAYED! No awkward conversations at security or the gate!

For OUR flight has not been called in either Chinese or English. In fact, the tannoy has been mysteriously silent.

After the marvels of Everest Base Camp, the hell of Lukla and a week of third world bureaucracy, I just want to be somewhere easy. And it doesn’t get much easier than northern China in midwinter!

I start thinking about China. The closer it comes, the harder everything seems.

Pull yourself together, woman, I internally monologue. Last time, we got the visa in one day and found a flat the same day we arrived.

Sure, this time we’re headed north, which is harder, the visa gods have not exactly smiled on us, and getting a child into Chinese school is a different level of difficulty from apartment hunting, and as for getting my disease fixed…. Oh dear god…

But China will be fine, I monologue.

A bit of fun in Beijing, flip the visas, and we’ll be settled and stable in the north, location TBC, with Zac in a Chinese school. Easy as. And, sure -30 is cold, and -40 even colder, but, ya know, we coped OK with the Cho-La.

And we really need to get settled, since, after New Year, all the work I delayed before Christmas is now permanently, irredeemably due, and, further, I’m looking at a cash hole if I don’t get some jobs billed sharpish.

And, to be honest, after the marvels of Everest Base Camp, the hell of Lukla, a week of third world bureaucracy and now a Horrid Unmentionable Disease, I just want to be somewhere easy.

And it doesn’t get much easier than northern China in midwinter!

Zac invites me to watch some Simpsons. I snarl at him.

“So do I need to go down?” I ask. “The plane has landed,” he says again. So?! I think. So?! Planes landing mean nothing in Nepal. Nothing! I return to my screen and stare at it blankly.

Time ticks on and, as the moment of our departure approaches, I get a bad feeling about the board, which is not even showing “Go to gate” yet.

“Is our flight on time?” I ask the guy at the bar, again.

He looks out of the window. “The plane has landed,” he says.

“So do I need to go down?” I ask.

“The plane has landed,” he says again.

So?! I think. So?!

Planes landing mean nothing in Nepal. Nothing!

I return to my screen and stare at it blankly, bemoaning the woeful state of affairs since this morning.

And then I think, no, I should check this.

“Zac,” I say, for it appears the Gurkhas’ flight has STILL yet to leave, and, yes, I know I should be an adult about this, but I’m crippled with embarrassment and unwilling to leave the womblike comfort of this blissfully controlled space until I actually have to. “Can you go down and take a look and actually ask someone at the desk about our flight status?”

Within seconds of Zac’s arrival, the phone rings at the bar. From the stares and the glares from my failsafe behind the bar, I deduce it’s about us, and that someone’s not happy. Great. I pack up rapidly.

“Then I SUGGEST,” I hiss, “That you REPLACE the electronic departure board system in the airport with a series of SIGNS reading, ‘Look at the runway to see whether your plane has arrived yet.’”

The airport official is small, officious and enraged. It appears the airport restaurant is a well-kept secret even among the airport staff. “Why are you not on the plane?” he says.

I point, almost speechless, at the departure board, still showing our check-in desk.

“Because the departure board says the flight is not boarding,” I say, loading Zac up and pacing rapidly through this tiny, tiny airport. “And there was no announcement for the flight,” I add. “Not in Chinese. Not in English. Nothing.”

“You are supposed to be on the plane!” he hectors.

“But the flight was not called,” I say.

He does not dispute this. “You are supposed to be on the plane!” he says accusingly, adding, as if a plane departing late were somehow an unheard-of novelty in Kathmandu, “The plane is leaving LATE because of you.”

What with the Chinese Embassy and Nepali Immigration I have had it up to here with officialdom by now and, while I’m trying to be nice, I’m finding it extremely difficult.

“There is a departure board RIGHT THERE,” I add, as we pass a departure board, which upgrades itself to ‘Go to security’ before our eyes, “And even now it does not say the flight is boarding.”

“But you have a departure time on your ticket!” he says.

I sigh. After over four days stuck in Lukla, I’m not exactly going to take a Nepalese departure time as gospel.

“If the plane does not leave now, it cannot go!” he continues. “It has been on the runway! You can see it on the runway!”

At this, I almost lose my temper. It has been, by most people’s standards, quite a spectacularly bad day already and there’s an overnight in or around Kunming airport to look forward to after this, then ten days of black urine, diarrhoea and dizziness, and, quite possibly, alcohol-induced face explosion to look forward to after that as I reap the wages of sin.

“Then I SUGGEST,” I hiss, unleashing my most regal Queen’s English and clipping my consonants savagely, “That you REPLACE the electronic departure board system in the airport with a series of SIGNS reading, ‘Look at the runway to see whether your plane has arrived yet.’”

“No husband?” she asks, with an expression of deepest sympathy for this moron who very nearly missed a flight when ANYONE could see the plane is on the runway, and quite clearly needs a man to watch the runway for her.

We are at security. Despite having been, apparently, ready to take off for China with our bags on board without so much as a tannoy announcement to find out whether we were coming with them, the airport still requires that we clear security in case, I assume, we’re actually suicide bombers rather than, ya know, bag-smuggling, restaurant-hiding bombers.

The bags go through.

Zac goes through.

The girl who’s doing security looks at me pityingly as I go through.

“No husband?” she asks, with an expression of deepest sympathy for this moron who very nearly missed a flight when ANYONE could see the plane is on the runway, and quite clearly needs a man to watch the runway for her.

I take a deep breath and channel calm. “No,” I say. “No husband.”

Ah China, China! I think, as we hustle to our plane, the annoying man now wisely silent.

China!

A babble of Chinese voices embraces me, the stewardesses tell us in Chinese to dump our bags on the chair and don’t worry about the seatbelts because we’re go-go-go, and a safety announcement starts contemporaneously with the plane beginning to taxi, AKA rather before we’ve actually sat down.

China, here we come!

The post Farewell to Kathmandu appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

There isn’t a bar at the Gurkhas’ hotel.

Well, there is a bar, but like every other bar in Kathmandu – poor Kathmandu! It’s not the city’s fault it kept turning into Bangkok in my head! – it’s shut.

The White Knight asks them, in English, weirdly, if they can open it. But they’re having none of it.

Which is, obviously, a source of great distress to me. Because after drinking until 2am and offending pretty much every English speaker in the last bar open in Kathmandu – and, given the clientele is 85% Gurkhas and 10% British Army, that means pretty much everyone – what I really need now is more booze.

To be specific, gin.

And tonic, please.

Now, now, now, please.

I have a blood-alcohol level to maintain, you know.

And, yes, I will be having ice with that.

“Oh, you’re alright,” I say perkily, having canned every single screenplay in my head involving Mr Darcy some while back, so not even pausing to obsessively parse what “can’t” refers to. “Don’t worry about it.”

Oh. We’re in the the White Knight’s room.

Well, I think, in a ladylike fashion. That makes a change from Mr Darcy’s. Next door.

Which is, it appears, is where Mr Darcy is headed, his vaguely Mediterranean colouring tainting rapidly to green.

I attempt to say something but my brain seems strangely disconnected from my mouth.

No worries! More gin will sort that out.

“I’m sorry, T,” Mr Darcy says, staggering – almost swaggering, in fact, because in alcohol people’s body language reverts to their primal shape, which in his case is all about the shoulders and movement from the waist – in the direction of the door. Then, with the melodrama that only the extremely young and/or extremely drunk can muster, “I CAN’T!”

“Oh, you’re alright,” I say perkily, having canned every single screenplay in my head involving Mr Darcy some while back, so not even pausing to obsessively parse what “can’t” refers to. “Don’t worry about it.”

This is my last night out in Kathmandu and I’m buggered if it’s ending at 2am. Ooh! The White Knight is calling room service! Excellent! Bombay and tonic! That’ll do nicely!

Which means the White Knight and I are alone in the room. His room.

And, given I really like the guy as a person, but don’t fancy him, and therefore am TOTALLY not going to sleep with him because, ya know, there’d only be a point in that if there was a relationship on the horizon, which, with this backstory, there clearly bloody isn’t, this is probably my cue to get my coat.

And, ya know, make a ladylike exit, or summat.

Yep, I think. Definitely, definitely time to leave.

Although… I do like talking to him. And I’m not ready to go home yet. This is my last night out in Kathmandu and I’m buggered if it’s ending at 2am.

Ooh! The White Knight is calling room service! Excellent!

Bombay and tonic! That’ll do nicely!

I try to decide whether I can précis the rom com I wrote in my head, and then decide not, because that would require the White Knight being in my head, and the head of any lady writer in the hormonal maelstrom of the 40-zone is a strange and scary place, especially if it’s mine.

The night progresses. I swill gin & tonic. The White Knight affects to consume a Jack & coke.

“Well,” he says, à propos of Mr Darcy. “It’s just like all those guys of 23…”

I collapse into mild hysterics, something I have a tendency to do around the White Knight.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, bewildered. “T’s got a toyboy?”

“No,” I say, loathing and despising the word “toyboy” – because how could that ever apply to someone as evidently and eternally youthful as moi?!

I try to decide whether I can précis the screenplays I wrote in my head, and then decide not, because that would require the White Knight being in my head, and the head of any lady writer in the hormonal maelstrom that is the 40-zone is a strange and scary place, especially if it’s mine.

“23!” I say, giggling. “Jesus! That’s younger than my godson.”

The White Knight, obviously, being a serving soldier who has yet to retire, is younger than me too, but only, ya know, four years younger than me. In fact, given that I spent age 17 to, ooh, 24, pissing around university and West End nightclubs, bit-part acting, door-whoring and consuming epic quantities of illegal substances, while he spent those years progressing up a demanding career path, he’s considerably more grown-up than me, but isn’t everyone, these days?

And, an hour or so in, I start wondering whether, perhaps, I could spend the night platonically, perhaps with an aspirin between my knees or something.

You know. Because I totally do that. And I’m sure he does, what with being a soldier and all, and therefore having shit-tonnes of platonic female friends.

“You know,” he lies barefacedly. “This is fine! I could just sit here all night and talk to you! That’s fine! I don’t need to have sex…”

Later, I am endeavouring to interrogate the White Knight about his childhood, which would not, even by Nepal’s rarefied standards, count as a bed of roses, when I use the magic words that every man really, really wants to hear: “How did that FEEL?”

An expression of irritation with this child of privilege who doesn’t have a fucking clue about life in general flashes acrosss the White Knight’s face, and he’s instantly more Nepali than British.

He stands, with the air less of someone about to explore his innermost feelings and more of a man about to say, “Put out or get out,” then spins on a sixpence and changes his mind, his expression and his tack.

“You know,” he lies barefacedly. “This is fine! I could just sit here all night and talk to you! That’s fine. I don’t need to have sex…”

That works. It shouldn’t. But it does.

I change the topic to something less irritating, given he’d clearly rather ask questions than answer him, and, I too, am finding his questions a little close to the bone, so we talk about this prospective assault on Everest, as I welly through another G&T.

Shortly thereafter, he kneels down, removes the Magical Age-Reducing and Height-Increasing Kneeboots of Fun, and, while my jaw’s still on the floor with this audacity, remarks that I won’t be needing those.

SOLD!

It makes a refreshing change from the quest for drapery, be that fringe, bed sheets or towels, that attends one at haggard o’clock when faced with 20-somethings fresh with the dewy gleam of youth, their smooth faces absolutely unmarked by the ravages of two hours’ sleep.

Gentle reader. One advantage of sexual partners of approximately one’s sort of age that aren’t ludicrously hawt – let alone ones that are actually older – is that the mornings are a hell of a lot easier.

Ya know. Despite the fact that the White Knight is solid muscle with close-to-zero body fat, what with being a Gurkha and all, I’m quite comfortable about wobbly bits, scars, lines, bags and all, lolling around naked and stepping out of the shower.

It makes a refreshing change from the quest for drapery, be that fringe, bed sheets or towels that attends one at haggard o’clock when faced with 20-somethings fresh with the dewy gleam of youth, their smooth faces absolutely unmarked by the ravages of two hours’ sleep and liver-shrivelling quantities of alcohol.

At breakfast, attended by now actively sniggering Nepali waiters, Mr Darcy is conspicuous by his absence, presenting only in a series of Nepalese language phonecalls, and the White Knight seems, umm, no longer especially interested in my sparkling personality, and rather keen to get on with his day, which is his last chance to see the various people who brought him up.

Boo!

Mind you, we’re both leaving the country the day after tomorrow, and the White Knight has put up with enough crap to last him a lifetime, god bless him.

And so, with an especially unconvincing promise that he’ll call if they’re out that night, I return to my poor neglected child.

My spawn looks at me over metaphorical reading glasses with an air of amused contempt remarkable in one who’s only twelve. “So…” he says. “It was a trainwreck, then?” “Yes, son,” I say. “Trainwreck would cover it.”

“So, MUM,” Zac says, looking up from whatever internet devilry he’s engaged in. “How was your ‘date’ with Mr Darcy?”

“It wasn’t a DATE,” I say, defensively.

“Right,” says Zac. “So how was your ‘sleepover’?”

“Umm,” I say, “Well, I didn’t actually sleep over with Mr Darcy.”

“Where were you, then?” he says.

“I kind of stayed over with the White Knight,” I bowdlerise.

My spawn looks at me over metaphorical reading glasses with an air of amused contempt remarkable in one who’s only twelve. “So…” he says. “It was a trainwreck, then?”

“Yes, son,” I say. “Trainwreck would cover it.”

And, as we wander aimlessly around Durbar Square in a cloud of hangover (me), internet withdrawal (Zac) and so-over-Kathmanduness (both), while ejaculating in perfect harmony the magic phrase, “No, thank you! We don’t want a guide!”, I see a minivan crashed in front of a seventeenth-century building.

It seems strangely symbolic.

But still, I think. Since there’s no way I’m going out tonight, not with the tonne of pre-China errands I have to complete, finally, now, it really can’t get any worse.

This is the nadir. There is absolutely no way on god’s sweet earth this could POSSIBLY get any worse.

The post Trainwreck appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

So I abandon my spawn and head out into the weird semi-illuminated, post-apocalyptic maelstrom that is Thamel during load-sheddding in an attempt to further mitigate the wire wool effect that Himalayan winds have on the skin.

I suppose you could call it microdermabrasion, but, what with the spots that Kathmandu’s rich air has added to the skincare mix, I wouldn’t, really.

Despite the fact that I’m wearing flip-flops, the girl at the entrance insists that I change into what passes for spa shoes at this price point, the ugly, ribbed black plastic sandals sold everywhere in Asia as shower shoes and/or guest shoes (delete according to climate and culture).

No problem, think I, abandoning my spangly Israeli flip-flops in a weirdly full shoe cupboard, and processing up the stairs to the spa where I am, as last time, the only client, for a most excellent, indulgent massage of a facial with even a discreet attempt to lose some of my myriad blackheads, all by the light of emergency lighting.

Quite how anyone could have mistaken my lovely spangly flip-flops for a pair of gents’ black work shoes, I do not know. For much as I’ve adapted to load-shedding, which would, incidentally, make a splendid setting for a 1950s British stage farce, although the makeup I apply by emergency lighting is more clown school than West End theatrics, I WANT MY SHOES.

I am in a thoroughly zen mood when I leave, which dissipates slightly when I reach the shoe cupboard and, in the half-darkness, am able to locate only pair after pair after pair of gents’ leather shoes.

The chap who runs the spa comes down to assist, and, by the light of his mobile phone we confirm my suspicions that, thanks to load-shedding, some utter, stinking bastard has stolen my shoes.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I think someone has taken them by mistake.”

Quite how anyone could have mistaken my lovely spangly flip-flops for a pair of gents’ black work shoes, I do not know. For much as I’ve adapted to load-shedding, which would, incidentally, make a splendid setting for a 1950s British stage farce, although the makeup I apply by emergency lighting is more clown school than West End theatrics, I WANT MY SHOES.

Not only because I like those flip-flops. But because if I need to get another pair, I’ll need to shop in Thamel, which entails a wearying hour of fending off shop assistants until I find the ones I like, and then haggling until I get the price down to what I’d pay for a pair of cheap spangly flip-flops in the UK, my personal ne plus ultra when shopping for cheap spangly flip-flops in the Third World.

“What are we going to do?” I say.

“Well, we only had male clients today,” he says. “I will take your number and if he comes back, I’ll call you.”

That’s weird, think I. Admittedly most higher income Nepali men have well-maintained nails, but there are one hell of a lot of men’s shoes in that cupboard given I was the only client for 45 minutes, and the two men I saw when I came out appeared to be waiting for something.

Bizarro.

If this really is a brothel, the guy’s going to have some explaining to do when he gets home to his wife wearing what are really blatantly obviously ladies’ shoes. Although, I guess, it’s probably not an uncommon occurrence during load-shedding. People probably end up taking home the wrong wives and children if they’re not careful.

In Asia, as elsewhere, “massage” parlours can often offer extra services and, in my limited experience, will often have a front desk with beauty products and similar.

But they tend not to be enthusiastic about foreign women showing up in their environs, so, when the nature of the services isn’t obvious, they present as fully booked.

Although… this was a good facial, with good products, and the girls seemed really professional.

I look again at the shoe cupboard. There are more than ten pairs of men’s shoes there.

Wow! I think. If this really is a brothel, the guy’s going to have some explaining to do when he gets home to his wife wearing what are really blatantly obviously ladies’ shoes.

Although, I guess, it’s probably not an uncommon occurrence during load-shedding. People probably end up taking home the wrong wives and children if they’re not careful.

And then, just as I’m leaving, still in the horrid shower sandals, a guy shows up.

We namaste, I reclaim my flip-flops, and I wander down the road feeling really, really confused. It didn’t FEEL like the front for a brothel. But what the hell are all those men’s shoes doing in the shoe cupboard? And what on earth happens up the stairs?!

I text him to enquire whether it’s possible that a legitimate beauty salon could have a brothel upstairs. Radio silence. Humph, I think stroppily, as I gird my spawn and don my kneeboots for our regular dinner at K-Too. Anyone would think I’d offended him or something.

Mr Darcy, after a flurry of texts while he was bored on the long bus ride home enamoured of my sparkling personality most recently shown to its absolute finest in glorious Drunkovision, has gone rather quiet.

So, because a 23  24  25 quite-possibly-30-if-he-went-to-university-first-and-did-a-masters-which-he-didn’t year-old soldier who’s been out of his home country serving in the British Army for all his adult life and some of what Amnesty might nitpickingly call his childhood is quite clearly the right person to ask about the subtle nuances of downtown Kathmandu, I text him to enquire whether it’s possible that a legitimate beauty salon could have a brothel upstairs.

Radio silence.

Humph, I think stroppily, as I gird my spawn and don my kneeboots for our regular dinner at K-Too. Anyone would think I’d offended him or something.

I’ve met the American backer, a charming chap of impressive vintage, with whom I have debated the burning question of the inclusion or otherwise of soda in a Negroni, and generally chatted cocktails. This time it’s the Nepali backer who wanders over and joins our table.

We’re now virtually part of the furniture at K-Too. I’ve met the American backer, a charming chap of impressive vintage, with whom I have debated the burning question of the inclusion or otherwise of soda in a Negroni, and generally chatted cocktails.

This time it’s the Nepali backer who wanders over and joins our table: it’s only the front man we have yet to meet.

I tell him the story of my shoes, and, in particular, the men’s shoes. “Could it be possible,” I ask. “That in Thamel there’s a brothel with an actual real-life beauty parlour below it, rather than a fake one?”

We discuss a bit more. It would be possible, he concludes, but unusual. Because in Kathmandu as elsewhere, when a brothel’s masquerading as a beauty salon or massage parlour, the front operation does not usually offer legitimate services.

But he has no alternative explanation for the array of men’s shoes.

As Zac and I amble home, I get a rather sullen text from Mr Darcy. He has no idea about brothels.

Hey-ho, I think. Looks like the Radisson for me once Project China Visa is complete on Friday…

Thanks to Ozlady for the lead image.

The post A Load-Shedding Mystery appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

“YES,” I snarl. “They may need to see the person the passport belongs to and if you’re not there we may not get it done today and then you won’t see Dec and Kiera in Beijing.”

Load-shedding, at least, appears to be on our side today, with power outages not scheduled till evening.

“OK,” Zac says. “I’ll come BUT on condition that MY computer gets the charge today, not yours, because we may not be back in time to swap them over.”

Work, I think. I need to do some WORK. WORK!

I’ve got a backlog of paying gigs to complete, blog posts to write and stories to pitch, that I’ve been hoping to catch up on for over a week now, while chasing helicopters around bloody Lukla, visas around Kathmandu and — yeah, hands up — recalcitrant Gurkhas around discotheques.

“Fine,” I say. “You have the power for the day. Don’t blame me if we run out of cash and I have to sell you to a prayer wheel factory. Now let’s get going!”

Because, if there’s one thing more festive than Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the Chinese Embassy Kathmandu visa section, it’s Boxing Day at Nepali Immigration.

Back she goes into the defiantly uncomputerised office out back, where people are shuffling papers. They go into a huddle that’s more of a rugby scrum. Someone is summoned from a back office. They discuss the interesting challenge Zac’s passport presents in depth and at leisure.

I show Zac’s passport to the security guard and try and explain the problem. He points me to one of three majority-Western queues at a series of windows on the ground floor.

I do a quick time calculation. It’s probably going to take 45 minutes to an hour to get to the front of that queue, and, because there’s a tonne of other Westerners there, it’s almost certainly not the right queue.

There’s no information window, but there is a woman who doesn’t seem to be doing much, so I go up to her, show her the passport and explain the issue.

She frowns. This is clearly a novel problem.

Back she goes into the defiantly uncomputerised office out back, where people are shuffling papers. They go into a huddle that’s more of a rugby scrum.

Someone is summoned from the back office. They discuss the interesting challenge that is Zac’s passport in depth and at leisure.

And she’s back!

“Administration,” she says. “Fourth floor.”

Wow! I think. This is going really, really well. We’ve been here well under half an hour, and we already have directions to someone who might be able to help.

If you’ve had as much experience of Third World bureaucracy as I have, you’ll know that there was absolutely no irony in that sentence.

Up we troop to a whole bunch of open plan offices with expensive glazing, presumably bought by some Western aid donor whose budget clearly didn’t stretch to paying people to sit in them.

One open plan office is occupied by a man who is, I assume, single-handedly administering Nepali Immigration. He doesn’t seem too busy.

Zac sprawls, uninvited, on his leather sofa, picks up something from the desk and starts to play with it.

“ZAC!” I say. “We’re in a government office! Show some respect!”

My spawn rolls his eyes.

I write it all down, in my best formal hand-written letter style with addresses at the top and everything, sign and date it. Wow! We’re making up our own paperwork. Chinese bureaucrats would NEVER do that! Although Chinese immigration officials would never put the wrong date on a visa so perhaps the point is moot.

The bureaucrat is in his 30s and keen to help. Lord love Nepal, I’ve been terribly rude about it lately, but the Nepalese ARE lovely (and Kathmandu really is a wonderful city, provided you’re just wandering around looking at stuff rather than, ya know, trying to get anything done).

I explain the problem. “There has been a mistake with my son’s visa,” I say, pointing to the errant 2012. “And we need a visa for China, but they cannot issue a visa for China while he is in Nepal illegally. So we need a correction. With a stamp.”

The guy thinks for a while.

“You need to write a letter,” he says.

“A LETTER!” I gabble hysterically. “But we have tickets to China on Sunday! I can’t write a letter!”

“No, no,” he says. “You need to write a letter explaining the error and requesting a change.”

Then I get it. There isn’t a form for this situation, so we are extemporising.

He hands me a piece of paper and a pen. “OK,” I say. “Do I put my Nepali address or my English address?”

“Nepali,” he says.

“OK,” I say. “How does this sound? ‘To Whom It May Concern, Due to an administration error at the airport, where we purchased our 90-day visas on arrival in November, my son, Zachary Sutcliffe, has a visa marked to expire in February 2012, instead of 2013, on his passport, number [redacted]. I am writing to request that you correct the error on his visa. Yours sincerely,…”

“Yes,” he says. I write it all down, in my best formal hand-written letter style with addresses at the top and everything, sign and date it. Wow!

We’re making up our own paperwork. Chinese bureaucrats would NEVER do that! Although, Chinese immigration would never put the wrong date on a visa, either. Swings and roundabouts, I think. Swings and roundabouts.

If I leave him unattended with the bureaucrat’s computer there’s every bloody chance I’ll come back to find him upgrading his browser to Google Chrome, defragging the hard drive, or giving the thing a quick tune-up so it runs faster, and then he’ll look all wounded when people start yelling at him.

“Now,” he says. “You need to buy a 10 rupee stamp.”

WHA’?!

I have to POST it?!

But we need to be in CHINA on Sunday.

“What?” I say. After over four days trying to escape from Lukla, plus Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at the Chinese Embassy, I’m now feeling fragile in the extreme. “But…”

“Go downstairs,” he says, “Buy a 10 rupee stamp and bring it back here.”

Ah! OK. It’s a stamp as a way of cash exchange, a way of assuring that the 10-rupee processing fee remains an island of incorruptibility in a nation that, tying with Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Azerbaijan, ranks worse than Russia on the global corruption scale.

Baby steps, I figure. Baby steps.

“Where do I buy the stamp?” I ask.

“In the kitchen,” he says.

Right, I figure. There must be some kind of cashier’s desk out back by the kitchen – it’s not, actually, unusual in my experience of third world bureaucracy for the cashier bit where you buy your penny stamps to process your paperwork to be positioned by the staff canteen, which also enables the touts who can “expedite” your paperwork to look like they’re doing something other than waiting for a tourist who lacks the contacts and/or language skills to do their own bribes.

“Zac!” I say. “Come with me!”

“I want to stay here!” he says.

“You can’t!” I say. “You need to come with me.”

If I leave him unattended with the bureaucrat’s computer there’s every bloody chance I’ll come back to find him upgrading his browser to Google Chrome, defragging the hard drive, giving the thing a quick tune-up so it runs faster, or just buggering around with the wallpaper, and then he’ll look all wounded when people start yelling.

That’s weird. There doesn’t seem to be a cashier’s desk. I wander through. No. We’re out in a sort of car park, with no cars. I try another door. Nope, it’s the cleaning cupboard. With more dirty mops.

On the ground floor, I ask directions to the kitchen, which is in the basement, featuring the usual run of depressing, grimy formica tables, a mop for redistributing the dirt that clings to the painted floor, a kettle boiling on the kerosene stove, a fridge full of weirdly coloured liquids all describing themselves as tea, a mountain of packaged noodles, and a menu that, I’d imagine, consists of rice, dhal bhat and tarkari, or noodles.

That’s weird. There doesn’t seem to be a cashier’s desk.

I wander through. No. We’re out in a sort of car park, with no cars.

I try another door. Nope, it’s the cleaning cupboard. With more dirty mops. That doesn’t look right.

“Mum,” says Zac. “His English is actually very good. I think he meant buy a stamp IN the kitchen. That’s what he said.”

“What?” I say. “Oh, yeah. Buy a stamp IN the kitchen.”

A guy has appeared behind the counter and is pouring tea into neat china cups. “Namaste!” I say, namaste-ing. “I need to buy a ten rupee stamp.”

He rummages under his piles of packaged noodles, pulls out a plastic bag with a rubber band around it, and extracts a small, red postage stamp.

I hand over a ten rupee note, and we process, in stately style, back to the fourth floor.

Oh god! We have a file! It’s going to be like my Indonesian driving license! We will never escape! I’ll be going from desk to desk acquiring piece of paper after piece of paper as Zac’s file gets fatter and fatter! In awful, car-crash-esque slow motion, he then does precisely what I thought he might do.

“Here!” I say, triumphantly, presenting my 11 cent processing fee.

As in Indonesia, the Nepalese government is a major employer, which means there’s no incentive to efficiency, since efficiency would mean fewer jobs and higher unemployment, so our friend, who appears to have nothing else to do today but sort out our issue, spends a while looking for his stamping pad, a while longer precisely moistening the stamp, and a while longer affixing it to the letter, for which he has started, I notice with a sense of foreboding, Zac’s very own file.

Oh god! We have a file!

It’s going to be like the time I got my Indonesian driving license! We will never escape! I’ll be going from desk to desk acquiring piece of paper after piece of paper as Zac’s file gets fatter and fatter.

In awful, car-crash-esque slow motion, he then does precisely what I thought he might do.

He pulls out a red pen from his pen pot, and a ruler.

He rules a neat red line through the date on Zac’s visa.

And then he writes the correct date in red pen, and hands the passport back to me.

Job done!

If I have to spend St Stephen’s Day at the Chinese Embassy, the day after St. Stephen’s Day at Nepali Immigration again, then Monday and Tuesday of the week after at the Chinese Embassy, AKA seven working days, all for a visa that lasts only 30 days, I think I might actually cry.

“But,” I squeak feebly. “This won’t do! I need it for the Chinese Embassy! It needs… It needs… A stamp! An official government stamp!”

He looks at me. The stamp appears to be a problem. But, obviously, being Asian, he’s not going to admit it.

“OK,” I say, extemporising wildly, for if I don’t come back with some form of Chinese-acceptable documentation we are going to miss our flights and our friends and have to spend not only Christmas but New Year in Kathmandu. “I need something I can show the Chinese. Something official!”

I’ve resigned myself to the fact that we will, in total, be spending not only Christmas Eve and Christmas Day but St Stephen’s Day and the day after St. Stephen’s Day at the Chinese Embassy, as well as most of today at Nepali Immigration, but if I have to spend St Stephen’s Day at the Chinese Embassy, the day after St. Stephen’s Day at Nepali Immigration again, then Monday and Tuesday of the week after at the Chinese Embassy, AKA seven working days, all for a visa that lasts only 30 days, I think I might actually cry.

“But the Chinese Embassy knows what the problem is!” he says. “Can’t they SEE? And there is a signature!”

“I KNOW!” I say. “They KNOW exactly what the problem is. AND they understand how it happened. But they need it fixed, in an official way. Can we not write a letter? An official letter on headed paper?”

I can see he has headed paper.

Together we craft a letter to the Chinese Embassy. Then he prints it out on a sheet of heavy, water-marked paper which probably cost at least half of my 10 rupee processing fee and disappears into the bowels of the building, presumably to find someone with the authority to sign it.

“When we get back,” says Zac darkly, from behind his Kobo. “I am going to have SO much internet time for putting up with this.”

“I know,” I say appeasingly. “You’ve been really good.”

I can feel in my water that today’s feeble attempt to give up smoking again is going to last all of another half hour, tops.

I check the date on the visa, check the date on the stamp, ask Zac to check the date on the visa and the date on the stamp, then check the date on my visa again, because I’d rather saw my own arm off and beat myself around the head with it than come back to Nepali Immigration ever again.

Half an hour or so later, our friend comes back. There’s no signature on the letter, but he ambles off into the bowels of the building with Zac’s passport, which is progress, I guess.

I pop out for a fag. The head rush feels absolutely great, and I figure the spasms of self-loathing mean I’ve still internalised Allen Carr.

Back up to the fourth floor.

We haz stamp! It takes up the whole of the rest of that page in Zac’s passport, meaning the boy, who travels more than I do, what with flying off to see his dad and all, now only has one full blank page and a solitary half page left, but we haz stamp!

It’s a big, fat bastard of a super-duper official stamp that’s so huge and purple and, well, stampy that even the meanest-minded Chinese bureaucrat could not doubt its veracity.

I check the date on the visa, check the date on the stamp, then ask Zac to check the date on the visa and the date on the stamp, then check the date on my visa again, because I’d rather saw my own arm off and beat myself repeatedly around the head with it than go back to Nepali Immigration ever again.

“Thank you!” I say to the guy. “Thank you so much! You’ve done an excellent job!”

Which he has. He’s been incredibly helpful. He namastes, with a quiet dignity, and we’re off, the Kathmandu Loveometer now pointing at “Nepalis! Amazing People Doing Great Jobs in Trying Circumstances.”

Some prick tries to charge me 500 rupees to Thamel. The Kathmandu Loveometer doesn’t even wobble.

The post Boxing Day at Nepali Immigration appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

My first challenge on Christmas Eve?

To change some of my enormous wodge of Nepalese rupees into dollars at a rate that won’t make my eyes bleed, because for some reason the Chinese, despite holding rather more dollars than the US government and most American banks put together, would still rather have greenbacks than Nepalese rupees.

Leaving Zac Skype chatting with his father, who is fresh back from the slopes of Colorado, I progress to reception, where – yes!!!! – the nice man is working.

“I need to get a China visa,” I say. “And they want dollars not rupees. Which bank will give me the best rate?”

He sucks his teeth a little. “You could try Everest Bank,” he says. “Round the corner and turn left. But there’s a high commission…”

“Oh,” I say. It’s 8am and I’m really not in the frame of mind to walk around every moneychanger in Thamel noting down their best offer, as I did when I had to change the Saudi riyals a family member gave me because – well, she had a whole BUNCH of them, and they’re virtually monopoly money aren’t they? No way she was going to spend all THAT! – in Sydney.

“How many do you want?” he says.

“Two hundred,” I say.

He riffles through his safe. “I can do it for you at 89,” he says. That’s undoubtedly the best deal I’m going to get without sacrificing an organ or selling my firstborn and my Kathmandu Loveometer swings from “Time to Go Now, Thanks, Kathmandu” to “Yeah, Nepalis Get Stuff Done, Alright! GO KATHMANDU!”

“Not here,” he says. “Bus. That way.” “Eyow,” I say, donning my best cut-glass British accent and nicest poor-helpless-but-very-polite-lady-with-no-husband-to-help-her-out smile. “Do yew happen to kneyow heyow much it would be in a texi?”

We still have the photos we got taken for our Nepali visa and trekking passes – I look like I’ve just been busted for running a crystal meth lab, and am only partway through the gender reassignment surgery it was supposed to fund, and Zac’s wearing a sort of stoned but supercilious sneer accessorised with a trail of snot from his left nostril – so that’s sorted.

The form on the embassy website looks different from the one I filled out in Kuala Lumpur, but, ever since the Timor Leste visa fiasco, I never trust a website when it comes to visas.

I force Zac into the shower and a clean white shirt, tart myself up in my jersey frock, leggings and newly mended boots and smear foundation over both spots and wrinkles while bemoaning the biological injustice that means I can actually have BOTH AT THE SAME TIME, and decide that we look borderline presentable.

I summon a taxi, which, as usual in Nepal, is a battered 1970s Fiat with stuffing spilling out of the seats and rust where other vehicles have bumpers, attempt to open the door, wait for instructions to pull hard – because, seriously, one day I’m going to pull hard without being asked and the door is going to come off in my hands – and progress to the Chinese Embassy, which sits behind quite remarkably unwelcoming walls flanked by armed guards, somewhat in the manner of a US Embassy in, say, Yemen, or Somalia.

“Visa?” says one of the armed guards out of the front.

“Yes!” I say.

“Not here,” he says. “Bus. That way.”

“Eyow,” I say, donning my best cut-glass British accent and nicest poor-helpless-but-very-polite-lady-with-no-husband-to-help-her-out smile. “Do yew happen to kneyow heyow much it would be in a texi?”

“100 rupees,” he says. “Wait!”

He heads out into traffic, summons a taxi, agrees the fare in Nepali and waves us off to the Chinese Embassy Kathmandu visa section.

Aw, I think, as the Kathmandu Loveometer veers from “Makes Me Stabby, Very Stabby”, hovers over “Frankly Delightful” and then swings back to “Olde World Charm and Courtesy”, the Nepalese are LOVELY.

The girl starts to giggle, partly because this request is so bizarre as to be actually funny, and partly through embarrassment that she’s going to have to say “No”, an extremely humiliating thing in China that always takes an unconscionably long time.

When it comes to process, Chinese bureaucrats make the Germans look positively Italian (cf, also, trains). The visa section opens at 9.45am sharp and closes at 11am sharp: the forms required are handed out when you do your weapons check at the door, and there is an orderly queuing system.

But these forms have all sorts of sections.

They want tickets! Hotel reservations! Contact numbers.

Last time, all I needed to write down was where we wanted to go and why.

I head to enquiries. “Hi,” I say. “I’m hoping to get a 90-day tourist visa.”

The girl starts to giggle, partly because this request is so bizarre as to be actually funny, and partly through embarrassment that she’s going to have to say “No”, an extremely humiliating thing in China that always takes an unconscionably long time.

“90 days?” she says, tittering. “Oh, I don’t think…”

It has been vaguely at the back of my mind that, what with the new leadership in China, and general sensitivities in Nepal, and what with me being British and our lords and masters persisting in playing nicely with the D**** L*** and bitching about human rights violations (while simultaneously cuddling up to the Saudis, FFS), Kathmandu might not be the best place to go for visas.

Her superior comes to the window. He’s not giggling, just smirking. “The most we can do is a 30-day visa,” he says. “But you can extend it in China. Do you have flights? Hotel reservations?”

“No!” I say. “Last time….” I wave our old visas at him.

Normally, the more often you visit China the nicer they are about the visas for your next visit. But we’re still in the throes of the leadership transition, with new apparatchiks posing in front of scary backdrops left, right and centre, which means that everyone is staying on the most conservative interpretation of whatever the rules are in case they lose their jobs.

“You need tickets,” he says. “And a copy of your passport. Where is your travelling companion?”

I point to Zac, who is sprawled, fetidly, across a series of plastic seats, oozing boredom from every grimy pore and ratstailed curl.

Jesus, I think. I really do need to talk him into that haircut. He has, actually, had a shower, but you couldn’t really tell, what with the hair and all.

I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve over-estimated Zac’s road-crossing skills – while Kathmandu traffic is no bagatelle, he has spent time in China, where a green light for pedestrians is also a green light for traffic to turn through them – and concluding that I’d have heard the bang by now if something had actually hit him.

Time is ticking, which means I need to divide the work load.

“Right, son,” I say. “You go to the place across the road that does photocopying and get our passports copied – the main pages and the ones with the old Chinese visa. I’ll fill out these forms.”

I start work. Travel insurance number. Don’t have that. Didn’t matter last time.

CONTACT NUMBER OF HOTEL?! They’re going to ring and check?!

Just as I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve over-estimated Zac’s road-crossing skills – while Kathmandu traffic is no bagatelle, he has spent time in China, where you often have to dodge vehicles on the pavement – and concluding that I’d have heard the bang by now if something had actually hit him, he returns, having spent his photocopying money on a can of fizzy pop. “No copying,” he says. “It’s load-shedding.”

Bugger.

“OK,” I say. “We’re not going to get this done today. They want plane tickets, and hotel reservations, and all that jazz. Do you know when the power comes back on?”

“Not before 11am,” Zac says, looking at the clock. For we do, indeed, have barely 15 minutes before the Chinese Embassy, Kathmandu, visa section, downs tools for the day.

Looks like we’ll be spending Christmas Day here, too! Festive! Perhaps they’ll all don flashing Santa hats and put some tinsel up! Because, lord knows, after trekking to Everest Base Camp, this is exactly the kind of relaxing environment I need.

NOTHING says “older woman I have no idea what to buy for” like a pashmina, unless it’s bubble bath, Thornton’s chocolates or cooking sherry.

As we walk back, for the visa section is within easy walking distance of our hotel, my newly “mended” boot breaks again, in precisely the same place.

“Wow!” says Zac. “That’s some quality repair work. What do you reckon he used? Pritt stick?”

“I don’t know,” I say, and, as I drag my flapping sole along the pavement, tsk at a persistent child beggar, fend off a tiger balm man and inhale a lungful of dust that probably is at least 5% human remains, the Kathmandu Loveometer spins wildly and settles to hover somewhere between ‘Doing My Fucking Head In’ and ‘Actual Nervous Breakdown If China Doesn’t Let Us In’. “Can you remember when load-shedding ends?”

“I think it’s 4 today,” says Zac.

Fuck, fuckity fuck, fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck. Unless I want to get dressed up and go pester the concierge at a 4-star hotel I am obviously not staying at, I can neither print nor copy any paperwork until the electricity comes back on. This is quite indescribably frustrating.

“Oooh!” Zac says. “Quick! Give me 2000 rupees and DON’T LOOK!”

“OK,” I say, idly inspecting pashminas and wondering how the fuck one tells the difference between shoddy and non-shoddy pashminas, and then concluding that these, the last refuge of the Christmas shopper before the dreaded bubble bath – because NOTHING says “older woman I have no idea what to buy for” like a pashmina, unless it’s bubble bath, Thornton’s chocolates or cooking sherry — are almost certainly shoddy.

Zac emerges from a “North Face” shop. “Here!” he says, bundling a plastic bag into my arms. “Happy Christmas!”

It’s a pair of trainers! Gawd bless him. Right colour! Right size! Shame about the pleather, but really, not bad. I thank him profusely.

As we progress to the Northfield for brunch, we pass the wandering shoeshine man. He’s bought a pair of spanking new pinstriped trousers with the proceeds of his repair work and, from his merry smile, is probably plotting a holiday to Rio.

I now have under 12 hours in which to sort out Project Christmas, because it will actually be Christmas tomorrow, and we’re booked in for turkey at the Northfield at 8. Aaarrgggghhhhh….

The bar was reliably full of Tsing-Tao swilling reprobates, layabouts and loafers – it takes a special kind of person to do northern China during winter, and that type of person tends to be my kind of person.

After brunch, where we break down our Christmas shopping list into items of Chinese-manufactured tourist tat charming Nepalese crafts, and allocate them substantially at random to our dearly beloved family members, I spend a frustrating couple of hours online.

The Nepalese government appears to have placed a block on price comparison sites to protect their indigenous travel agents, so I renew my VPN subscription and dick around trying to find flights to Beijing that won’t cost me a kidney or involve an awkward 10-16 hour layover.

Then, on the When in Rome principle, I call a Nepalese travel agent who takes an hour and a half to find any flight to anywhere in China, let alone Beijing, promises to call me back tomorrow, and doesn’t.

Finally, with flight prices visibly rising in the run-up to Western New Year and – oh dear god, please no, not Chinese New Year, not already?! We can’t be in the travel chaos period yet! We haven’t even left Nepal! – I plump for the Sunday flight rather than the Thursday flight on the basis that anything that can go wrong, based on the last week or so, almost certainly will, and wonder whether we can sleep in Kunming airport.

Then I try to get a booking at the place our friends are staying at. They’re full.

I remember our last Beijing abode as being a charming courtyard place on a hutong, eminently pleasant and sociable, 10 minutes walk from Tiananmen, with a bar reliably full of Tsing-Tao swilling reprobates, layabouts and loafers – it takes a special kind of person to do northern China during winter, and that type of person tends to be my kind of person – but a room that was absolutely bloody freezing at night with only the patchiest of hot water.

Zac remembers it as having PlayStation, PSP and dumpling parties, and will not contemplate staying anywhere else.

Then I book a place in Harbin on the basis that the booking’s fully refundable, and we can decide whether we’re living in Harbin or Jilin once we get there.

Then I fill out both our forms for the Chinese visa and get a mildly deranged festive blog post up on my poor, neglected blog.

It’s the type of sound that my pre-frontal cortex registers on the crudest mammalian level as indicating a saber-toothed tiger has just entered the savannah, and therefore wakes me up every single bloody night in a state of fight or flight.

Next, I try to book tickets for The Hobbit.

QFX Civil Mall cinemas, I learn, after calling the only number that they will answer, do in fact have online booking, not that you could tell from their website, but only does phone bookings on the number that they don’t answer.

I can’t work out how to book online, so I Google, and find out you need to join their club. I join. Even then I can’t find a mechanism for booking, although I can find a place to click to see my current bookings, so I go back to Google and find a page that tells me I can book tickets by a convenient bank transfer using any one of an enormous range of banks, all of them containing the words Nepal, Nepali, Everest, Sagamartha or some combination of the above.

I yell at Zac to do something educational, such as writing something about mountaineering and Everest, and, ooh!

There is that sudden, deeply unnerving reduction in ambient noise that indicates the generators are switching off and the power coming back on. It’s the type of sound that my pre-frontal cortex registers on the crudest mammalian level as indicating a saber-toothed tiger has just entered the savannah, and therefore wakes me up every single bloody night in a state of fight or flight.

Excellent! Power! I can get our passports copied! And our tickets printed!

Civil Mall is refreshingly unfestive and appears to have some clothes shops, which, while rich on the Mid-Priced Indonesian Hooker and Elderly Eastender Dressed for Christmas Bingo fashion ranges, also have items that don’t make me want to stab my own eyes out with a fork.

Without going in to quite how many “Photocopy Here!” signs I have to navigate before I find a place that has a fully functional photocopier with both ink and paper, by the time I have spent my 10 rupees on copies of our passports and old visa pages, I am in a quite stunningly bad temper, the Kathmandu loveometer needle is now pointing to “Third World Shithole I Can’t Wait to Leave” and I am longing for the peace, calm, fresh air and general spa ambience of Beijing in December.

Zac has wisely opted to sit this one out, which is good, as it’s also not easy to find an internet cafe that will allow me to print out copies of our tickets for China and even without anyone to talk to I’m getting quite sweary.

Further, I only have three hours before our turkey date in which to sort out Project Christmas, now broken down into three projects, Project Book Tickets for The Hobbit, Project Find Something – ANYTHING – for Zac and Project Sort Out Everyone Else at Some Point.

It is also beginning to dawn on me that small presents for a person approaching his teens are going to be harder to find than they were when he was, well, nine, say, or four, when pretty much any piece of plastic crap would do.

*sigh*

I jump a taxi to Civil Mall which, bar some token tinsel, is refreshingly unfestive and appears to have some clothes shops, which, while rich on the Mid-Priced Indonesian Hooker and Elderly Eastender Dressed for Christmas Bingo fashion ranges, also have items that don’t make me want to stab my own eyes out with a fork.

Ooh! Hope dawns for Project Kneeboots.

But first… Project Sort Out Christmas, Sub-Project Find Something – ANYTHING – for Zac.

“Do you mind if I…” says the lady behind me in the queue for cinema tickets, stepping in front of me with what appears to be an actual, bona fide Mulberry handbag, presumably bought in Delhi, and an expensive smile. “Yes,” I say, body-checking her. “I do.”

“Do you mind if I…” says the lady behind me in the queue for cinema tickets, stepping in front of me with what appears to be an actual, bona fide Mulberry handbag, presumably bought in Delhi, and an expensive smile.

“Yes,” I say, body-checking her. “I do, actually.”

She seems rather taken aback by this but hears my subtext – “I too am busy, bitch, and further I am from London and have lived in China” – loud and clear.

“Two tickets for The Hobbit, please,” I say. “3pm tomorrow. In 3D.”

They haz tickets! I buy seats in what I understand to be fifth row from the front.

Score one for Project Christmas! I tuck the flimsy pieces of paper into my purse, try not to get distracted by the kneeboots, which on this floor all come with hideous bobbles and sequins anyway, although maybe I could remove the sequins from that pair, if only they had them with a heel, and, Oh Jesus GOD a toyshop! YES!

And a DVD shop! Zac’s been eyeing the Simpsons for a while now, so I buy him the first 20 seasons by way of a substantial present, then brave the toyshop with a sorrowful sense that my little boy really isn’t little any more.

Bouncing ball? Dubious. Bubble gun? Probably yes, for about five minutes. Toy cars – nah. Ooh! Cuddly toys! Small, cute cuddly toys! He still likes cuddly toys! For about five minutes, anywise.

“This is a pencil case,” says the shop assistant, brandishing a Hello Kitty pencil case.

“I know,” I say. “I am buying for a boy.”

“This,” she says. “Is a train.”

“He is twelve,” I say.

A pair of trainer liners to stop him wearing his trekking socks with trainers and shorts – yes, I have bought my son socks for Christmas, and, no, I am not ashamed, and, yes, my son does wear shorts in Kathmandu in December, through the same kind of macho bravado that had him humiliating lowland Nepali guides at 4800m by wearing less than them of an evening – and we’re done!

I think about getting him an Everest Base Camp badge for his backpack, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about those in Lukla, so I don’t see what will have changed now, and anyway that would mean shopping in Thamel.

And, I think chirpily, Nepal has lovely handmade wrapping paper, absolutely beautiful stuff. Both urgent elements of Project Christmas are now complete! I can address Project Kneeboots.

They have a 40! Sure, I can only get my enormous bloody feet into them by wearing plastic bags on them, which also means I fall over, at least while wearing the plastic bags, but they will do.

It’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed across Asia that malls will often feature remarkably similar shops, with substantially identical stock, but different owners and marginally different pricing, on the same floor. And in this, Civil Mall is no exception.

OMG! OMG! One has, while not EXACTLY the perfect pair of black kneeboots, what with being fake suede rather than real suede and a little TOO visibly cost-effective, at least a pair of black kneeboots that are free of dangly bits and plastic gilt.

“Hi,” I say. “Do you have these in a 39? Or 40?”

No. They have them in a 38. Even with the vigorous application of plastic bags and elbow grease, they’re not going over my elephantine Western feet.

“We have them in brown,” says the girl.

I DON’T WANT THEM IN BROWN! I WANT THEM IN BLACK!

I progress next door. Next door has the 39, which is, basically, a guy’s size here, but not the 40, although they do have a 40 in the brown.

“Could you order them in?” I ask.

The girl actually laughs.

Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Down a floor.

Nope, nope, nope, nope.

Down another floor.

Ooh! Another store has the same pair of boots, which appear to be the only inoffensive kneeboots in all of Kathmandu. I wait, on tenterhooks, while the lady goes “to the storeroom to check”.

They have a 40! Sure, I can only get my enormous bloody feet into them by wearing plastic bags on them, which also means I fall over, at least while wearing the plastic bags, but they will do. I’ll work out a way to get my feet into them without plastic bags at a later point, or a way to get the plastic bags off my feet, and anyway the salesgirl says they’ll stretch.

I drop £20 on a pair of plain black, suede-like, platform-heeled kneeboots with no buckles, dangly bits or stripper accessories that make me look instantly thinner, tauter, taller and, by way of distracting attention from my face, younger and hotter.

And, yes, I know this is exactly how one embarks on the slippery slope to mutton dressed as lamb, but I have no idea how far down it I am yet and I’m honestly not sure I give a toss. In these, I’m almost six foot tall and thin.

And then I collect my spawn, drag him away from his dad, don plastic bags and boots, and we go eat turkey. With gravy! And mashed potatoes!

Nepal is 5 hours and 45 minutes ahead of GMT, which is fine if you’re going forward, but really challenging if you’re going backwards, because you have to subtract 15 minutes, only not, because you’re already subtracting, so you kind of have to add 15 minutes instead.

Christmas, for us, is all about family, which in this instance means a veritable scheduling nightmare of calls to folk in various time zones. Nepal is 5 hours and 45 minutes ahead of GMT, which is fine if you’re going forward, but really challenging if you’re going backwards, because you have to subtract 15 minutes, only not, because you’re already subtracting, so you kind of have to add 15 minutes instead.

Zac has a Skype call scheduled with his dad for his Christmas morning, his father’s Christmas Eve post-slopes yet pre-apres-board, Zac’s post-rifle-through-presents and pre-get-bored-of-presents, so I leave them chatting as I head to the Chinese Embassy.

Because it doesn’t get more festive than Christmas morning at the visa section of the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu. No sirree!

I arrive at opening time, queue, and present my paperwork, complete with reservations, tickets, photos and copies of our passports.

Oh, I’ve missed a form.

I go and get the forms, fill them out, jump the queue to the window, and hand over everything for the second time this Christmas.

That’s weird, I think.

There’s a kind of huddle behind the counter. Our guy is showing something in our passports to the rest of the staff. More and more of them are coming to look.

Oh Jesus! I’m trying to think what it could be. It’s not like we’ve been to Japan lately. The Philippines? No, that was a passport ago. Lebanon? China doesn’t give a monkey’s about the Middle East. Timor Leste? Why would China give a shit about Timor Leste?!

I know we have space in our passports, although Zac’s only got one full page left…

Another bureaucrat is summoned from a back office to look at the passport. Oh fuck. This isn’t good. This really isn’t good. Merry bloody Christmas.

“No,” he says. “The Nepali visa has expired.” “It CAN’T have done!” I say. I paid $100 cash each for these suckers at the airport, under 60 days ago. “We have 90-day visas,” I say, pleadingly. “90 DAYS!”

My bureaucrat friend, for I am now beginning to think of him as a friend, given we’re now on our third conversation in two days, returns to the window. “The visa has expired.”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s an old Chinese visa, that’s why we’re getting a new one.”

“No,” he says. “The Nepali visa has expired.”

“It CAN’T have done!” I say. I paid $100 cash each for these suckers at the airport, under 60 days ago. “We have 90-day visas,” I say, pleadingly. “90 DAYS!”

We were supposed to be meeting friends two days from now. Our entire plan for the next few months revolves around being legal in China, and, provided they let us in, I know an agency in Beijing – or, more precisely, I know where to find a man who knows the agency in Beijing – that can flip our cruddy 30-day tourist visas into 6-month multi-entry full-blown loafer visas for a few hundred bucks.

CHINA! WE LOVE YOU! YOU HAVE TO LET US IN!!!!

He shows me the relevant page in Zac’s passport.

It emerges that someone at Nepali immigration, when filling out the expiry date on Zac’s 90-day visa, has put February 2012, instead of February 2013.

“But…” I stutter. “But this is clearly a mistake…”

“We cannot issue a visa for China when your visa for Nepal has expired,” he says. “You need to go to Nepali immigration and get it changed.”

There’s absolutely no point in arguing with any Chinese person, let alone a Chinese bureaucrat, so I look at the offending page. All I actually need do is take a black pen and change the 2 to a 3, which would be perfectly doable with a single stroke, but that’s the sort of outside-the-box thinking that can land one in really big trouble, particularly when dealing with Chinese bureaucrats around the leadership transition period.

“If we get it fixed,” I say, making the best approximation to puppy-dog eyes my Polish features will allow (think Hound of the Baskervilles, or possibly Droopy). “Can we have the visa?”

He nods.

I do the maths. The pair of us will be spending Boxing Day at Nepali Immigration, and there’s no way on earth we’ll be through there by 11am. Assuming Nepali Immigration only takes one day, which is a large assumption, we can then return to the Chinese embassy on St. Stephen’s Day, rush process it, and pick it up on Friday.

If they take more than a day, we change our flights, we miss our friends, and we spend not only Christmas but bloody New Year in Kathmandu. Not good. Oh god. And what if the new leadership doesn’t want us, after all?!

But I LIKE the new leader! His wife is such a good singer she’s a major-general in the People’s Liberation Army! The new regime is all about openness, and loveliness! Unless you’re Japanese, obviously.

I apologetically ask for a new steak and they apologise for the old steak, then I apologise for asking for the new steak and they apologise for me having to apologise and apologise again for the old one, then we both reassure each other that no apologies are required, then apologise for apologising, for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours.

By now in a state of rising panic, I collect my spawn and head to K-Too for lunch, the centrepiece of my Christmas since I’m treating myself to a 16-oz Chateaubriand steak. And Negronis, obviously.

The Negroni is correct – the bar staff don’t just know me, but eagerly await my arrival – but my steak “Chateaubriand” comes cooked well done, an omission that, what with Lukla, the intermittent Drunkovision flashbacks still playing in my head from the weekend, the Chinese Embassy and the looming awareness that I haven’t done any bloody work for weeks, makes me positively tearful.

“It’s well done!” I say to Zac, brattishly. “And it’s on a sizzling hotplate so it’s still cooking! And it’s CHRISTMAS!!!!”

All I want for Christmas is a gigantic, bleeding steak. Oh, and the kneeboots, of course. And this steak isn’t bleeding! It’s brown!

“Well, tell the staff and ask them to change it,” says my son, chowing into his sizzling chicken fajitas.

After an exquisitely British-Nepali scene, whereby I apologetically ask for a new steak and they apologise for the old steak, then I apologise for asking for the new steak and they apologise for me having to apologise and apologise again for the old one, then we both reassure each other that no apologies are required, then apologise for apologising, for hours, and hours, and hours, and hours, my new steak arrives enormous, bloody and on a plate.

I like it. A lot.

Rather more than I like The Hobbit. I spend the first fifteen minutes wondering why one of the dwarves looks like a low-rent Viggo Mortensen and why on earth anyone thinks Martin Freeman’s a character actor when he plays the same bloody role every time, then manage to catch a discreet nap.

Disappointingly, I am awoken by my spawn during a gallumphing F/X sequence virtually cloned from Lord of the Rings, which seem to be logjammed in to what I suppose one should call the narrative arc, apparently at random, by way of diverting from the complete absence of characterisation, something that often helps with plotting.

Then there’s an intermission, and popcorn, which I spend trying not to spoil my son’s Christmas by explaining the myriad ways in which The Hobbit sucks arse, with only fair-to-medium success.

It begins to dawn on me that we haven’t done our Christmas shopping and that, further, we’ll have to find a way to post it to people in various corners of the globe. Fuck that for a game of soldiers, I think, festively.

Skyping family in the UK, before we head out to K-Too for more turkey (Zac) and Negronis and salad (me) – hey! It’s Christmas! – it begins to dawn on me that we haven’t done our Christmas shopping and that, further, we’ll have to find a way to post it to people in various corners of the globe.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, I think, festively.

We need to get this China visa sorted first, and then have New Year with our friends in Beijing.

After that, there’s only the little matter of flipping our visas, deciding whether we live in Jilin or Harbin, finding a place to live in Jilin or Harbin and getting Zac into a Chinese school, despite the fact that my Chinese language skills might be uncharitably summarised as “Transport, directions, shopping, food and basic social pleasantries provided you speak to me very, VERY slowly and very, VERY simply” and might not stretch to the jawdroppingly complicated etiquette that undoubtedly surrounds bribing teachers to let the laowai sit quietly at the back for a few months.

Fuck it, I think. It will be fine.

“Well,” I say to Zac. “I think that’s been quite a good Christmas, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It has, actually. I have…” and my atheist child pauses to allow the sheer unutterable wonder of this to sink in… “I have had turkey TWICE.”

I give him a hug.

Because THAT, quite frankly, is what Christmas is about.

The post A Very Merry Christmas at the Chinese Embassy appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

A cursory scan of what passes for my consciousness reveals that I am still EXTREMELY drunk, ergo do not yet have a headache, but have done something absolutely bloody terrible that will emerge from the fog in unsightly flashbacks that will utterly ruin the next couple of days.

Oh god. What was it?

I grab my phone. It’s 8am. My last cohesive memory is from six hours earlier.

“Where the FUCK are you?” Even through the haze of ill-digested shooters, I recognise my son’s dulcet tones.

“Oh god,” I say. “I’m sorry, darling. I thought I told you I might not be back when you woke up! I’m fine! There’s nothing wrong!”

“Well where ARE you?” Zac says, audibly mollified and all panic gone.

“I slept over at Mr Darcy’s,” I euphemise. “I’ll be back in an hour or two to take you to the Northfield for waffles. Are you hungry? Do you need to get something from reception?”

“Nah,” Zac says. “I’ll wait for you.”

“What about a cup of tea?” I say. “Hot lemon? At least get some fluids in you…”

“Nah,” he says. “I’ll see you later.”

“Alright darling,” I say. “Love you lots and so sorry if I worried you…”

Well, it wasn’t THAT, I think. I didn’t even know I’d done THAT.

My blank patches always edit out my worst bits. Selective memory, you see. I should probably call them ‘Selective Patches’, or perhaps ‘Bandaids for the Ego’. “Oh god!” I say again. “I need to apologise to the White Knight!” “Yes,” he says. “You do.” Oh dear. Oh Jesus god. Oh no. I didn’t, did I?

I turn to Mr Darcy, who, being fit as hell and 23  25 quite-possibly-30-if-he-joined-the-Gurkhas-when-he-was-23-which-he-didn’t is actively improved by being naked in bright sunlight, quite the reverse being true of me.

He has a calm, sorrowful but accusatory expression that reminds me of my bestie H’s face the morning after the time I thought it would be an absolutely fabulous idea to snort tequila.

“Oh god,” I say, as flashes emerge from the blank patch that begins when I enter a taxi with him and the White Knight and ends in a phone call from my neglected child, and a rush of guilt washes all the ebullience out of my poor, alcohol-poisoned system.

I very rarely have blank patches but when I do they always edit out my worst bits. Selective memory, you see. I should probably just call them ‘Selective Patches’, or perhaps ‘Band-Aids for the Ego’. “Oh god!” I say again. “I need to apologise to the White Knight!”

“Yes,” Mr Darcy says. “You do.”

Oh dear. Oh Jesus god.

Oh no. I didn’t, did I?

It’s all coming back to me in glorious, Technicolor Drunkovision.

“What we’re going to do,” he says. “Is he is going to come in here and then we are ALL going to go for breakfast TOGETHER.”

Bizarrely – even in daylight, even after THAT – he still wants to have sex with me. There’s a turn-up for the books. Wow.

“You were ranting,” adds Mr Darcy, in especially wounded tones, “About soldiers. And squaddies.” “Was I?!” I say. “I don’t remember that bit. I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry.” “What was it all about?” asks the White Knight. “It just came out of nowhere.”

I’m dressed, if not showered – I feel my face, after maybe four hours sleep and positively Gurkha-esque quantities of various liquids that should not be consumed solo, let alone in combination, could do with the little vestiges of makeup it has left, especially at haggard o’clock – when there’s a knock on the door.

I steel myself to apologise.

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah,” says the White Knight. “You were really bad.”

“You were ranting,” adds Mr Darcy, in especially wounded tones, “About soldiers. And squaddies.”

“Was I?!” I say. “I don’t remember that bit. I’m so sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“What was it all about?” asks the White Knight. “It just came out of nowhere.”

“Well,” I say. “I… Well, he’d been going on about threesomes…”

“What?!” says Mr Darcy.

“Yeah,” I say. “You suggested a threesome about, like, five times in Faces.”

“Did I?!” says Mr Darcy. “Jesus.”

It appears I am not the only person in the room with Selective Patches.

“Yes! You did! And I said no!” I say, turning to the White Knight. “So… when we came back here and then you were in the room with us as well, I just thought, well, I felt… I thought… Because it wasn’t like there was a bunch of us came back. It was just the two of you…”

The idea that being very drunk in a hotel room with two very drunk commandos, one of whom has already expressed an interest in a threesome, is probably not recommended in the Solo Lady’s Safe Travel Handbook, had begun to percolate through the haze of gin and unidentified pink gloop in my brain.

“Ah,” says the White Knight, processing this.

I cringe through a flashback of how bewildered the poor man – who seems, on this brief and clearly doomed acquaintance, one of the nicest and most even-tempered people I’ve ever met — had looked when I started screeching at him to leave his buddy’s hotel room.

“Oh,” the White Knight says again. “Yeah, I could see how that could make you feel uncomfortable. And threatened.”

It all comes flooding back to me in painful, inescapable Drunkovision.

As the idea that being horribly drunk in a hotel room with two very drunk commandos whom you instinctively trust but actually barely know, one of whom has already expressed an interest in a threesome, when you don’t WANT a threesome, is probably not recommended in the Solo Lady’s Safe Travel Handbook (Baedeker, 1890 edition), had slowly percolated through the haze of gin and pink shooter gloop in my brain, I had felt, well, that this might not be a very good idea.

Y’know.

So, being drunk, and feeling threatened, I’d become obnoxious. Starting, I believe, with something terribly coherent like: “I already told you! I don’t want this! He has to go! Get him out!”

And, I believe, continuing in that vein for quite some time, with lots of standing up and sitting down and ranting and pacing, torn between my desire to establish that I could actually leave and my desire to stay.

In the cold and oh-so-brutally-clear light of day, it is obvious that Mr Darcy had not mentioned his wizard wheeze to the White Knight, had quite possibly forgotten it altogether, and was certainly not about to raise the topic at that juncture.

“Not threatened,” I lie, by now virtually foetal with embarrassment. “Oh, DEFINITELY not threatened. Not THREATENED in the slightest…”

“You’re alright,” says Mr Darcy, who is currently live on Drunkovision repeatedly telling me to shut up, calm down and put that cigarette out with a general patience remarkable in one so young and so drunk. “It’s fine.”

Oh god, the flashbacks, oh dear god, those Drunkovision snapshots. They should package them and use them in abstinence classes, these 30-second snatches that loom out of the blissful blankness of the last few hours of last night.

“You’re alright,” says Mr Darcy, who is currently live on Drunkovision repeatedly telling me to shut up, calm down and put that cigarette out with a general patience remarkable in one so young and so drunk. “It’s fine.”

“No, but I am sorry,” I say, turning to the White Knight, who is simultaneously appearing on Drunkovision in glorious Technicolour looking confused and hurt, and asking me what my problem is. “I’m really sorry! Because I know you wouldn’t do that. I know neither of you would do that.”

“You’re alright,” the White Knight says. “I don’t think we behaved very well. We should have realised… I don’t think we were very sensitive…”

“It’s alright!” I gabble. “It’s not a problem! It’s really not a problem! I’m just sorry I was so obnoxious and said those things…”

“Are we all good?” says Mr Darcy, cutting the crap and changing the subject in one fell swoop. “Let’s go to breakfast.”

“You see,” I say to the White Knight, in an ill-advised attempt to lighten the mood. “It’s all his fault.”

Mr Darcy gives me the death stare.

The Gurkhas are off to their respective home towns to be reunited with their loving families  trail clouds of glory to their former classmates  work on charity projects tend the gadzillion houses they’ve bought.

Breakfast, attended by an audience of smirking, though not openly sniggering Nepali waiters, goes, actually, remarkably well in the circumstances.

The Gurkhas are off to their respective home towns to be reunited with their loving families  trail clouds of glory and inspiration to the children  work on charity projects tend the gadzillion houses they’ve bought.

I intend to work on Project Christmas, and, more importantly, Project Kneeboots, a project in which even the White Knight struggles to demonstrate any interest, at least after helping Zac complete Project Waffles at the Northfield.

Zac calls to ask for our PayPal password and we discuss which family members he can get away with buying computer games for, concluding with a division along gender lines.

And, as I conduct the walk of shame towards a taxi, accompanied by some particularly unconvincing suggestion about meeting for lunch, I figure, oh well, that’s a shame, they’re such nice guys, but, hey, at least it can’t get any worse.

Anyone would think I’d done something wrong, or something. Rather than, you know, the kind of minor misdemeanour that tends to occur when a lady endeavours to match a bunch of Gurkhas and Special Forces soldiers drink for drink. Well, maybe not all ladies.

Ebullience rapidly gives way to the aggressive self-justification stage. All of a sudden, I think grumpily, as I bicker with the (male) cab driver over the fare, arrive at my hotel and run a gamut of stares from the hatchet-faced man and the rest of the (male) staff, I am in a world full of disapproving men.

Anyone would think I’d done something wrong, or something. Rather than, you know, the kind of minor misdemeanour that tends to occur when a lady endeavours to match a bunch of Gurkhas and Special Forces soldiers drink for drink.

Well, maybe not all ladies.

Maybe that would just be me.

Hey! Fuck it! I think. I’ve been up a mountain for three weeks and stuck in Lukla for over four days! I deserve a little relaxation.

There is no way, I think, as Drunkovision replays another excruciating, toe-curlingly, knee-clenchingly abysmal scene from last night, that I am going to feel bad about this!

And then, oh god, the poor White Knight. I briefly tally up.

So far he has:

* interacted with my child
* spotted me $350 cash
* checked on my welfare
* translated for me
* paid my cabfare
* bought me drinks

I have:

* repeatedly insulted his intelligence
* inflicted various forms of hysteria on him
* accused him of intending rape

Oops.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Zac says. “But why were you having a sleepover with Mr Darcy?” “Well,” I stall, and then say the first thing that comes into my head. “Because he’s HOT!” “Oh!” says Zac, relieved. “Oh, of course! I’d totally go for him if I was gay!”

“Hi Mum!” says Zac, chirpily, as I stumble into our pit.

“Oooh! Hello!” I say, giving him a big kiss and breathing alcohol all over him. “I’m so sorry if I worried you.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Zac says. “But why were you having a sleepover with Mr Darcy?”

“Well,” I stall, and then say the first thing that comes into my head. “Because he’s HOT!”

“Oh!” says Zac, relieved. “Oh, of course! I’d totally go for him if I was gay!”

“EXACTLY! I mean… That body!” I say, then, suspiciously. “ARE you gay?”

“Well, I don’t think so,” my son says. “As far as I’m aware, I’m straight, but I’m only just twelve, so it’s not really that much of an issue yet, to be honest.”

I rush to the toilet, hug the bowl and dry heave for a few minutes, emerging sweaty and shaking to a particularly unimpressed child. This is quite the most hungover I’ve been in many years, but I can’t help thinking I’m missing a valuable teaching moment.

It’s time, I think, or perhaps it’s the gin doing the thinking, for the Sex Talk!

“And it’s particularly important that the FIRST time you have sex it’s with someone you know and trust, and ideally love, because otherwise it can be rubbish and really awkward.” “Unless I get completely drunk at college, obviously?”

I take small, delicate sips of some mineral water, hoping it won’t just bounce off my poor, saturated stomach which is rebelling against the coffee and bacon I had for breakfast.

The Sex Talk, incidentally, isn’t quite as much a “Do as I Say Not as I Do” piece of blatant hypocrisy as the Smoking Talk, but it’s nowhere near as balanced as the Drugs Talk, which has evolved a long way since I inadvertently told a class of 12-year-olds to whom I was teaching Personal Social and Health Education that “The problem with cocaine is that it’s really expensive.”

“The thing about sex,” I say. “Is that it’s always better if it’s in a committed relationship with someone you love. And it’s particularly important that the FIRST time you have sex it’s with someone you know and trust, and ideally love, because otherwise it can be rubbish and really awkward.”

“Unless I get completely drunk at college, obviously?” says Zac. “Or the girl does?”

“No, no,” I say. “Well, um, yeah. Maybe… No, normally that comes later… I mean… No. Definitely better when you’re sober…”

Fuck. I’m way too hungover to do this properly.

“Right,” I say, trawling through Zac’s entire extended family on both sides and finding, as ever, one single, solitary model of a happy, solid, one-and-only marriage. “You know the right way to do this, don’t you? Be like Granny and Grandpa. Meet someone you love while you’re young and settle down and build a life with them, and grow old together. You know, even your great-grandparents were still having sex right up until one of them died….”

“Yeah,” says Zac.

“And what else?” I say. “What do you ALWAYS, ALWAYS do?!”

“Use a condom!” he says.

“Well done,” I say. “Did you do your essay?”

He did! It has citations in it, and everything, and all of them to proper, non-Wiki sources. Wow. Where did he learn to do that?!

I have two hours tops before the ebullience fades and the doors of Really Bad Headache open onto the Pit of Extreme Self-Loathing, where Drunkovision replays everything, but everything, on a big, big screen, with the very worst bits in patented, unstoppable Drunko-Slo-Motion, like the Rambo outtakes in Tropic Thunder.

The water I’ve consumed seems to want absolutely nothing to do with me, and I can’t say I blame it, frankly. It’s trying really hard to bounce, but it WON’T bounce, because my poor, thirsty, pink-shooter-gloop-infused cells have already absorbed it, so I’m back to the old dry-heaving.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I was this hungover, but I’m pretty sure it was last century.

Bugger, I think, as I stick my fingers down my throat in an attempt to get the nausea bit over and done with before the headache kicks in, I need to sort out Project Christmas. It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow!

AND the Chinese Embassy opens tomorrow, which means Project Chinese Visa is back on, and we’re supposed to be in Beijing in four days from now.

Wah!

I have two hours tops before the ebullience fades and the doors of Really Bad Headache open onto the Pit of Extreme Self-Loathing, where Drunkovision replays everything, but everything, on a big, big screen, with the very worst bits in patented, unstoppable Drunko-Slo-Motion, like the Rambo outtakes in Tropic Thunder.

And two hours is not NEARLY enough time to get our Christmas shopping done, let alone complete Project Kneeboots.

Why oh why, I think self-pityingly, does life have to be so difficult? I’ve only just escaped from Lukla, goddammit, and now I’m going to be plagued by flashbacks and guilt pangs for the next two bloody days.

And, oh god, the poor White Knight. He’s such a nice guy. Still, I think, brightening. At least it can’t get any WORSE.

The post In Glorious, Technicolor Drunkovision appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

Mr Darcy, it transpires, is out with the lads.

They are good lads, apparently. And British! Yay!

In my limited acquaintance with the soldiery – the only man who ever put up with me for more than about fifteen minutes while not separated by an entire ocean had served in Israeli Special Forces – this means FUN, with a capital ‘F’, ‘U’ and ‘N’.

Mystifyingly, at least to me, who has both male and female friends, including several at least one heterosexual male friends I’ve managed never to accidentally sleep with – what can I say?! These things happen! – he appears to see being out with the lads as an alternative to being out with me.

Night out with the soldiery = FUN. Waiting in for a theoretical booty call from someone who has completed a night out with the soldiery = NO FUN AT ALL.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers, I think, rather appositely, as I put Zac to bed tell Zac I’ll be out late with Mr Darcy and may not be back when he wakes up but will take him out for waffles as agreed, put my number in my Skype so that he can call me if he needs to, smear some more foundation over the worst of the eyebags, scars and lines, and get him to agree to be asleep by midnight.

The screenplay I am writing in my head has descended from mid-90s romcom into The Hangover Part 97, working title Scraping the Bottom of the Franchise Barrel in Kathmandu.

Even though I am, as should be clear, precisely the type of woman for whom He’s Just Not That Into You was written, it’s beginning to very, very slowly dawn on me, as I skip past the hatchet-faced man and his death ray stare with the breezy, carefree attitude of someone just popping out to sniff the night air and in no way whatsoever abandoning their child to the tender mercies of that wonderful babysitter, Skype chat, that Mr Darcy maybe really isn’t that into me.

But that’s OK!

He’s firmly on my list, provisionally entitled “Wow I Must Have Been Good In Bed or Something” of ludicrously hawt men that for whatever bizarre reason wanted to have sex with me, that I will review, as previously outlined, shortly before dying some ghastly, solitary, ancient spinster death or possibly being burnt as a witch.

And, he’s clearly up for seconds. So, all good!

What is not so good, however, is that the screenplay I am writing in my head has descended from mid-90s romcom into The Hangover Part 97, working title Scraping the Bottom of the Franchise Barrel in Kathmandu.

The White Knight, meanwhile, who, being older, is more au fait with the concept of using a telephone for talking to people rather than texting them, sorts me out with directions to the promisingly named Faces, Kathmandu, then explains the directions to my taxi driver in Nepali, then comes out and finds me and pays the taxi driver for a journey which, it will transpire, is approximately 60 seconds’ stagger from my hotel.

It’s actually really nice to see him, a reliably friendly face in what is, after all, a strange town. He’s such a nice guy, I think, in my Negroni-mellowed state. Such a shame I don’t fancy him.

Single ladies! Are you in possession of a pulse, the requisite number of limbs and a willingness to spread them? If so, it would be difficult not to get laid in Faces, Kathmandu.

Some of the British lads, it transpires, are Special Forces!

They’re being terribly subtle about it, only casually dropping the smallest references to Hereford, or whatever, but the rest of my compatriots do rather give the game away by identifying themselves humbly as “only regular army”.

And there are Gurkhas! Loads of evil, hilarious, absolutely polite and charming Gurkhas! Excellent!

In fact, about 85% of the clientele of Faces appears to be Gurkhas, with the rest made up of British Army.

Single ladies! Are you in possession of a pulse, the requisite number of limbs and a willingness to spread them? If so, it would be difficult not to get laid in Faces, Kathmandu.

“Are we good?” inquires Mr Darcy romantically as I arrive, embracing me.

He has his impressive disco tits out for the occasion, but looks even hawter (good) and younger (less good) while dressed for the bright lights and big city sophistication of Faces as opposed to, ya know, climbing mountains and shit.

“Yeah,” I say. “I suppose so.”

Zac’s great-great-uncle, a man I used to call my Evil Twin, was in a predecessor to the SAS, Jedburgh, and, despite the fact that he was well over 70 when Zac’s arrival introduced us, our sessions usually ended with him pouring me bodily into a taxi.

It appears I am expected to keep up with the boys’ alcohol consumption.

Fuck it, I think. In for a penny, in for a pound. I’ve been a drinks journalist, on and off, for almost twenty years, hanging out with West End bartenders for rather longer than that, and these guys have been drinking since 5, while I’ve only had a token three Negronis, and that with a full meal.

I’ll be fine!

Admittedly, my history in keeping up with the Special Forces while drinking is rather chequered.

Zac’s great-great-uncle, a man I used to call my Evil Twin, was in a predecessor to the SAS, Jedburgh, and, despite the fact that he was well over 70 when Zac’s arrival introduced us, our sessions usually ended with him pouring me bodily into a taxi.

My selective memory, of course, recalls only the couple of instances, when the poor guy was 86 and secretly sick with the cancer that would kill him, that I had to return the favour. Hey-ho.

Gurkhas, I think, dismissively. Pshaw! Gurkhas will be fine!

I’m taller than most of them, heavier than some of them, they’ve been tying one on for the last five hours and I can reliably outdrink local men in most South-East Asian countries, and South Asians are famously lightweights.

Oh!

Shooters.

Oh Jesus!

Flaming shooters.

It’s been at least a decade since I consumed a flaming shooter and even then it wasn’t by choice.

I explain, patiently, and then I write it down for him. “We don’t have that,” he says, flatly. This puts me in quite a childish fit of bad temper. “OK,” I say. “Gin and tonic, please.”

I’m at the bar with the White Knight. It looks very promising, initially. White, backlit, every bottle of spirits in its own little cubbyhole – with my bar reviewer hat on, I try to remember which turn-of-the-century London bar brought this trend to the UK. Was it Sketch?

Yay! Negronis!

“Do you have a Negroni?” I ask, spurning the cocktail list as it includes flaming shooters and is therefore likely to be short on the classic cocktails and long on things with Midori in.

“What?” says the guy.

I explain, patiently, and then I write it down for him

“We don’t have that,” he says, flatly.

This puts me into quite a childish fit of bad temper. “OK,” I say. “Gin and tonic, please.”

The White Knight is buying, for some ridiculous reason, given he’s already got a drink and I only just got here.

“Are you not having a cocktail?” he says.

“Not from here,” I say, petulantly. “They haven’t got the one I want. And if they haven’t got that, I’m having a gin and tonic, because they clearly don’t know about cocktails.”

“I’m having a Mojito,” he says. “Want to try it?”

“No,” I say, churlishly. “I can tell just by looking at it that they’ve made it wrong. What you need to do,” I say, going into full-on drinks bore mode since I’ve just maybe, just maybe found someone who might be interested in this shit for the first time, well, since I was bar reviewing in Beirut, I guess. “You’re supposed just to bruise the mint, because otherwise it goes bitter. And they’ve just bashed the shit out of it, if they didn’t freeze it first, which from the colour…”

The White Knight does a good impression of being interested in this, which is nice of him.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DRINK?” I bellow, thinking, Jesus, the music’s not that loud. How drunk IS this man? “WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?” “Girls don’t buy drinks,” he says.

Mr Darcy appears at the bar as I’m getting another gin and tonic. Even with the three Negronis and the shooters I have some catching up to do.

“Want a drink?” I say.

He looks at me as if I’ve just farted.

“What?” he says.

“WHAT.DO.YOU.WANT.TO.DRINK?” I bellow, thinking, Jesus, the music’s not that loud. How drunk IS this man? “WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?”

“Girls don’t buy drinks,” he says.

“WHAT?!” I say, looking at him as though he’s just followed through.

“Girls don’t buy drinks,” he says.

“Oh,” I say, and a penny drops. In my core group of friends, drinks buying happens on a basis of rounds, or tab-splitting, with a general understanding that those who have money at any one point will cover those who don’t (I am slipping rapidly from the former category to the latter, but that’s improvidence, not gender.)

“Oh,” I say again. “Ah! And girls don’t text guys saying, ‘Right. How about this time and this place?’”

He laughs. He’s actually, bless his cotton socks, a bright and funny guy. “No,” he says. “Girls REALLY don’t do that.”

More shooters? Oh Jesus, no.

Some unsightly adolescent snogging in the general bar area and he pisses off to join the lads.

“You know,” he says, meditatively. “Apart from those two girls there, who live with me, you’re the only woman in here who isn’t a prostitute.” I look around. He is, of course, right.

One of the British guys, a fellow 90s raver who has been digging out his old gay dancing moves for my edification, and is my kind of age, although being a soldier who has yet to retire, he’s obviously somewhat younger (GOD I’M OLD!), is also at the bar. I buy him a beer.

“That’s the first time a girl has ever bought me a drink,” he says.

“You’re taking the piss,” I say.

“No,” he says. “I’m serious. That’s the first time a girl has ever bought me a drink.”

One small step, I figure, for womankind. Or something.

“You ARE a feminist, aren’t you?” he says, in tones of sorrow, rather than anger.

“Well,” I bluster. Then I look around Faces, Kathmandu. Yep, in this context, I’m somewhere between Julie Bindel and Andrea Dworkin on the “All Men Are Rapists” rad fem scale. “Yeah, I guess I am a feminist,” I say. “A bit.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Well, the woman thing really isn’t all that good here, you know.”

“I know!” I say. “Every time I read the Kathmandu Post some other poor girl has been burned to death. And don’t get me started on child marriage.”

“You know,” he says, meditatively. “Apart from those two girls there, who live with me, you’re the only woman in here who isn’t a prostitute.”

I look around. He is, of course, right.

There are four or five Nepali girls in there, with the watchful eyes and corner position of working girls on the lookout for a score, plus the overly pale face powder, overly red lips and moderately-revealing nylon fashions that are the hallmark of mid-priced hookers across South-East Asia, though of course we’re in South Asia. Then there’s me and his flatmates. And, umm, that’s it.

Clearly under the erroneous twin impressions that I am insufficiently drunk, and that it would be a good idea to get me more drunk – this is, incidentally, a mistake that few people make twice – the White Knight is encouraging me to down a gin and tonic, watched by a crowd of chanting Gurkhas.

Clearly under the erroneous twin impressions that I am insufficiently drunk, and that it would be a good idea to get me more drunk – this is, incidentally, a mistake that few people make twice – the White Knight is encouraging me to down a gin and tonic, watched by a crowd of chanting Gurkhas.

Thanks to the ice it’s so cold that I shamefully let the side of British womanhood down by failing to complete the project even on the slow count the gents let me have.

Bugger. I’ve never tried to down a drink with ice in it in my life.

“Never mind,” a Gurkha says supportively. “You did alright.”

Damn, damn, damn.

The SAS men, in the interim, are still annoyingly upright.

As, for that matter, are all the bloody Gurkhas. I’m beginning to wonder whether the Bedouin might not have been a better comparison than the various South-East Asian gentlemen I have floored in my time.

Anywise, I’m enjoying chatting to the White Knight, who combines the quality of absolute invisibility until he wants you to notice him with an interesting life and an ability to chat about Arabic grammar without becoming visibly bored.

Also, he’s taller than Mr Darcy. Shame I don’t fancy him, really.

In a move drawn from the finest 1950s etiquette manuals, I abandon the White Knight mid-sentence, hurl myself bodily across the dancefloor and twixt the hooker and Mr Darcy, and virtually bodycheck him. This subtle approach works wonders.

And — woah! — the prettiest of the hookers is getting perilously close to Mr Darcy on the dancefloor. Bugger!

But for the pay-by-the-hour requirement, she is clearly prettier, younger, more petite and, in all ways, infinitely better suited to Mr Darcy than I, what with being a proper girl and all, and in no danger of doing anything so unladylike as wandering around the world with only a child by way of male escort, diving an undersea volcano, crossing a Himalayan high pass, paddling a boat up the Mekong, riding a motorbike 3000 miles across Indonesia, or, for that matter, buying a drink or even expressing an opinion, but still…

…Fuck that shit!

In a move drawn from the finest 1950s etiquette manuals, I abandon the White Knight mid-sentence, hurl myself bodily across the dancefloor and twixt the hooker and Mr Darcy, and virtually bodycheck him.

This subtle approach works wonders and soon we are stumbling around the dancefloor with my legs round his waist and engaging in the kind of activities not just at but actually on the bar that makes me a) bloody glad I put leggings over my tights and b) wondering what the fuck Moses power Mr Darcy has that we’re not actually been thrown out, or, at the very least, taken to one side and had a word with.

The hookers, I notice, are all more sober and better-behaved than me.

Professional requirement, I guess.

And, further, not bloody difficult.

“Right,” says Mr Darcy. “You’re looking after me.” I look at 80kg of extremely drunk, recalcitrant muscle and wonder how the fuck that is supposed to work, exactly. Am I going to carry him into a taxi if he passes out?

“Right,” says Mr Darcy. “You’re looking after me.”

I look at 80kg of extremely drunk, recalcitrant muscle and wonder how the fuck that is supposed to work, exactly.

Am I going to carry him into a taxi if he passes out? Persuade him to drink some water or eat whatever Kathmandu’s answer is to the late night kebab?

Gently suggest – bahahahahahaha! – that maybe he’s had enough now and he should switch to, perhaps, lemonade, or, maybe, shandy, or at least lager top?

Explain what the yak is doing in the trashed hotel room we will wake up in with someone mysteriously missing, enormous piles of cocaine on the mirrors and, quite possibly, a selection of mid-range Nepali hookers wanting their money, now, now, now, now, now!

Yep, that’ll be it.

For, unfortunately for all concerned, in the screenplay that I am writing in my head, I am now no longer one of the girls but one of the boys in the Hangover Part 97, Scraping the Franchise Barrel in Kathmandu.

I somehow neglect to recall that all these heroic feats of drinking relied on two things. The first? Sufficient quantities of Class A drugs to have an elephant, if not actually raving, at the very least twitchy.

I amble over to the SAS men, catch snatches of conversation about “pushups” and “fittest man in the British Army”, and think, fuck this for a game of soldiers, Gurkhas are LOTS more fun, not least because if they have those conversations, which they probably do, they have them in Nepali.

Oooh! I’m drunk enough to dance!

Excellent!

Ooh! And there’s the evil Gurkha with the piercings. I like him! He’s my friend!

Oh dear god! I am dancing to Justin Bieber in Faces, Kathmandu, and enjoying myself immensely.

But I’m not that drunk, I think, casting the misty eye of memory back over the escapades of my 90s heyday.

I somehow neglect to recall that all these heroic feats of drinking relied on two things. The first? Sufficient quantities of Class A drugs to have an elephant, if not raving, at the very least twitchy. The second, when said substances wore off? Male friends prepared to chuck a blanket over me/deposit me on the sofa/carry me bodily to a taxi, take the driver’s phone number and license plate, tell him where to take me and then telephone to confirm that I was home and he was elsewhere.

“Where do we go after this?” I ask. “This is it,” he says, darkly. “This shuts at 2. Faces is the latest club open in Kathmandu.” “You’re taking the piss!” I say.

The White Knight slings a beer in my general direction, and I practice my 90s raver moves with my 90s raver friend.

“Where do we go after this?” I ask.

“This is it,” he says, darkly. “This shuts at 2. It is the latest club open in Kathmandu.”

“You’re taking the piss!” I say.

“I’m not,” he says.

“Seriously?” I say. “2am? And that’s Kathmandu finished? On a Saturday?”

“Yes,” he says, sorrowfully. “I live here.”

Flaming shooters?! Oh god! Not again! I force the vile concoction, which has some pink stuff that tastes of Benolin in it, past my gag reflex and down in one.

An age-inappropriate (for me at least) PDA demonstrates that he is, at the very least, fulfilling what appear to be my three, umm, “dating” criteria at this stage in my life, being hot, drunk and not too picky.

“Why aren’t you talking to the White Knight,” Mr Darcy slurs romantically. “He really likes you. He fancies you.”

“What?” I say. “And you don’t?”

An age-inappropriate (for me at least) PDA demonstrates that he is, at the very least, fulfilling what appear to be my three, umm, “dating” criteria at this stage in my life, being hot, drunk and not too picky.

“But why don’t you go with the White Knight?” he says, during a pause in proceedings.

The last thing I need at this stage of the game is fucking confusion, Chrissakes.

I wonder whether it’s worth explaining that I really like the White Knight as a person but don’t fancy him and therefore there is only any point in sleeping with him if a relationship were on the cards, which, for any one of about ten million reasons, starting with the one that’s currently trying to pimp me out to him, it isn’t.

But for some strange reason there seems to be a timelag between my brain and my mouth.

“Threesome, yeah?” he slurs.

“NO!” I say, like Vera Lynn, only not. “Definitely not!”

I can absolutely guarantee that Menage with Two Commandos I Met Virtually On Bloody Everest FFS will make my list of “Sexual Opportunities I Must Have Been Mad to Pass Up”, along with That Thing Not in But on the Dead Sea and That Thing in the Swimming Pool at the Orgy.

I’m chatting to the White Knight again, who is doing a good impression of being interested in whatever random crap is coming out of my mouth, while trying to work out whether on earth they have discussed this prospective menage.

They must have done, surely?

I mean, they couldn’t not have done, right?

But it really doesn’t seem like they have. Not from the way the White Knight is interacting with me, although, now it’s been so delicately pointed out, he probably is interested in more than my sparkling personality which is, particularly when drowned in Negronis, gin and tonics, flaming B-52s, beer, Jack Daniel’s and whatever that pink shit is in the shooters is, oh-so-definitely my best feature.

Aaarrggghhh. This is really doing my head in.

I was enjoying myself before and now I feel really uncomfortable. I’m still at least partially deranged from Lukla and stressed to buggery about the Chinese embassy, because if I don’t get a China visa I have absolutely no plan B for the next few months. The last thing I need is more uncertainty.

Now, I can absolutely guarantee that Menage with Two Commandos I Met Virtually On Bloody Everest FFS will not only at least equal my friend’s Menage with Two Male Ballet Dancers, but come to sit alongside That Thing not in But ON the Dead Sea, That Thing in the Swimming Pool at the Orgy, That Thing with the Swedish Photographer and My Doppelganger and, last but not least, That Thing with the Dwarf in the Nazi Hat on the list, provisionally entitled “Sexual Opportunities I Must Have Been Mad to Pass Up”, which I will review sorrowfully, while festering in my bitter spinster juices, before the ulcerated pressure sores get me and the cats begin to circle my still warm, yet already maggoty, corpse.

But still, I don’t want to go with it.

It’s not just that we’re all hammered and therefore there could be boundary issues. It’s just that I genuinely like the White Knight and therefore it doesn’t seem right.

“Threesome?” Mr Darcy slurs again, later.

“I already told you NO,” I snap, like Vera Lynn, only really not. “I’m not changing my fucking mind. Now leave it.”

Despite being past caring about pretty much anything, I’m under the firm belief that I’m relatively sober, by British Army standards, anyway. I mean, I can stand. I can talk. I can walk. I know where I am, and the name of my hotel.

When the lights go up at 2am, marking the official end of all nightlife in that world city, Kathmandu, I’m dancing some mental circle dance with a bunch of Gurkhas, including Mr Darcy, who appears to have forgotten his wizard wheeze about the threesome, a memory lapse for which I am most grateful.

I think the circle dance is a Gurkha thing but it might just be what gangs of 20-something soldiers do in clubs when women are in short supply, but I’m honestly past caring.

But, despite being past caring about pretty much anything, I’m under the firm belief that I’m relatively sober, by British Army standards, anyway.

I mean, I can stand. I can talk. I can walk. I know where I am and, while I don’t know how to get home, exactly, I know what my hotel’s called and the landmark that it’s by, and that the White Knight, who appears to have the alcohol tolerance of an ox, will look after me if required.

I am, goddamn it, still as upright as both the SAS and the Gurkhas, and considerably more upright than Mr Darcy.

And, as far as I know, I haven’t been particularly obnoxious any more obnoxious than usual. Although, of course, the night is young.

Go me!!!! The girl done good!

Thanks to Machadox for the lead image.

The post The One Where I Try to Outdrink the Special Forces appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

Well, it would be, if it even fitted in my wallet.

It’s such a fat wodge that I have to leave some of it in the hotel room and distribute the rest of it in rolls through my camera bag.

I am RICH! I am bloody LOADED!

Sure, I could change this monopoly money into something convertible, like the dollars I need for my Chinese visa, or even Chinese Renmimbi.

But there’s no WAY I can spend all that.

So I’ll just change the change.

And, anyway, it’s in my hand, so its not like I’m taking it out of the bank, or anything.

And, it’s Christmas, virtually. And, what with climbing all the way up to Everest Base Camp and then being stuck in Lukla for four days drifting steadily closer to the edge of reason, there are things the boy and I NEED. We’re in Kathmandu! And that means…. Shopping!

They can wait, even if that does mean I can’t bill them until January and won’t get paid until February. But that doesn’t matter! Because I have a ton of cash!

There are, of course, some work projects I need to complete, but given we escape from Lukla on the day of the Mayan Apocalypse, AKA the day that everyone I work with downs tools for Christmas, they can wait, even if that does mean I can’t bill them until January and won’t get paid until February.

But that doesn’t matter! Because I have a ton of cash, I have money in the bank, and the second we get to China, after fun with our friends in Beijing, we’re going to be sorted in a flat in either Jilin or Harbin paying £250 a month tops, with Zac in Chinese school and me in full-on, focused work mode.

Anywise, I have more important projects to work on in this bustling, thriving metropolis, this world mega-city, this bloody enormous place with totally loads of buildings more than four storeys high, this earthly paradise that is Kathmandu.

Zac’s important projects appear to be: Spend as much time as possible in hotel room in pyjamas gurgling at Memebase, conducting flamewars about Middle Eastern politics and building RPGs on the Armor Games forums.

My important projects are, in roughly this order:

• * Secure minimum 90-day Chinese visa, x2 – 6 months, if they’ll do it.
• * Find same day laundry capable of washing and drying 12kg of sharty trekking gear
• * Get boots mended
• * Force Zac into shower
• * Find and drink Negroni
• * Buy new, non-hobo, non-stinky, seasonally appropriate clothes for me and Zac: jersey dress, opaque tights and black kneeboots pour moi, jeans, trainers and jumper for him
• * Facial
• * Manicure
• * Pedicure
• * Find and eat blue steak with green salad and vinaigrette dressing
• * Find and eat bacon, optimally crispy and as part of a Full English, accompanied by recent edition of Herald Trib and coffee refills
• * Cut my hair
• * Persuade Zac to let me cut his hair
• * Treat myself to Botox if available in-market – it is Christmas, after all!
• * Sort out a fabulous rhino-spotting Christmas with lots of other kids about in Chitwan National Park
• * Do Christmas shopping
• * Get laid, optimally with Mr Darcy but more likely with age-appropriate alternative given I probably blew that one already
• * Give up smoking again

Zac’s projects appear to be:

• * Soap-dodge
• * Reunite with his own computer
• * Game online with friends
• * Eat momos
• * Drink tonic water
• * Eat bacon
• * Persuade me to stay in Kathmandu for Christmas
• * Sidestep all and any attempts at education
• * Spend as much time as possible in hotel room in pyjamas gurgling at Memebase, conducting flamewars about Middle Eastern politics on social media and building RPGs on the Armor Games forums

Our trek to Everest Base Camp has been absolutely wonderful, and will undoubtedly stay with both of us for the rest of our lives, but, after almost three weeks spent in each others’ company 24/7, we are both due a little break. AKA, a holiday from our holiday.

Still, as I trawl the alleys of Thamel fending off vendors of tiger balm, trekking, rickshaws, marijuana, crappy musical instruments or various implausible combinations of the above, I remain optimistic.

The visa section of the Chinese Embassy has closed for the day, after its daily one and three-quarter hour session, bringing Project Chinese Visa to a standstill for the weekend.

Bugger!

That means we need to spend Christmas Eve morning and, if they call us in for interview as they did in KL, probably Christmas Day morning, at the Chinese Embassy, which means rhino-spotting is now out of the question.

That means, in turn, I need to sort out how the hell we’re going to do Christmas stranded in Kathmandu, a city whose wonderful colours and exotic sensory overload I hugely appreciated last time we were here, but whose air quality leaves one longing for the spring freshness of Beijing on a we-just-broke-the-US-Embassy-smogometer-again-but-China-Daily-says-it’s-fine day.

Christmas isn’t particularly a big deal for us, since my child is an atheist and I’m agnostic at the very best, but it does make scheduling our Skype calls to family rather more challenging, and what Christmas is about, really, is family.

Still, as I trail the alleys of Thamel fending off vendors of tiger balm, trekking, rickshaws, marijuana, crappy musical instruments or various implausible combinations of the above, I remain optimistic that soon I will be able to have a hot shower, dry with a clean towel AND step into genuinely clean clothes.

Hey! The wandering shoeshine man will have my boots fixed inside the hour, too. Project Boots, check!

And every other doorway boasts a sign offering “3-Hour Laundry”.

Oh.

Every other doorway can’t get our laundry back to us until tomorrow evening. That’s 30-hour laundry, which is not the same thing as 3-hour laundry AT ALL, particularly when you’re wearing stinky thermals, crunchy socks, filthy jeans and dirty knickers turned clean-side-in for “hygiene” and NEED TO HAVE A NEGRONI, GODDAMMIT, ideally one with a single, perfect hand-crafted ice sphere, or possibly cube.

The emissions from these blend with the ash from Hindu cremations, the uncombusted petrol from hundreds of thousands of knackered vehicles, the smoke from burning garbage and, of course, the dust, into a rich soup that leaves not just one’s nostrils but one’s ears black with filth.

The reason for this? Well, in the throes of my initial love affair with Kathmandu I believe I forgot to mention the phenomenon known as “load-shedding”.

Most of Nepal runs on hydro- and/or solar power, which sounds like it should be the greenest thing on the planet. Unfortunately, this also means that at the coldest, darkest times of year, when there is most demand for electricity, the water is lowest and there is less sun, so there is less electricity to go around.

“Load-shedding” is a system of scheduled rolling blackouts, particularly prevalent in Kathmandu, that aims to address this.

Posh hotels and some businesses will have a full diesel generator to supply their needs, or at least a car battery wired up to some terrifying fandango of bare wires.

The emissions from these blend with the ash from Hindu cremations, the uncombusted petrol from hundreds of thousands of knackered vehicles, the smoke from burning garbage and, of course, the dust, into a rich soup that leaves not just one’s nostrils but one’s ears black with filth, and quite possibly actually undoes the theoretical environmental benefits of hydropwer.

Anywise, the laundries cannot do our washing until the power comes back on, and then, of course, they need to sun-dry it. So we have to last another 30 hours in our fetid, stinking clothes, or trawl the shops of Kathmandu to find new ones that we can live with for the next few months.

This pleases Zac, who hasn’t washed since we left Kathmandu and has no intention of doing so until positively forced to, but makes me really, really cross. Particularly since, as I’d forgotten about load-shedding, I can’t get any bloody work done as my battery is dead, and our hotel doesn’t even run to a car battery.

We could, of course, change hotels. But that would involve traipsing all round bloody Thamel looking at hotels, and packing up, and, but for the load-shedding, our hotel suits our requirements when it comes to storage, space, en suite, desk, location and budget, not to mention has guarded three plastic bags of our crap for free for the last month.

“I know! But it needs more detail. What… what…” I say, fumbling for the science-y term – process? Attribute? Function? – “What BITS of climate change are making the glaciers retreat?” Zac rolls his eyes.

After lunching on momos, I book a facial, mani and pedi, set Zac the task of researching and choosing where to eat dinner, and float the idea of an essay on the formation of glaciers, their life cycle and why they are in decline in the Himalayas.

“But I know how glaciers are formed!” he says.

“Do you?” I say. “Really? Tell me!”

He explains. It all sounds very plausible and quite probably right.

“How do you know that?!” I say. “That sounds good. But I think it needs more detail on moraine, and how it’s formed. And why the glaciers are in retreat.”

My son looks at me as though I’m a moron. “Because of climate change!” he says. (One of the great advantages of world travel when it comes to Zac’s science, which has been better than mine for at least two years, is getting to discuss it with people who actually know about it: nuclear physicists, botanists, molecular biologists, geologists and so forth.)

“I know! But it needs more detail. What… what…” I say, fumbling for a science-y term – process? Attribute? Function? – “What BITS of climate change are making the glaciers retreat?”

Zac rolls his eyes. I take that as my cue that my educational responsibilities are over.

“I’m going shopping,” I say maternally, scribbling down my Nepali number. “And then I’m having a facial, a manicure and a pedicure. I’ll be back about 8 and take you for dinner. If you get hungry before then get something small from reception – there’s a wodge of rupees in the medikit if they want money. Are you SURE you don’t want to come and have a massage at the spa?”

“Yes,” he says, gurgling. “Did you see China Daily reprinted the Onion’s story about Kim Jong-Un being People Magazine’s choice for world’s sexiest man?”

There MUST, I figure, be somewhere where the wives and daughters of the nation’s elite go shopping. And, I conclude, as I pace past burning garbage fires on the pavement en route to Kathmandu Mall, that place is most likely Delhi.

With Project Chinese Visa parked till Monday, and Project Facial, Project Manicure and Project Pedicure lined up for 6.30, I head for Kathmandu’s most upscale shopping street, Durbar Marg, to pursue three further subsidiary projects required for the successful completion of Project Negroni, not to mention Project Get Laid: Project Dress, Project Tights and Project Kneeboots.

It does not take me very long to conclude that the term “upscale” is relative.

The chap at the hotel reckons Kathmandu Mall would be a good choice. I figure Civil Mall, which supposedly has the best cinema in Kathmandu, and is where we will be seeing The Hobbit on Christmas, might be better. But, what the hell?

Nepal is a small and very poor country, but it’s corrupt. There MUST, I figure, be somewhere where the wives and daughters of the nation’s elite go shopping.

And, I conclude, as I pace past burning garbage fires on the pavement en route to Kathmandu Mall, that place is most likely Delhi.

It’s not Kathmandu’s fault, of course. But up in the mountains it has turned into Bangkok in my head, or quite possibly New York, and so I am sorely, sorely disappointed.

I visit store after store with evening-wear choices available in either Mid-Priced Indonesian Hooker or Elderly Eastender Dressed for Christmas Bingo with absolutely diddly squat in between.

By 5.45 I have visited well over 20 shoe shops, finally worked out that the reason that most black kneeboots in Kathmandu shops are some vile and flimsy pleather is that Nepal is – like, d’oh! – a Hindu-majority country, and am beginning to despair for Project Kneeboots.

I’m not quite sure what explains the fondness for gilded plastic buckles, pom-poms, sequins and other stripper-esque adornments on what might otherwise be a relatively inoffensive pair of plastic-heeled black pleather kneeboots, insofaras pleather can ever be inoffensive, but, try as I might, I cannot find a pair of plain black kneeboots with no godawful dangly bits.

As I visit store after store with evening-wear choices available in either Mid-Priced Indonesian Hooker or Elderly Eastender Dressed for Christmas Bingo with absolutely diddly squat in between, the grey jersey dress I’d earmarked as a possible in the Zara knockoff store on Durbar Marg is looking more and more appealing by the second.

As the deadline for Project Facial, Project Manicure and Project Pedicure looms, I race back to “Zara”, pick up the jersey dress, explain what tights are, establish where I can find a pair and figure I might be able to get away with the grey Chinese furry boots I trekked in at a push. Ya know, particularly if I leave the down jacket in a cloakroom, or summat.

“Aaaaaah!” says Zac, as we recline on our low cushions with our shoes off and our socks steaming gently. “Civilisation!” “Yeah,” I say. “It’s pretty darn good. Just…” “I know,” he says consolingly. “No Negroni.”

I am irritated to find, on returning from an absolutely excellent facial conducted without the aid of electricity, that Zac has single-handedly derailed Project Steak.

“I want to go to OR2K!” he says. “It’s a vegetarian Israeli place with Middle Eastern food and salads.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Salad is good. But I want STEAK with my salad.”

We bicker childishly, for a bit (well, I bicker childishly), before Zac surrenders, I realise how completely unfair I’ve been, and we head off to the Sagamartha Bazaar.

OR2K’s salads, for the record, are fabulous, the hummus pushes Israel ahead of Lebanon in Zac’s personal chart of best hummus in the Middle East, the moutabel’s damn fine too and, though the mozzarella could be improved, they have a damn fine goat’s cheese. And wine! And tonic!

But no Negronis.

And, neither Campari, nor rosso vermouth.

“Aaaaaah!” says Zac, as we recline on our low cushions with our shoes off and our socks steaming gently. “Civilisation!”

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s pretty darn good. Just…”

“I know,” he says consolingly. “No Negroni.”

When I arrive at our humble abode, the hatchet-faced chap on reception has actually put down the steel shutters, and I have to ring for admittance. One look at his expression as he unfurls them tells me I am not in the running for Kathmandu Mum of the Year.

Later, I put my spawn to bed and venture out into the pumping throb of Thamel by night to find a) a gin and tonic and b) someone who can direct me to some decent bacon for breakfast. I can’t help but notice that the queues for the clubs are almost 100% male.

I enter the Irish Pub. Aha! Familiar faces!

“ESCAPE FROM LUKLA!” I cry, a greeting I’ve been using on every Lukla escapee I’ve met in Thamel.

It’s the Aussie kids we last saw in Namche. Shortly before I unwisely switch from Bombay to Nepali gin (the living, breathing definition of a false economy), they direct me to a place that has bacon and Full English.

That’s Project Bacon sorted! Project Steak will be easy enough. Project Kneeboots, sadly, looks rather trickier.

When I arrive at our humble abode, the hatchet-faced chap on reception has actually put down the steel shutters, and I have to ring for admittance. One look at his expression as he unfurls them tells me I am not in the running for Kathmandu Mum of the Year.

We pore over the menu, debating breakfast combinations in the sort of obsessional detail that can only be fully understood by English people who haven’t had a Full English breakfast for roughly a year and have been up a mountain fantasising about one for the big end of a month.

The Northfield Cafe has not only bacon, but lovely checker-clothed tables on which to consume said substance in the bright, warm sunshine – and mushrooms, as well.

Salivating like Pavlov’s dogs, we pore over the menu, debating breakfast combinations in the sort of obsessional detail that can only be fully understood by English people who haven’t had a Full English breakfast for roughly a year and have been up a mountain fantasising about one for the big end of a month.

The key element that has been missing, obviously, is good quality – non-beef, non-spam – bacon. While you can get decent bacon in Lebanon, Israel and Turkey, the breakfasts were all so yummy that a Full English didn’t even cross my mind.

In the end, I go for a large steak and eggs with a large side order of bacon, another large side order of mushrooms, Nepali style hash browns, toast and butter, and unlimited coffee. Zac eventually opts for a large bacon and eggs with muffins and fried potatoes plus lemon juice with sugar on the side on condition we return tomorrow so he can try the waffles.

As we welly through Project Bacon, we embark on Project Sort Out Christmas.

“You know what?” says Zac, after about an hour of this. “I think we should laugh this off altogether and just get everyone Tiger Balm and musical instruments.” “And rickshaw rides,” I say. “Don’t forget the rickshaws.”

After reviewing the day’s Kathmandu Post for Christmas orphan options, Zac discards all the “family” stuff as “more for little kids, really” and decides that we’ll do a turkey buffet here on Christmas Eve then a turkey lunch at the steakhouse round the corner, which enables me to at least dodge turkey on Christmas.

He refuses a Christmas stocking but eventually consents to having something to open. (Pretty much everything he wants is downloadable, and he’s got most of them already.)

We discuss options for an experiential present, along the lines of his twelfth birthday paragliding in Pokhara. We figure whitewater rafting might be a good option in Kathmandu, though the only reachable river looked pretty darn low when we passed it on the bus.

Then we make a list of people to buy presents for.

Thamel should be a brilliant place for present shopping, if it weren’t for the fact that people jump down your neck with the hard sell the second you so much as glance at their Chinese-offcut prayer wheels and godawful child labour artworks and then you have to haggle for aeons even if you do find something you like.

Also, I don’t have the expertise to buy nice stuff like handicrafts and fabrics.

“You know what?” says Zac, after about an hour of this and unlimited coffee refills. “I think we should laugh this off altogether and just get everyone Tiger Balm and musical instruments.”

“And rickshaw rides,” I say. “Don’t forget the rickshaws.”

“I think I might get Dad a bong from the bong shop,” he muses. “Did you notice their sign looks like a crystal meth lab?”

Annapurna appears from Google research to be a mall with a) Botox in Kathmandu and b) by extrapolation from the above, quite possibly some black kneeboots that would work for people who aren’t mid-priced Indonesian hookers or petite Filipino ladyboys.

Our Kathmandu shopping experience begins with an increasingly bad-tempered and, lest we forget, malodorous trawl around Durbar Marg, which starts with a shouty 45 minutes in a trainer shop and goes steadily downhill from there, reaching a particular low point when I realise that “Zara” isn’t where I thought it was and therefore this isn’t actually Durbar Marg but a parallel street.

I wouldn’t be so unwise as to say that we don’t live a consumerist lifestyle. But, after travelling for rising three years, living out of a backpack each, we do not have a lot of stuff.

Which means, when it comes to clothes, that we have to really like what we buy and be sure they’ll work with other things we have, because we will be wearing them over, and over, and over again for months at a time.

Guttingly for Zac, neither Levis nor Quiksilver, both of which appear to be legit, have kids’ sizes. The only jeans that fit Zac in the various kids’ clothes shops we try are blatantly for girls, no matter how much the assistants dispute this.

And, of course, Zac loves shoe-shopping – particularly for an increasingly specific pair of black knee boots which appear to exist only in my head, and if they do exist almost certainly won’t come in my elephantine Western size – as much as any red-blooded male.

After three hours, the sum total of our purchases being a pair of white “Korean” trainers, I locate the Annapurna, which appears from Google research to be a mall with a) Botox in Kathmandu and b) by extrapolation from the above, quite possibly some black kneeboots that would work for people who aren’t mid-priced Indonesian hookers or petite Filipino ladyboys.

It seems to be a hotel. Bugger.

“Hellay,” I say, in my best British Raj tones. “Ay am looking for the shawps.” “S’op?” says the chap in the shop, obviously bewildered as to why this smelly hippie is asking about shops when she is clearly IN a shop. “Cake s’op?” “Yurss,” I say, or, rather, elocute. “Ay can see the cake shawp.”

I march, malodorous, in my dirty jeans, stinking fleece and cheap Egyptian flip-flops – my lovely pedicure now somewhat dirtied by Kathmandu’s mean streets — towing my ratty-haired, mangy, filthy child in his cheap Palestinian sandals, up to what appears to be a five-star hotel with a posh cake shop and some godawful soap store.

Despite being raised in Tooting, I sound, I’m told, well-spoken at the best of times, and, on occasion, quite close to the Queen. So, being a) English and b) almost unembarrassable, I channel Helen Mirren.

“Hellay,” I say, in my best British Raj tones. “Ay am looking for the shawps.”

“S’op?” says the chap in the shop, obviously bewildered as to why this smelly hippie is asking about shops when she is clearly IN a shop. “Cake s’op?”

“Yurss,” I say, or, rather, elocute. “Ay can see the cake shawp. Ay am looking for the shawps.”

“S’ops?” he says. “Ah! Pas’minas!”

No, I think. Not bloody pashminas.

Really, really, not bloody pashminas.

“Mum!” says Zac, tugging at me squalidly. Jesus, I think. I really do have to talk him into a hair cut. I know it’s his hair, and all, but I really do need to persuade him out of this. “CAKE!”

Over coffee and cake, I am pleased to note, Zac’s table manners revert to formal English from our usual rude-in-every-culture hybrid of where-we’re-from, where-we-were-last and where-we-are-now, which goes some way towards compensating for the fact that he now hasn’t washed for 25 days.

I establish from our fellow guests that the Annapurna Mall, and with it, any possibility of Botox in Kathmandu or an immediate completion of Project Kneeboots, are long gone. Bugger.

The Nepali staff clearly love the Christmas season and their festive flashing Santa hats even more than the average service professional in the UK enjoys that time of year, particularly when coupled with a festive flashing Santa hat.

My mood is immeasurably brightened by the successful retrieval of our laundry, a topic which, as I have observed elsewhere, can come to dominate the life of the longterm traveler to a terrifying degree, and only slightly darkened when I realise the laundry has misplaced Zac’s only spare pair of trousers apart from the clown-style down pants we bought for Everest Base Camp.

The grey jersey dress works fine with black leggings over tights, and the grey boots, which the shoeshine man has theoretically cleaned, work alright, although not as well, obviously, as the black kneeboots in my head, which, I now realise, are identical to a pair on which I once spent £250 in Conduit Street.

My makeup skills have never been of the highest, which is unfortunate now I’m at that difficult age, but, as I splodge mascara in the general direction of my lashes and smear lipstick into my cheeks by the light of our emergency lamp, I figure that once I complete Project Kneeboots my legs and Everest-toned butt should do their job of distracting attention from my face.

We toddle round the corner to K-Too, our local steakhouse, debating whether or not they will understand the concept of a blue steak.

And, oh sweet Jesus God! My eye scans over the Nepali staff, who clearly love the Christmas season and their festive flashing Santa hats even more than the average service professional in the UK enjoys that time of year, particularly when coupled with a festive flashing Santa hat, and alights on the bar.

It is pretty darn close to a fully-stocked cocktail bar. It has…. Gin! Campari! Rosso vermouth!

“LOOK, Zac!” I say. “Campari! And Rosso vermouth!”

“Ooh,” says Zac. “They have turkey. AND egg nog!”

He makes it perfectly! “For three weeks in the mountains,” I say. “I have been dreaming of this drink! Thank you!” I bung him 500 rupees, and, leaving him questioning my sanity, rejoin my spawn.

“Can you make me a Negroni?” I ask the bartender, abandoning today’s feeble attempt at giving up smoking again and poncing a fag off a chap at the bar.

“A what?” he says.

“No worries!” I say. “It’s easy! Use a whisky tumbler – like that one. Yes! That one! Do you have good ice?”

They have decent, dry cubes! Wow.

“OK,” I say. “So… You put the ice in the glass. Then you pour one shot of gin – Tanqueray’s good – one shot of Campari and one shot of Martini Rosso. Equal, equal, equal.”

“Shake?” he asks.

“No, no,” I say. “You just pour everything over the ice, and give it a little stir. Not like a martini stir, just a quick stir with a straw.”

I decide not to complicate matters with an orange peel twist.

He makes it perfectly! “For three weeks in the mountains,” I say. “I have been dreaming of this drink! Thank you!”

I bung him 500 rupees, leave him questioning my sanity and rejoin my spawn.

In most cities, you get a good crowd on Sundays and Thursdays, or even Wednesdays, for that matter, I think delusionally, continuing to confuse poor old Kathmandu with London, New York or, at the very least, Melbourne.

K-Too import their meat from India, clearly from somewhere that knows about hanging meat. My Steak Maitre d’ is both blue and delicious, while Zac gets quite ecstatic about his sizzling chicken fajitas.

While not as stellar as Café des Artistes in Ubud, or La Cave des Chateaux in Vientiane, K-Too definitely rates very highly on my list of “Good Steak Joints in Places You Would Not Expect to Have Good Steak”.

And the Negroni’s so nice I have another with my steak. Zac licks the stirrer and pronounces it good.

In fact, I figure, now I only need to go to the Radisson for Project Get Laid, although Project Upscale Negroni is a worthwhile minor project, but for that I need to successfully complete the mother of all projects, Project Kneeboots.

I do like a good project!

Maybe, I think, toying with the idea of a third Negroni or maybe a glass of imported red, maybe I’ll just have a nice quiet night tonight and then get on with Project Work, Project Zac’s Education, Project Christmas and, most importantly, Project Kneeboots tomorrow.

In most cities, you get a good crowd on Sundays and Thursdays, or even Wednesdays, for that matter, I think delusionally, continuing to confuse poor old Kathmandu with London, New York or, at the very least, Melbourne.

And then… My resolutely silent phone, which I have placed on the table in no way in the manner of a woman obsessed but just to keep me from taking it out of my pocket every five minutes to see if I’ve missed anything, buzzes.

Ooh!

Mr Darcy, enjoying less success in the fleshpots of Thamel than anticipated  demonstrating the famous Gurkha ability to make do with limited resources  not having noticed I am old enough to be his bloody mother  too drunk to care fascinated by my sophisticated charm and sparkling personality, has broken his silence.

Things, I think, are looking up!

The post Important Projects in Kathmandu appeared first on EscapeArtistes.

How Much Does the Everest Base Camp Trek Cost?

The Everest Base Camp trek can cost under US $500 for shoestringers who walk in from Jiri, then straight in and straight out to Everest Base Camp, unguided, over 24 days or so in low season, or over $10,000 for people who book luxury treks with helicopter transport.

We flew in and out of Lukla, walked at a leisurely pace through Gokyo with a porter-guide who carried the bulk of our gear, staying at cheap lodges and purifying our own water but enjoying the odd beer, pudding and bucket wash: 19 days in the mountains cost us around $1100 per head, including $280 on flights, all food, fees, accommodation, passes and tips.

For more detail and cost breakdowns, see my post How Much Does the Everest Base Camp Trek Cost? Note that for most trekkers food will be the single most expensive item on the trip, followed by flights and travel insurance: most organised budget Western tours exclude food. In 2019, Nepal Airlines Kathmandu-Lukla flights cost 5105NPR each way for Nepalese citizens (around US $45), or $151 each way for international travellers.

How Fit Do I Need to Be to Do the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Children as young as six and adults of over 70 have walked to Everest Base Camp, and the straight-in, straight-out trek is less demanding than you would think, provided you allow yourself the time to acclimatise to altitude that YOUR body needs, and listen to your body when it tells you to stop.

Because of steep ascents and descents, rocky paths, rock steps and some moraine walking, the Everest Base Camp trek isn’t suitable for anyone with knee problems or weak ankles, while people carrying significant extra weight are likely to struggle with this at altitude. Anyone with heart trouble or lung problems should check with their doctor. Be aware that medical facilities on the trail are very, very basic.

Although the days of walking are short enough for even slow walkers to manage them comfortably, provided you are travelling at your own pace, a reasonable level of fitness is required. If you get puffed out climbing a few flights of stairs, then ascending over 3000 vertical metres with lots of ups and downs along the way is not for you. But my twelve-year-old son and I did it (for an account of doing Everest Base Camp with a child, start here), and, though we’ve done some challenging trekking, we’re far from your stereotypical super-fit hikers.

As a rule of thumb, if you are reasonably fit, have some experience of hiking at altitude, have done some mountain or gorge hiking, and have done hikes that last multiple days and involve basic conditions, you’re fit enough to get to Everest Base Camp and should also enjoy it. For many, a porter will be a wise investment: in my experience, carrying 10kg at 5000m is like carrying 30kg at sea level.

Do I Need To Do the Everest Base Camp Trek as Part of an Organised Tour?

I would argue against taking an organised tour to Everest Base Camp. If you do want to do it, be aware that those booked overseas cost, typically, 2-3 times the price of those arranged in-market, and usually exclude food, which is far more expensive than standard teahouse rooms. More importantly, you’re tied into a group schedule, which means that if you have difficulty acclimatising to altitude, or get sick with a tummy bug or a cold, you’ll have to either walk at the pace of the group no matter how rough you feel or drop out altogether.

You are much better off arranging a porter, porter-guide or guide and porters yourself, either independently or with the help of a Nepali agent, who can also coordinate flights and passes. You are far more likely to die of AMS on an organised tour than you are while trekking independently.

The two instances where organised tours make sense are where you require less basic accommodation – the higher-end lodges discount heavily to tour operators and not to independent travellers — and where you want to meet climbers at Everest Base Camp proper or spend the night in the camp. Mountain Madness has tours that include a night camping at Base Camp with their climbers at around the $5000 mark: these run during the March-May climbing season only.

That said, if you’re uncomfortable arranging things for yourself, or want the companionship of a group, GetYourGuide offers tours with prices below US $1000.

Organised camping tours are a mystifyingly popular option. Before booking these, be aware that you will not be wilderness camping, or free camping: almost all of the time you will be in a tent encampment in the middle of a village where everyone else is staying in lodges.

What Is Everest Advanced Base Camp?

When mountaineers climb Everest they set up their base camp on the moraine below the Khumbu Icefall, and proceed up the mountain in a series of different camps. Advanced Base Camp, also known as Camp 1, is on the other side of the Khumbu Ice Fall, the lethally dangerous series of ice slabs where sixteen climbers were killed fixing ropes in 2014: getting there requires mountaineering skills, mountaineering equipment and expedition-level support. The route across the ice fall is set by professional teams of Sherpas during the March-May climbing season each year: to use it, you’ll need to be a mountaineer, or pay top dollar to tag along with a mountaineering expedition.

Don’t confuse this with Everest Advanced Base Camp in Tibet, which is accessed from the Chinese side.

Can I Camp at Everest Base Camp?

Base camp only exists during the climbing season – at other times of year it’s just a moraine with some prayer flags to mark an abstract spot. During climbing season, it’s reserved for expeditions: Mountain Madness, which also runs climbing expeditions, runs treks that include a night camping at Base Camp. Out of climbing season, because of the instability of the moraine – basically heaps of rubble atop a half-decayed glacier – camping is discouraged. Even organised camping tours camp at Gorak Shep, the cluster of lodges an hour or so’s walk from base camp proper.

Is There Mobile Signal on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

The main Everest Base Camp route now has decent cell coverage – although be aware that you will need to pay from 200 to 600 NPR per hour to charge your devices. You can buy a local Ncell SIM with 5gb of data for under $25: do this in Kathmandu or Pokhara, not Lukla!

Will I Get to Hang out with Climbers at Everest Base Camp?

Unfortunately not. Climbers are focused on climbing and, unless you’ve paid top dollar for tours by operators which also arrange climbing expeditions, even if you trek during climbing season (March to early May) you’ll only see the tents, not meet the climbers.

I’ve Never Trekked Before. Can I Do the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Before committing to at least eleven days hiking in (generally) basic conditions, it’s a good idea to establish that you like hiking and don’t mind basic conditions, so that you can actually enjoy the experience when you do it. Bank a two- or, optimally, three-day hike to see how you feel about walking each day and being away from home comforts before you commit.

How Should I Prepare for the Everest Base Camp Trek?

The Everest Base Camp trek is less physically strenuous than some people make out – although not a walk in the park. The main issue is going up and down steep slopes and steps, and so the best preparation is to go up and down lots and lots of stairs with the weight that you’ll be carrying when you trek. The trek starts at Lukla, 2,860m above sealevel, and culminates at Gorak Shep, over 5,160m above sealevel, so it’s worth banking some higher altitude trekking experience before committing to it.

Can I Drink the Water on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Nepalese tap water is not safe to drink. Bring water purifying tablets or a water purifying stick to save money and the environment. Note that at higher elevations during the coldest times of year the water will freeze, so you’ll need to buy boiled water from teahouses. Buy a decent thermos flask or plastic water container in Kathmandu so that you can top up with hot, boiled water at the beginning of the day – starting with hot water will stop it freezing. (For more on the gear you’ll need for Everest Base Camp, click here.)

Can I Do the Everest Base Camp Trek If I’m Scared of Heights?

Yes! I did! Provided you take a guide, or porter-guide, with you, or are travelling in a group, there are actually relatively few scary bits on the straight-in, straight-out Everest Base Camp trek.

A few suspension bridges will take courage to walk across: they’re sturdy and well-guarded, with handrails and wire mesh below the rail, but they are high, and move with the motion of your feet and the feet of anyone else on them.

In most places the path follows steep slopes rather than sheer precipices, and most of these have tree cover too. Where the path does trace a sheer precipice, it is wide enough not to provoke too much panic.

Is the Everest Base Camp Trek Dangerous?

The first rule of trekking Everest Base Camp is to step to the wall side when you meet a yak or mule train, since otherwise you can be knocked off the edge. The straight-in, straight-out route, though, is relatively danger-free: the path has been widened and in many places smoothed for trekkers, especially where it traces a sheer slope.

The main danger for most people doing the straight-in, straight-out route is altitude sickness (AKA Acute Mountain Sickness or AMS). For most people, this can be avoided by sleeping no more than 300 metres higher than you did the night before and taking an acclimatisation day every 1000 metres. Serious AMS is more common in folk doing group tours than in independent trekkers.

Other common injuries are twisted ankles and sprains. Rock falls, moraine and glacier crossings add significant risk to longer treks involving crossing high passes such as the Cho-La. As always, it’s unwise to trek solo in case you fall and can’t extricate yourself: people disappear on this route all the time. Do note, however, that it is not illegal to trek solo: solo climbing of Everest might be banned, but solo trekking to Base Camp is fine.

Will My Travel Insurance Cover Me for the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Check the terms and conditions of your travel insurance very carefully (here’s why) before embarking on the Everest Base Camp trek – the elevations involved are above 5000m, and many companies simply will not cover you at that level. World Nomads offers cover for trekking up to 6000m on recognised routes like Everest Base Camp and the Three Passes to many nationalities.

You should also ensure you are covered for helicopter evacuation from the mountains in emergencies, while mountaineers should arrange cover with their specialist mountaineering association at home before they travel.

Can I Get Cash Out on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Yes, but it will cost you! The bank in Lukla charges a fee of 5%; in Namche, there is a Visa ATM which sometimes works, plus moneychangers who will run Visa, Mastercard and Union Pay cards for a fee of 8%. A few of the more expensive lodges on the main Everest Base Camp route will take Mastercard and Visa cards and, I’d imagine, will run them in emergencies for a fee.

It’s still a good idea to carry all the NPR cash you think you will need for your trek with you (Nabil Bank and Standard Chartered offer withdrawals of 35,000 rupees each time), plus a couple of hundred US dollars in cash in case, for example, you break a limb and need to be transported on a mule down to the nearest helicopter evac point.

Can I Do Everest Base Camp with Kids?

A number of families with children, including us, have done and enjoyed the Everest Base Camp trek (my account of doing the Everest Base Camp Trek with my child starts here): the youngest child I know of was six, which raised some eyebrows at the time.

It is unwise to take a child to Everest Base Camp unless that child is old enough to recognise and communicate the early signs of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness, previously known altitude sickness) – otherwise, they could die.

It should go without saying that any child who does not understand risk and does not obey its parents is risking life and limb in the high Himalayas. Further, any child that’s averse to exercise, not good with cold climates, fussy about what it eats, where it sleeps or what bathroom facilities it uses is unlikely to enjoy the Everest Base Camp trek.

Points to consider before you go: toilet and washing facilities become progressively more basic the higher you ascend, which may make the trek unbearable for some teen girls. Unless you arrange a custom camping tour with your own menu, or bring your own cooking equipment and ingredients, the food becomes very monotonous. At least one porter will come in handy at altitude unless your children are good to carry all 12-18kg of their own gear.

There is pretty much nothing to do in the evenings at any of the lodges and it can cost as much as 600 Nepali Rupees ($6) per hour to charge electronic devices at higher elevations, and charge is not always an option. Consider bringing lightweight games as well as a lightweight power bank.

The golden rule with kids is to allow for lots of rest and acclimatisation days. But there are plenty of delights in the mountains, from animals and wildlife, through to icicles to shatter, glacier lakes to skate on, rocks to chuck and safe places to climb. Active children should find the trek really fun provided you don’t press the pace.

Horses, mules, yaks and porters provide alternatives to carrying tired children at a price. Chocolate is really expensive at high elevations – as much as $4 for a Snickers bar – so bring all consumable bribes with you from Kathmandu or Pokhara. And – obviously – bring spare sets of gloves, including liners, and hats.

I’m a huge fan of travelling with kids whenever you can, so I’d say do it.

Can I Bring My Laptop on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Yes, though you may regret it if you have to carry it. There is wifi, when it’s working, at many points along the main Everest Base Camp trek, all over Lukla and all over Namche, as well as in Gokyo: there is, theoretically, now 3G signal along the Everest Base Camp route, although I wouldn’t recommend relying on it.

Battery charge costs from 200NPR ($2) to 600NPR ($6) per hour, and is only available where there is solar electricity to spare. Again, you may be able to negotiate a flat rate for this. If you’re trekking in winter, you may find your battery won’t even charge in the low temperatures higher up.

Do I Need a Guide, a Porter, a Porter-Guide or No Guide?

The Everest Base Camp trek is busy and generally well-marked, so you don’t need a guide to find the way, except when navigating the moraine at the end or when visibility is obscured in midwinter or monsoon. In theory, you are legally required to have a guide, but trekkers continue to make the trip independently.

That said, the trip is definitely best enjoyed with someone who speaks Nepali and some Sherpa and understands the local culture, and arguably more pleasant if you’re not carrying much: you’ll have a richer experience and contribute more to Nepal’s economy if you travel with a guide or porter-guide.

A porter’s role is to carry loads. You shouldn’t pay less than 1000 rupees a day to a porter, and shouldn’t give them more than 15kg to carry, as they have their own stuff to carry as well (the legal limit in Nepal is a total of 35kg). It’s your responsibility to see that your porters have the right gear for the elevations they’ll be headed to. They may not know the route and may not speak any English.

A porter-guide will speak some English, carry loads and do some basic guiding – showing the way, explaining the basics of a monastery or a ceremony, helping negotiate rooms at a lodge, or translating conversations with locals. You can’t expect an in-depth history of a specific spot, though. Expect to pay from $20.

Most guides will not carry anything (unless you’re exhausted and they want to get somewhere), but will look after every aspect of your trip, from arranging rooms, meals, flights, or camping gear, through to timing your arrival at a peak for sunrise, knowing the history of that monastery, etcetera. They should speak fluent English and will handle any porters they recruit: expect to pay $40-$60 per day. The larger the team they manage, and the harder the work you are asking them to do, the more a guide will cost.

Because porters, porter-guides and guides pay their own accommodation, you can expect to end up at lodges that offer them good deals. If you want a different lodge, the right thing to do is to cover your porter’s increased costs.

The standard tip is 25%. We found our excellent porter-guide Nir through Narayan Bhandari. All agencies take their cut, but it means the negotiation is done, the upfront payment is delivered, you have someone you can rely on who won’t run off with your gear leaving you stranded, and everything’s clear at the end of the trek.

For more difficult stretches, like crossing the Cho-La pass, most lodges can arrange porters, guides or porter-guides for that particular day.

Is It Worth Bringing My Own Food?

Snacks are expensive on the trail, so they are definitely worth bringing. Lodges charge extra if you bring your own food in, not to mention for hot water, so shoestringers hoping to make a bag of rice last a twelve-day trek will find this a false economy. Fuel is really at a premium in the mountains. Dal bhat, the Nepali lentil stew, is the most economical way to eat: above Namche, the EBC trek is not a gourmet experience.

How Long Does the Everest Base Camp Trek Take?

This depends very much on what route you do. It is possible, and most group tours plan, to walk in from Lukla and back out the same way in twelve days (this one follows the classic schedule), but you should allow extra days in your schedule in case you get sick, need extra acclimatisation or flights are backed up in Lukla either heading in or heading out. I’d recommend planning for twelve days plus a two day detour up to Chhukung to catch some views, then if you get sick or have trouble acclimatising you can drop the detour but still see Everest Base Camp and get the views from Kala Patthar.

The route we took leads up the Gokyo Valley to beautiful Gokyo Ri, over the Cho-La Pass (which isn’t always passable) and then up the Khumbu to Everest and back down to Namche and Lukla. While not a complete loop route, you do avoid the repetition of an in-and-out trek. This took us nineteen days, going at a leisurely pace with multiple rest days. It’s possible to do it in sixteen.

Another alternative, which is physically challenging and involves a lot of altitude, is the Three Passes trek, for which you should allow at least twenty days. This takes you down the Thame Valley, over the Renjo-La to the Gokyo Valley, over the Cho-La to the Khumbu, up to Everest Base Camp and Kala Patthar, then down and over the Kongma La to the Imja Khola Valley, and back down to Namche and Lukla. You only repeat the first two days of the trek and get incredible mountain views.

Other variations include the Five Passes Trek, the Seven Passes Trek, and a custom route allowing you to climb some walkable peaks along the way. For these, I’d recommend
National Geographic’s excellent map and probably also Jamie McGuinness’s Trekking in the Everest Region: you can buy both of these on BookDepository.com with free international shipping.

Can I Wear Trainers on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

No, because if it gets cold you could get frostbite. You need decent waterproof boots with a bit of ankle support (not necessarily hiking boots, unless you’re doing a pass that needs crampons or similar), also some sandals or, if you fancy yourself as a mountaineer, down booties for when you take them off in the evening. For more on this see “What Gear Do I Need for the Everest Base Camp Trek?“

What Is the Accommodation Like on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Accommodation on the Everest Base Camp trek is basically available at two price points – 150-600 Nepali rupees ($1.25-$5.50), or $150+ (or, of course, you can do a camping trip). Prices vary via elevation and season: the higher, the higher.

Entry-level accommodation typically buys you a clean, sunlit plywood cell, with two beds, perhaps a table and some hooks on the wall, a window, perhaps with a view, plus a couple of shared squat toilets and a shower room in which you can wash from a bucket of hot water for an extra fee. Only the main shared dining area will be heated and then only at certain times of day, and you will need to purchase everything from boiled water to toilet paper.

At busy times of year there may not be enough quilts, so it’s critical to bring a cold-weather sleeping bag. Toilets are generally not for the squeamish, and the absence of insulation can make lodges hell for light sleepers, especially in peak season.

At lower elevations, 500NPR (less than $5) will buy you a bathroom of your own with a Western toilet, although you’ll almost certainly need to shower elsewhere (and pay extra for the bucket of hot water, typically 300NPR – $3). The pricing assumes you will eat dinner and breakfast in your lodge, rather than elsewhere – lodges double or triple prices if you don’t eat in their restaurant. In peak season, prices for accommodation at Gorak Shep can rise above 1,000 NPR ($11) for a basic room, one reason many organised tours don’t overnight there.

Top-end accommodation features similar rooms, but stone built and slightly larger, with carpeting and en suites and perhaps a desk. In many of these, though, you will need to flush your en suite Western-style toilet from a bucket, and request a bucket of hot water to use under your apparently decorative shower. Most have some form of in-room heating but you will not be lounging in the boudoir in a negligee or dining in shirtsleeves.

At Lobuche and Gorak Shep, where fuel and solar electricity are at a premium, all accommodation is basic. Yes, even if you’ve spent $10,000 on a top-end tour. Sorry!

What Is the Food Like on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Expect to eat a lot of rice and dal, with perhaps some yak, at higher elevations: Namche Bazar, however, has what’s probably the highest Irish pub in the world, complete with canned Guinness and boxed wine.

I’ve Heard Flying into Lukla is Dangerous. Do I Have To?

Yes, Lukla is a dangerous airport, and flying into Lukla is terrifying. And, no, you don’t have to fly. If you have the time, you can walk in from Jiri (technically Sriwalajaya), which is a strenuous six-day trek that goes up and down the sides of valleys, or Phaplu, or other more distant destinations, and walk out to one or the other of those places: Jiri is on a bus route from Kathmandu, while Phaplu is a lengthy and adventurous jeep ride.

What If My Stuff Breaks? Can I Buy a Replacement on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Both Lukla and Namche are full of trekking stores selling things like hiking poles, gloves, windproof jackets, cold-weather sleeping bags, head torches and day packs, as well as books, energy bars, snacks and the usual tourist tat. You are much better off buying everything you need in Kathmandu, where prices are lower, or before you go.

Outside Lukla and Namche, options are much more limited: don’t plan on finding anything more than loo roll, snacks, drinks, batteries and possibly the odd pair of woollen gloves in many villages.

Should I Buy My Gear at Home or in Nepal?

That very much depends on how much use you intend to get out of it. Reasonable quality fake gear is available in Kathmandu and Pokhara for a fraction of the price of the real deal – be aware that standards are lower, so a -30°C rated sleeping bag will only be good for -20°C, a 900 fill down jacket is more likely to be 700 fill, etcetera. You can expect fake sleeping bags and jackets to leak down, and should feel everything you buy for fill before you spend.

Whatever boots you wear need to be broken in before you get to the mountains – unless blisters are part of your trekking plan, buy these outside Nepal, or with enough time left to break them in, and don’t even think about renting boots. Many places in Kathmandu and Pokhara, including Shona’s Alpine on Amrit Marg in Thamel, also rent out down gear and sleeping bags, typically for less than a dollar per item per day, which are the most sensible option if you don’t think you’ll be using them again for a while. More detail here.

Always travel with cold weather gear. In 2014, many trekkers died on Annapurna because they didn’t have the gear to handle the blizzard that came in.

What Is the Best Time of Year to Do the Everest Base Camp Trek?

If you value solitude, the monsoon season (June-August) and midwinter (January-February) can make a great time to do it, depending how well you cope with extreme climate, although if you’re adding in high passes to the route they may become impassable. When trekking during those times, allow space for delays, be aware that trail conditions can be difficult and do not assume that flights will run on time. In monsoon season visibility can be very poor, while during winter blizzards can white out the trail.

The main peak season is late September to early December, but during October and November the trails can become unpleasantly crowded with trekkers and the yak and mule trains that support them, and lodges are often block-booked by tour groups. March to May, when the flowers are out, is increasingly popular – one advantage of trekking in April-May is that there are tents and climbers at Everest Base Camp.

If you only have time to do the basic Everest Base Camp route, I’d opt for early December, early September or March. Generally, as everyone going up and everyone coming down follows the same route, as do all the yak and mule trains bringing in supplies, it’s hideously busy in the spring and autumn peaks. While numbers remain down after the 2015 earthquake and ongoing political instability, you will still be dodging a lot of mule trains.

If you’re fit, I’d recommend you do a longer, more challenging, more interesting loop route, either the Five Passes, the Three Passes or the Gokyo route, rather than the straight in-and-out.

I’d Like to See Everest but I’m Not Sure I Want to Spend Twelve Days There. Are There Alternatives to the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Yes! There are tonnes. And, given you can’t see Everest from Everest Base Camp ANYWAY, a shorter trek to lower altitudes might well make sense, although you’ll miss out on the high mountain experience.

The walk from Lukla to Namche takes two days – some folk walk in to Namche, climb to the top of town to see the spectacular Everest view, complete with jetstream, and then walk back. Others use Namche as a base for shorter treks in the region, divert off into the forest to go wildlife spotting, or pick a valley to explore.

One advantage of staying lower is that conditions are a lot more pleasant than higher up the trail, particularly if you’re staying in luxe lodges. If you’re really lazy, scenic flights with views over Everest run daily from Kathmandu.

What Medical Facilities Are There on the Everest Base Camp Trek?

Medical facilities catering to tourists operate on a seasonal basis – so in peak season there are basic altitude clinics as far afield as Gokyo and Pheriche, and a more sophisticated facility in Namche.

Outside peak season there are pharmacies in Namche and Lukla, and a small hospital in Khumjung, but other than that you’re on your own.

It’s important to bring all medicines you think you might need with you, including treatments for every minor ailment you’ve ever had, all the common stomach bugs and AMS, and to have full medical cover, including helicopter evac, on your travel insurance.

And – whew! — I think that’s that covered. Drop me a comment with any questions, and I’ll edit this post to include the answers.

Looking for more on the Everest Base Camp trek? My story starts here. Trek Around Nepal arranged our flights and introduced us to Nir: they also offer full service Everest Base Camp treks.

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