Walking the Himalayas

Sometimes, it is better to let the extracts do the talking...

‘'If you keep walking on the north bank of the Thames, past the Putney Bridge Premier Inn there's a medieval church with a stone tower. In the graveyard outside I took morbid pleasure in trying to find the oldest headstones. Some displayed skull-and-crossbones, carved into the stone, not unlike the ones you'd see on the flags of pirate ships. I'd try to imagine the ragged congregation six hundred years ago crossing the river by rowing boat, and at low tide having to wade up the sandbank covered in mud.''

‘'Now that we'd reached Kathmandu, everything to the east represented the long walk home, even though it was in the opposite direction. The end was almost in sight. My thoughts wandered back to a grey London. It was mid-October and I imagined the sullen raindrops falling on the Thames and the familiar chatter of people on the daily commute. I thought of tea and toast and mulled wine in Gordon's. The parakeets of Putney would be roosting now and the leaves of Fulham Palace park reddening with the onset of the festive season. No doubt the Christmas lights were going up[..] ‘'

‘'Any journey will throw up variety, and travelling on foot through the Himalayas had already surprised me in just how different one day could be from the next. Within a matter of hours, I'd moved from lush tropical rainforest to barren empty plateaus. Crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan, I'd changed from a landscape of windswept valleys populated by nomads who lived in yurts, to a settled, peaceful and warm paradise within the space of just a few miles. The borders had often astounded me with their power of separation; not just the landscapes, but also the diversity of people and culture.''

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