Kathmandu

In most airports I feel like a minor celebrity after clearing customs walking into a mass of taxi drivers staring, watching your every movement. In Kathmandu I felt like someone had tatooed dollar signs on my forehead, and given me a t-shirt saying PERSONAL SPACE IS FOR LOSERS. Sarah and I have never been to such an airport with quite such a bussle - although we have heard about Indian airports. Every man woman and child seemed to want a tip for anything from opening the taxi door, to getting in the way of you getting anywhere near the taxi door, to advising us that David Beckham will help England win the world cup.

Central Kathmandu is similar but has a lot more charm and masses of colour everywhere you look. The food is similar to Indian, but milder and less varied (or indeed nice, from what we've seen so far). We expect this won't improve as we spend the next 10 days trekking the Annapurna Santuary region of the Himalayas, staying in simple lodges. Annapurna I is around 8000m high and the 10th highest mountain in the world and we will spend around 6 hours a day trekking to its base camp around 4500m. Its not as high as Everest base camp, but there's more walking as you don't have to build in so many spare days for acclimatisation. Here goes!