In Nepal, the quality of conversation is much more important than accuracy of the content. Maybe we get overexcited about information in England?

Sunlight streamed through grumbling storm clouds that played like tiger kittens around the mountain ridges.

a Nepali outlook, pace and philosophy had prevented us being swamped by our problems. In Nepal it was easier to take life day by day.

I like the way Nepalis point by pouting their lips; they reckon pointing with a finger is rude.

the Lord Ratnasambhava keeps all his treasure inside mongooses. When the god needs his gems and jewels, he squeezes one mongoose and makes it vomit them up!

I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. Take on a lawyer!

Three mongooses, playing chase, burst out of the undergrowth and came galumphing across the track. The leader stopped and the other two bounced on him. There was a crazy bundle of squealing fur, ears, noses and tails. The mongooses broke apart. All three stood up on hind legs to look at us.

Blood-coloured bottlebrush trees and scarlet hibiscus looked too bright for this devastated world.

Wherever there was a scrap of soil amongst the ravaged crags, emaciated trees struggled to cling on: a poignant metaphor for the way so many Nepalis eke out an existence, defiantly surviving on less than nothing.