Alright, I’m going to tell you a true story.

It was about 2005 and I was living just outside Portsmouth, Rowland’s Castle. We were in one of two cottages and nothing but woods around us. You came past the gate house at the bottom next to the pub, then about quarter mile up and round to the left through beautiful wood lands, to the house.

We used to go on long dog walks through the woods and along the fire breaks, gaps in the woods about 50 ft wide, and went for miles.

I had randomly picked a type of healing on the internet because I felt like I needed some, never done it before.

And it was a Reiki course, not only that but I could walk there because it was on the same estate about 1 mile away. Remember there’s nothing around there really.

So I had to go…..

I was splitting up with my girlfriend and I decided I’d like to go back to Goa, India, where I had been 5 years earlier for two weeks with my ex, Tosh, and didn’t think any more about it.

Two months later I had paid off my bad credit and could suddenly get credit.

So I got a £5000 bank loan and a £2000 credit card, and about a week later I lost my driving job for always being late because I’d recently split up with my girlfriend and was starting to drink a lot. So I got my hair dreaded and fucked off to India in November.

Over the next 6 months I had some great adventures and Goa trance parties, one of which was Hill Top in Vagatour, 3 day party, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I was with my friend John who randomly appeared earlier at a party on Anjuna beach a few weeks before. We left the party about midnight to get my friend Anna who lives in Goa, go see another party then go back to Hill Top.

But I lost John, and while turning into Anna’s drive, took it too wide and put the bike in a ditch.

I went around to a friend’s house for a bit and then managed to get a lift back to the party at Hill Top.

I got the keys off John and went and cleaned my legs cus they were a bit cut and went back to the party. The next morning we went to Little Vagatour beach for sun rise, they were on the rocks and I was having a beer when suddenly I couldn’t walk and I was dizzy so I called my friend over and he helped me off the beach.

I had septicaemia and travel insurance so I spent a week in hospital. One time they forgot to give me the anaesthetic first and it a hurt like hell while they were scraping the wound out. That’s the only time I’ve experienced that much pain, I was gripping the bed.

I got out on New Year’s Eve with my leg bandaged to the knee and on crutches for 2 weeks, I was a few hours away from death when they admitted me to hospital in Panjim.

I went straight to the New Year’s Eve party.

The next time I really thought about everything was in April next year. I was at my girlfriend’s house, Kitty, in Anjuna, Goa. My leg was hurt from a bike accident and I was skint and about to fly home and I started to do Reiki on my bad leg and was thinking that I would like a job where I worked 6 months a year and spent 6 months in Goa.

At that point my leg exploded pus and I forgot about it.

Now, less than 3 weeks after I got home Johnno phoned me up and said do you want to come and do marquee’s with me 6 months work a year?

Now, I was living in Robbie’s bus on site and didn’t have a job so I said yea not even thinking about what I said in Goa, it wasn’t until months later I realized that.

So, you DO create your life by what you think about and if you keep thinking the same thing as often as you remember the more likely it is to come true.

Ha ha, you don’t have to listen to me but I believe it’s true.

Now, nearly 10 years later I’ve been back every year for 5 or 6 months, accept the year I had the stroke, because I couldn’t leave the country for a year otherwise I would have to pay all my medical bills myself, not the government.

I think it’s because I don’t worry about how I get there, I just know that I will.

The Trek

A few years later I got to Delhi at the start of my six months, had a house to go to in south Goa that I’d had for a few years, and I phoned Kelly, who I knew was making funky clothes in Delhi and arranged to meet her for dinner.

That night we laughed and drank and went back to my place and ended up having sex.

That was the beginning of a happy time in my life. I stayed there for about a week, helping her get things for the leather jackets she was making and learning to know my way round Delhi. We went out every day shopping and probably had sex every night. She was well fit.

Then she went back to England after we made arrangements to meet her at the airport on new year’s eve, and I jumped on a train to Darjeeling.

After looking round the zoo, took a few pictures, checked out the town for a couple of days then arranged to go on a 5 day trek with a girl that was staying in the same hotel.

We started our trek a few hours north of Darjeeling, just a few miles from Nepal. I think we crossed in to Nepal the same day. It was really misty and you could only see a few feet.

The girl, I can’t remember her name, brought a puppy she’d rescued along too!!

I’ve got some photos of that.

It was quite barren the first few days.

Now I’d totally forgot that it was my birthday, but that night she produced a birthday cake with a few candles. It wasn’t much but the best she could do at such short notice. We’d only met 2 days before so that was nice.

That night I couldn’t sleep, I had altitude sickness, we were at 3500 ft.

The next day we were up early, me with only a few hours sleep but I felt ok now.

It was a clear and bright morning at 6am and we had breakfast and were on our way.

I spent my time thinking about my life and an argument I had with my step dad. I’d left without him speaking to me again so it wasn’t very good.

When you’ve had nothing to do but walk and think for a couple of days you can get quite deep.

It was up hill all the way the first day but by the afternoon, day 2 it had flattened out a bit, about 4000ft.

Then on day 3 we woke up, really early, to Mount Everest at 180 k away and that was awesome.

Then it was all downhill threw beautiful forests and rivers.

I saw some lads carrying 2 chairs and a sofa up a very steep mountain, strapped crudely to his head!!

On the 4^th night we stayed in a valley in some cottages, by far the best place. It was by a river on the border of Darjeeling and Sikkim, I sat on some rocks in the middle of the river and took some photos.

The country side round there was beautiful, lots of trees, and chickens running free.

After that I stayed a few more days in Darjeeling, it was stuck to the side of the hill with the mountains as a backdrop.

Goa

Then I got a train back to Delhi, and then on to Goa. The dog, she took to Palolem south Goa where he lasted about a month and then was poisoned by the locals.

I got the train to Delhi for New Year’s Eve; it takes 3 days by the way. Met Kelly, Vagabond, at the airport, more sex, more shopping and then we got a train back to Goa with all her stock for the night market.

Goa’s the greenest place bar the mountains, lots of greenery and palm trees.

All single track roads apart from the motorways, if you can call them that. Loads of stores and integrated stretches of palm trees and dense foliage.

There’s more than 20 beaches in Goa, some full of restaurants and some with only 1 or 2 restaurants, some really nicely done and some not much more than a shack and a few tables. But sometimes they do the best cheap food, like santosh’s on Galgi bag beach, Turtle beach, south Goa.

One place you can spend R200, £2 for food for 2 and you can spend R2000 , £20 for a meal for 2.

I went to north Goa first for a few weeks to hang out with Kelly and do the markets. Had fun setting up the stalls etc.

I learnt to ride Kelly’s bike on Anjuna football pitch and we rode to south Goa, about 3 hours.

We stayed there another couple of weeks, more drinking, more sex, more laughs, then she went back to north Goa to do the markets and I stayed there because I had a house and many friends down there.

Kelly phoned me a few weeks later and told me she’d met a guy!

So that was the end of that, fun while it lasted.

Pankaj

A few years earlier I met Pankaj, a successful business man who was going out with my friend I’d met 3 years before in north Goa. The first 6 months I’d spent in Goa. Her name is Faye.

He ran Bhakti Kutir in Columb, south Goa.

He was nearly 50 and Faye was about 27. he started a new business on the road to Agonda and Faye was running a shop where she had collected things from all over India and selling them kind of like fair trade that we have in the west.

He ran a whole foods restaurant and had a building out the back where he could repair furniture for Bhakti Kutir among other things.

She ran the shop in the other side of the building.

I was living there for free but had to get up every morning to open up and do a few things every day.

While I was there I got an email from a Russian girl I had met a few years before briefly at a party. She asked me if I could get some poppers because they didn’t sell it in Russia. At the time I didn’t know her story but she told me later.

She had just been released from a south Indian prison, very near death, for people smuggling and was waiting for a fake passport to get back to Russia.

Well, she said she was coming back to India so I said I was in south Goa and gave her the address. She flew to Goa and got a taxi straight to my house which I was surprised about because I met her in north Goa.

I showed her the place where I spent last year, right on the beach. The restaurant was called Sealand run by a nice chap called Jai Ram.

All the beach front restaurants are run by the family’s that live behind them on Patnem beach.

I was in north Goa for about 1 week, the second time I came to Goa for 6 months, then came to visit Moonbeam and Debs. He used to go out with my sister in London when I was 20, and that’s how I spent my second year in south Goa.

I had the first hut behind the restaurant and it was on stilts so I could see the beach and listen to the sea.

So I got them settled and met them in the evening for dinner and a drink.

Lillia and Dakini were their names, Dakini being the one I met in north Goa 3 years before.

Lilly now lives in Goa with her child, after she came back the next year and I persuaded her to meet Phillipe, a French restaurant owner that she’d had a thing with the previous year.

They met, had sex, she got pregnant, they got married the kid was born, they got divorced and she does yoga schools and sells Indian furniture to rich westerners now. Nice.

There began a very happy time in my life once again. We ended up getting together, Dakini and me, she was enchanting, the most beautiful woman I have ever met and am likely too.

At the end of their month I reluctantly had to let them go back to Russia but we had decided to continue seeing each other.

About a month later I told Faye I was moving out to a house opposite Bhakti Kutir and she told me to get out right now then and we fell out.

The house I found was while Dakini was there and she had told me to take it.

A few months later a girl I’d met at my friends, in party in London a year earlier, Rachel, said something on Facebook about having a hard time organizing her granddads funeral so I said when it’s all over she should come and have a holiday for a couple of weeks.

I knew she was a top porn star so money wasn’t a problem.

She said yes and despite me saying I wouldn’t go out with her a year before because she was a porn star, we really hit it off, got engaged, not properly, and she extended her holiday.

While I was with her in Goa she made me phone Dakini and break it off with her and I did because I thought I was in love with Rachel.

We had a lot of amazing sex and I went straight from the airport to Birmingham when I got back a few months later.

But….when Tanya, who runs the kinder garden in south Goa, and Chris and I went to Nepal for the last month of my holiday. Them to get new visas and me just for a laugh, I met a 19 year old very sexy Nepalese girl and we ended up having a lot of sex for about 2 weeks. But on the day before I flew back to Delhi, Chris and Tanya left the day before, I was quite drunk and she asked me to see her to the door, we kissed and she pushed me down the stairs, went through my wallet took all my money for the flight and left me with nothing except my bank card, put my wallet , which she had given me, back in my pocket, all while I was unconscious.

Luckily, Ganga, an older Italian woman that also worked for Pankaj, was also in Nepal staying just down the road from us, came round the next morning and phoned Pankaj and he lent me the money to fly back to Delhi. I arrived back at the hotel where Chris and Tanya were staying on Phar Gange with R500.

My flight back to England was the following day so I borrowed R500 more for the taxi the next day to the airport and flew back to Rachel’s waiting arms, battered and bruised.

I told her I’d been robbed in Nepal but not about the load of sex I had……i think she knew tho.

About 2 months after I got back to Pulborough, west Sussex, she met me in London and finished it with me because she was shagging a big black bloke she met at work.

She didn’t tell me that, I went straight to see Ben, her ex, the one whose party I met her at, and he told me and said she did exactly the same to him, got engaged etc. I took a few days off the marquee’s and got pissed with Ben and slagged her off.

We still speak now tho.

Actually I went to Nottingham to see her before I went to Cambodia and we had sex then she kicked me out because I was drunk and said the sex wasn’t as good as before….luckily my friend that I grew up with in Plymouth had moved back there and I’d been drinking with him that night so he came and got me.

Also that year I was on the beach late at night and a girl wrestled me to the floor and I put my leg through a glass table and had to go to the hospital for 8 stitches in my leg. I phoned Pankaj at 5am to come and get me and sort out the bill because I thought I was paying too much. That happens a lot in India, you have to be careful, ask a local if you’re not sure.

He picked me and Glynis up and took me to his farm near Agonda, which is beautiful and off the beaten track, called Karma Ketna.

We stayed there all day and chilled out.

The Stroke

One of my close friends, Jan, died while I was in England that year. The last time I saw him was when he was staying at my house in Columb, south India.

He stopped at the doctors in Margao, he lived in north Goa, where he was told if he didn’t stop taking coke and drinking right now he would be dead in 6 months.

He came to Goa as a child with his hippie mother, he was from Germany, and had stayed there ever since, only leaving the country to smuggle charas, the best pot in the world, to other countries.

He’d been drinking and taking coke since he was young, he was 37 when he died, so it was no surprise what the doctor said.

He lasted until November, and he came round my house in March, so obviously he didn’t stop.

I decided I needed a change of scenery so I went to Cambodia for a change. I’d been chatting to a girl on Facebook; she normally goes to Goa for 6 months a year with her daughter but fancied a change as well, so I made plans to meet her out there.

So after the incident with Rachel I got on a plane to India for 1 month and then on to Thailand to meet James, my ozzie friend who i’d met the first time i’d come to Goa for 6 months.

He was on his way home to oz and had 10 days in Thailand on his way back so I agreed to meet him there.

I had also arranged to meet a girl from Germany in Thailand because she was going to Cambodia as well, so I thought she could show me the way.

I ended up sleeping with her on the first night so that was rather nice.

We spent a few more days in Thailand then jumped on a bus to Cambodia. It was about 10 hours to the border then we had to get 2 taxis too Sionukville, the only place with beaches in Cambodia.

It was a right mission, next time I’m flying.

Then after the first month in Cambodia I saw Ann was on Facebook so I asked her where her and Scott was and she said Pnom Pen, Cambodia, and I said I was in the south so they changed their plans, they were only supposed to be in Cambodia a few days, and they came down south to visit me.

They stayed for 2 months. Christmas and New Year included.

I met a half Thai, half Cambodian girl there at a night club and asked her to come south east with me, Scott and Ann and Scott’s 20 year old lesbian daughter, Dayna.

She said yes so we left the next day for a few days. We had loads of fun, got pissed and had some laughs, I slept with her a couple of times and after lending her my camera after we got back, I never saw her again.

Anyway, I knew Scott from Hare Rama restaurant in south Goa, but not very well, because he was always rushing about, going diving etc. Him and John, whom I mentioned earlier, started going to south Goa ten years before when there was only 4 restaurants on patnem beach. Sealand, namaste day, hare rama and home.

So this was where i really connected with Scott, Cambodia.

After they left I moved in to this lovely 2 bedroom house above a beach. It had big glass doors that ran the length of the front room leading on to a wraparound balcony. There was a jack fruit tree in in the garden and lots of roses, it was a nice garden and you could see right out to sea, and it was perfect to watch the sunset from the balcony with a smoke.

Cambodia’s a lot like Goa I guess, quite green and a lot of green rice paddy fields and palm trees.

I moved there with Nick.

I met Nick by accident, again, he was on Facebook and when I asked him where he was he said Cambodia, I said so am I, where in Cambodia are you, he said sionukville I said me too. An hour later we met for a drink and the rest is history as they say.

I knew Nick from London, met him briefly round Nat’s house.

I was dating a girl called Tina, a lovely little woman, good in bed, good fun and she had a baby girl. After I got shipped home, she opened a sandwich shop I think. That’s what Nick told me because after I left he got a job out there so only came back to the UK briefly to see his kid, he came to visit me in Brighton and then went back to Cambodia.

One night I brought her back to mine and after I’d stopped I dropped the handle bars of my bike on my leg, just the break leaver dug into my leg, just above the knee.

I didn’t think anything of it.

About a week later my leg was still hurting and I’d just got back from going to Phnom pen, the capital of Cambodia.

I was picking up Maria, who I’d met at one of Luke’s awesome parties in the UK the year before. I’d only met her briefly. She was wondering where to go for her holiday so I suggested she come and see me.

We slept together the first night in Phnom pen after getting quite drunk and there was only one non moveable fan in the room and 2 beds. I tried it without the fan but it was too hot so I jumped in bed with her and hey ho!

When we got back to Sionukville the next day I went to the hospital to get some pain killers for my leg and then went to the beach where I had a beer and a sleep. When I woke we got up and walked down to the sea and when I got in above my waist I was having some trouble bending my leg but didn’t think much of it because I was with a pretty girl, Maria.

After, we walked up to the tap to wash the salt water off and I fell over so we decided to walk home, 5 minutes away. I had some food and a beer or 2.

On getting up for my 2^nd beer I noticed that my arm wasn’t working, but thought it would be better by the morning so didn’t worry about it, drank my beer and went to bed.

The next morning I woke early, about 6am. I could hardly move my right side so I got dressed and went down the hill to get a taxi bike back to the hospital.

At this point I think it’s worth pointing out that it was the pain killer I took that gave me the stroke because I wasn’t drinking much and had no other drugs.

Apparently I was there for 3 days but Steve, someone who was in Cambodia the same time as me, said that was the case. But he’s got a habit of expanding the truth. I think I was only there for a day. He also said that I was 12 hours away from death the 2^nd time they moved me. Again, I don’t know if I can trust him.

Steve was living next door to me in Goa the 2^nd time I went back after the stroke.

It was up to me if he moved in or not, and I said yes, then he complained, never to me, to the landlord about my TV, my music, anything he could basically.

It was the cheapest place I’d ever had in south Goa, R5000 per month, but the walls stopped and then the roof beams rested on top so there was a gap. And I was in bed by 12 because I’d had a stroke and didn’t get up before 9.30 so I don’t know what he was on about and when he brought a girl home at 4am and shagged her I didn’t complain.

He was really fat and had diabetes. (by the way, if you have diabetes raw food diet for 1 month sorts it out…look it up )

I was there all day and left in the evening in a taxi with my mate from Germany. I think Nick told them I’d had a stroke, none of them new.

That was the 2^nd to last time I saw Nick, he had a heart attack in Cambodia 2 years later. He was about 44 I think.

Then I went to one hospital in Phnom pen for 5 days, where we had to get our own food from outside the hospital. My German friend stayed with me then because I just woke up to eat then straight back to sleep, before my travel insurance came through, then I was 12 hours away from death when I got moved to a nice hospital, physio in my bed every day, 3 really nice meals a day, satellite TV, it was better treatment than when I got back to England.

Then after another 10 days I was fit to fly. Insureandgo sent an Indian fella to pick me up and fly me first class back to Heathrow, where the ambulance that picked me up was really old and just had a knackered bed in the back, no nurse just me and the driver.

I spent another 2 and a half months in Chichester hospital, luckily they sent me there because it was closest to where I live, but they have a stroke unit, one of only 2 or three in the country.

The first time I left the hospital for a day out after about 2 months, Johnno, my friend who had a bike crash and had 19 operations over 5 years, picked me up and took me to Brighton for the May Day festival that was put on by our mates.

I had a few beers and had some fun and saw everyone for the first time in 8 months, and then he dropped me back about 7.

My thinking was still very limited back then and basic because of the stroke.

When I left the hospital for good I stayed with Emma in Dorset for the first few weeks. She lived in a lovely cottage in the countryside near castle.

It was really quiet and I could walk round the garden every morning. The garden was quite big and very hard for me to walk round back then. It’s not much better now to walk off road.

One Year After the Stroke

I wanted to go away for 6 months but I was still a bit stupid 1 year after the stroke and didn’t have to go to the job centre accept once to sign on originally but never been back, it just goes into my bank every 2 weeks.

The first time I went to India after the stroke I was living at Bobs, I’ve changed his name, you’ll see why in a second, because he was living on a raw food diet and I thought it might help.

And when I left for India on the 6^th January he was growing 25 marijuana plants 10 of one type and 15 Himalayan, but he was going to Thailand for some work in a few weeks so he left our other house mate to water and harvest the crops.

But while he was away Jim, looking after the crop, fell off a stool while adjusting one of the lights and managed to crawl down stairs to his bedroom but then passed out for days. We found out It was a lack of vitamin B12 because of the raw food.

Someone phoned Bob because she hadn’t seen him for a few days, she knew about the plants, and he told her to go around the back and see if she can get in. when she got in she found him unconscious on the bed hours away from death.

So she called an ambulance and he was saved. But while there was no one in the house the door got kicked in and all the plants that were cut down and were nicked but they didn’t find the stuff that was drying.

Then the police came round and took the rest.

Bob got away with it because he said Jim started the crop after he left so the suspicion was off him. Jim got away with it because lack of vitamin B12 makes you go mad and die so he claimed insanity.

So anyway, the job centre phoned me 2 weeks into my trip about something else, I told them the situation and I’d be back in May and they said everything would be fine.

It wasn’t fine.

But I thought it would be fine, so I carried on with my plans to get treatment, had ayurvedic treatment on my head. They dripped hot oil on my head for an hour a day for 7 days to improve my memory.

That worked really well. I didn’t know anything about Ayurveda before I started this.

I had ayurvedic massage every other day for 2 months.

Then I went to Arambol to stay with Valerie and her son for 2 weeks on my way to Malwan.

Arambol is in north Goa, the furthest north you can go before Maharashtra, the next state.

It’s a beach that leads straight up hill from the beach with loads of shops, restaurants and hotels.

From there I got a taxi for 3 hours to Malwan, by the sea. It has a fort just off the coast with a road to it at low tide.

I stayed right opposite the fort. You could sit on a chair on my balcony, look straight down to the beach and the fort was about a quarter mile away.

I stayed there for 3 weeks, going twice a day to the hospital for electric shocks and oil massage and exercises.

It didn’t do much but it was worth a try.

I think it’s for people who’ve just had a stroke not 2 years later.

Then Scott phoned me because he was in India having his tooth fixed and said he would come and get me in a taxi, pay all my bills, and take me back to south Goa.

So I, naturally, said ok and he came a few days later.

When I got back to south Goa I stayed in a 2 bedroom house with Valerie and her son for about a week then kicked her out, can’t remember why now but it was for a good reason and I couldn’t handle her and the kid because of the stroke.

I inherited a kitten with the house and now 3 years later she’s had 2 kittens.

I walked in the pool every day to strengthen my leg.

I also had a Ayurvedic massage every other day for 2 months which really helped.

My whole life became really synchronised and has stayed that way ever since.

You need to have a massage every other day for at least 2 weeks I think, but then your life will become more synchronised.

If you’re ever in south Goa I highly recommend VJ and the Ayurvedic massage at Bhakti Kutir in Columb.

I came back to England in May after having to borrow £1500 off Scott who was in Goa because his mate knocked his tooth out with a brick so he was getting them fixed.

I had to get a caravan in Coombe Martin, north Devon for 2 months until I got my back dated money that I had to appeal for before they gave it to me…..no money for 8 months and having a stroke…….then I got a 1 bedroom flat in Ilfracombe, north Devon where I’m writing this.

They, the government, even paid my deposit and got me a fridge, cooker and washing machine.

Then this year I went back to Goa in January due to come back the end of May.

I spent 3 months in Goa living right next to the river, you can sit on my bed on the balcony and smoke and listen to music and look at the river all day.

I walked in Oceanic’s pool every day and had a few massages but VJ, the guy who grew up with Ayurveda life style, never drank or smoked, was busy with other people so I had his apprentices, which was not as good so I stopped going.

Kasa Devi

Then I met Major, Johns friend, Johns dead now. Who had built a place in Kasa Devi, near Almora, north of Delhi, who said I could stay at his house with a view of Nanda Devi, the highest mountain in India.

He said i’d have to pay Champa, the woman, Indian with dreads down to her arse, R800 a day for all my food and rent so I said i’d give her R1000 a day. Its a lovely place all stone walls and a fire place, 1 bedroom and 2 more beds in the living room, which was plenty big enough. And a hot shower, rare in India. And when you walk out on to the patio your at the top of a massive hill looking down on 3 valleys and lots of villages and up to the tallest mountain in India, Nanda Devi.

So I said yes please and the end of March I set off to the mountains. 3 day train to Delhi, a day in Delhi then 5 hours to Kathogodam on an AC train, also rare in India. Then 3 hours of winding up hill roads to Casa Devi.

Me and Robbie, whom I met up with in south Goa, had a smoke and enjoyed the ride.

Robbie stayed for a week or two then continued his journey.

After a few months I got my hair re-dreaded, I’d had it dreaded for years before but cut it off the year before the stroke because it was done to thin and they kept breaking off.

I thought I’d get them done if I found someone in India to do them. Papu, who’s house I was staying at, son of Champa, said he’d never met someone who could do dreads before and she was in a cafe just down the road so I took it as a sign. Dreads is the only hair style I like and it looks good on me so I had it done.

After 2 months Pappu took me to somewhere about an hour away where he said they might be able to help me. Basically Gurugee said mantra’s too me 3 times a day, so I said, its worth a try and moved out of champa’s and into this place. Manish was in the room next door to me. He’d had a stroke when he was 15 and he was now 30. He’d been to many places for treatment but now he was here and was making good progress. I’d heard stories of people who got carried in and walked away a few weeks later, back to work so I had renewed hope.

It was working and I could see improvement so when it was time for me to leave I phoned the job centre and asked if I could have another 3 months. They said yes so I made plans to go to Nepal and get a visa extension.

It took 5 busses and 36 hours to get to Nepal. The only way to get to the border from the bus stop was via a pedal rickshaw the 2k to the border and the same the other side and we were only half way to Kathmandu by then.

We spent 10 days in Kathmandu then it took 24 hours to get back, 2 busses and 2 share taxi’s.

Next time I go there i’m flying, despite the 8 hours back to Delhi to catch the flight to Kathmandu it would still be quicker than what we did and cost about the same.

I stayed by the river in the valley until it was time to leave at the beginning of October.

I’d spent my first monsoon in India, altho for some reason it didn’t rain that much where I was but an hour away in any direction it pissed down all the time. Strange but true.

While I was in the mountains I didn’t drink for 6 months, started to meditate, because there was nothing else to do, and generally lead a good, healthy life style the likes of which is really hard to do in the UK.

I highly recommend going to the mountains for 3 months if you can, to get away from it all and get a new perspective.

By Richie Fussell

PS. Some names have been changed to protect individual identities.