Trekking Nepal - I recently received a letter from a friend from my Nepal days in which he swears that the mountains have become higher – well, they are supposed to be growing at about 2 cms. a year – and that “some b……has gone and made them steeper too!” He does grumpily concede that it may have something to do with the fact that he is now a ‘senior’ – an ill-defined term that has nothing to do with time spent on earth but how well your knees perform going downhill. Of course, the joy of Nepal is that you can walk through jungled plains, or gentle Middle Himalayas or assault an 8000 meter peak. It’s all there. Best to get out there sooner rather than later though, for progress – as defined by the encroaching reach of roads, traffic and all that goes with it – is coming to the mountains and whatever the benefits to the locals, it does bring the sort of change that one is trying to get away from in the first place.

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Being an ex-Tiger Tops man I am admittedly biased but I think by any measure the Tiger Mountain Pokhara Lodge has to be one of the best of its kind anywhere in the world. It has just the right balance of local style, architecture and materials, simplicity, elegance and comfort that makes you feel at home but special. And what a location – a ridge 1500 feet above the Pokhara Valley with a skyline crowded with Himalayan giants – the entire Annapurna massif, Machha Puchhare (Fishtail) – a chiselled stone age dagger piercing the heavens – Peak 29, Manaslu.  The walking from here with the spectacular back-drop is fantastic. Villages and terraced fields crowd the hillside and a path runs east dropping after several miles to the valley floor. One bright December morning a small group of us headed out with an excellent young naturalist guide – a local kid trained by Tiger Mountain. Every breath was a celebration of life. An ancient Tata bus wheezed up a dirt road, grinding past a bright coca-cola emblazoned parasol set sharp against the elegant triangle of Fishtail. As the sun climbed the thermals brought out the raptors – Himalayan griffons, steppe eagles, Greater spotted eagle, Booted eagle and – as we crawled up a short but almost vertical stepped section – a huge bearded vulture dropped down on rocking wings to investigate eliciting the classic remark from Tim H (all of 80 then), “Clearly our speed up the hill suggests that we are dead.”

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Returning to the lodge in the late afternoon, I sat on the verandah cup of tea in hand watching the sunlight change from flat-and-bright to slanting gold. The little wisps of afternoon condensation cleared and as the Sun slipped below the horizon, the high peaks flared pink and vermilion in the alpenglow. So beautiful that even the memory is a pleasurable ache.