“Miss. I carry. You breathe.” There’s a quiet tenacity to the way Shankar speaks, and although Al shakes her head, I can see her resolve waver. Her high colour has paled but she’s still breathing shallowly.

“I’ll take yours,” she says, reaching for the smaller rucksack on the guide’s back. “We can swap, but only until I’ve got my breath back. Five minutes, ten minutes tops.”

Forty-five minutes later, Shankar shrugs off Al’s backpack, flipping it onto the ground as though it’s a pillow, and points to the building down a small track to our left. “We are here.”

Rising out of the white blanket of cloud that surrounds us are three separate houses, linked by fenced walkways, their three-tiered roofs silhouetted against the landscape like Chinese temples. The window frames are painted in shades of red, ochre and turquoise, and stone steps lead up to an enormous wooden door on the front of the main house. A high wall runs around the perimeter of the grounds, a large wooden gate closing the retreat off from the world. Prayer flags flutter in the wind and the sound of laughter drifts across the breeze.

“Wow.” I unbuckle my own backpack, twist my body sideways so the pack drops to the ground, lean back and groan with pleasure and relief as I press my shoulder blades together.

Daisy skips towards Leanne, grips her arm and presses her cheek against the top of her shoulder. “Oh, my God, it’s even more gorgeous than it looked on the website.”

Leanne grins at the compliment, drops her backpack and wraps an arm around Daisy. “Told you! And you all thought I was going to bring you to some kind of shack.”

“Actually,” says Al, climbing the last few steps, “I thought we’d be sitting in a paddy field, meditating for twelve hours a day before being force-fed mungbean sandwiches.”

“The paddy fields are back down the mountain,” Leanne says, pointing. “Off you go!”

“There’s the river!” Daisy lets go of Leanne and points excitedly into the distance. I strain to see through the trees then spot something blue and shimmery. “Is that the waterfall I can hear?”

“Probably.” Leanne reaches for her backpack and hauls it back onto her shoulders. “Come on, they’re expecting us.”

Daisy squeals and hurries after her as she makes her way down the track. I wait for Al to catch up. She slips Shankar’s rucksack off her shoulders and hands it to him. He slips it on effortlessly.

“Thank you.” She holds out her right hand. “I couldn’t have made it up here without your help.”

Shankar shakes her hand while simultaneously touching his left hand against his right forearm as a sign of respect. “No problem, miss.”

“For you.” Al reaches into her pocket and pulls out a hundred rupee note. “Please.” She presses it into his hand.