At Kathmandu airport I identify a shuffling bunch of Brits as my travelling companions. They look as ill at ease as I do and that helps me to relax too. I’m not alone in my apprehension. This motley crew are the people I’m going to spend the next month with and they don’t look too scary after all. Not one of them looks hideously fit. Hurrah! Following some cursory nods and tentative ‘hellos’ and nitpicky complaints about airline food, we’re shepherded through to the rickety domestic terminal and onto the tiniest aircraft I’ve ever seen by a smiling man who’s no bigger than my nine-year-old nephew. The whole thing looks as if it might be held together by string. Cheap string. And probably not enough of it. All of our luggage is pushed inside the aircraft with us and we set off again, amid the rucksacks and kit bags, bouncing down the runway in the slipstream of a jet.

Half an hour later, we land again—this time in Pokhara airport, which looks rather like a home counties village hall. My legs are shaking as we get off the plane and I’m trying not to think that I’ve now been travelling for more hours than I have fingers to count them on and am on the point of hallucinating. This isn’t helped by the fact that there’s a huge cow asleep in the arrivals hall and we dodge round her as we lug our bags out to a colourful coach.

Our transport is painted bright blue and pink and its chrome is so highly polished that you can see your face in it. Mine doesn’t look particularly inspiring. As a swarm of smiling Nepali men take our bags from us and load them onto the roof, I can see that less attention has been lavished on its braking system. Two blocks of wood wedged under the wheels are all that stop us from rolling down the nearest hill and into oblivion. It’s not a comforting thought that we’re soon to be winding our way round mountain roads in this.

Machhapuchhre—the snow-capped, razor-edged ‘Fishtail’ peak—stands at the head of Phewa Tal Lake and pierces the cloudless blue sky whilst towering majestically over the small touristy town. This is my first glimpse of the Himalayas from the ground and I feel as if I’ve finally arrived. I do, however, hope that we’re not going to attempt to walk up anything even remotely that high.