The trip has finally been halted, by the mighty Indian Embassy. Despite queueing for 2 mornings we failed to even send the form to beg permission to apply for the london embassy to send us telex clearance to queue again to pay lots of money to queue a final time (we think) to get the visa. Our error was not starting the queueing at 3.00am to be first in line for 4.00am registration; merely 3 hours before the embassy opens wasn't enough. Even if we had queued successfully, 7 working days for the Indian Embassy corresponds to 20 days in the real world (must be good working there!) due to all the holidays. To cut a long story short, we can't be bothered, we're going to get a short transit visa and spend more time in Nepal. We fly back to London on the 16th December.

We're now in Pokhara, about to do either the Jomson or Annapurna sanctuary trek - both about 10 days. Its good to get out of Kathmandu, while its got really good restaurants and hotels, its very dirty and polluted, and the constant touts get on my nerves.

Nepal itself is very confused. We'd originally planned to start the trip here but the day after we booked the plane ticket, the king took over the country, locked up all politicians and journalists, shut off all the phones and internet, and closed the airport. This was an all out attempt to stomp the Maoist insurgency. The new king is pretty universally considered to be incredibly lucky after him and all his children were coincidentally out of the city in 2001 when the old prince(his cousin) accidentally brutally murdered everyone with an AK47 and cremated himself before anyone could ask why the security guards merely called ambulances instead of stopping him (contrary to some previous posts, I couldn't make this one up). Suffice to say, the country's calmed down now but no one really knows whats going to happen. They've signed a ceasefire and there's now a 3 way balance of power between the King, the parties and the Maoists.