Time to trundle back down the mountainside to make the 24 hour journey across the border and into Nepal. After 4 hours squeezed in the back of one jeep, I then transferred into another… with 12 others… who knew it was even possible to fit so many adults into one very ordinary sized jeep? I find myself squashed between a not underfed Bhutanese refugee and her son who seems determined to sleep on my lap. The person with the least space, however, is the driver.

On reaching the border the process is fairly quick at both sides due to the lack of foreigners.. it seems this crossing is used mainly by Nepalis and Bhutanese refugees as there’s a refugee camp closeby. After the usual confab at the bus station involving 10 local men with the one English-speaking ring leader they all decide, amongst much head nodding and hilarity, on the best bus for me. Two hours later I find myself on a very local 30 seater bus with seats that don’t recline, more than one man keen to sit next to me, and 6 bags rammed full of live chickens being launched the height of the bus onto the roof rack. For 16 hours. The highlight of the trip was the toilet stop… I followed the offcial looking ladies toilet sign which pointed me up into the forest to a hastily erected piece of blue tarpaulin… behind which I find a very steep hill leading into a huge big stinking pit. It was dark it was slippy and not joking I nearly fell in. Welcome to Nepal.