Sunrise from Ranipauwa - Rasuwa District, Nepal

A "chakkajam" - road strike - had stopped any chance of catching a bus from Kathmandu to Langtang for at least two days.

As my mates cracked their beers and resigned themselves to the delay, I had the realization that I could not endure that smoggy hellhole another minute. I decided to walk to Langtang the way trekkers used to do 30 years ago - right down the same road that any other day in this era would be chaotically choked with honking buses, trucks, cars and other implements of pedestrian hazard. My friend Manish got me through the back streets to get me on my way the next morning.

Walking that road, leaving the city behind, stopping for noodles, meeting people, drying their crops on tarpaulins laid out on the intermittent asphalt. I managed to walk in one day what can be driven in two hours. There was one hotel in Ranipauwa, where I stayed with some nice local people. When I awoke the following morning and stepped out to look around, this is what I saw.