Hope you’re managing to try out the local cuisine too…..I mean food, that wasn’t a euphemism for women…..Er, not that there’s anything wrong with that either…..Although I probably shouldn’t encourage that…..Er, er…..I’d better stop.

Keep us posted on the next leg of your journey.

Not much between Bangladesh and Nepal? Agree , though quite a lot of places in North East India are inconveniences for India so i guess you could say Nepal is something of a side-show to India, and Bangladesh or East Pakistan as it was then, was something of a side show to West Pakistan. I am not up on my history of South Asia but know maps have never made much sense.

Smuggling? Yes. Of lots of things, including children, into India. Not quite the Shangri-La..

Ghurkas? Yep, they is fierce. There’s also a soft side to them as witnessed in the welfare infrastructures they’ve set up – the Ghurka Welfare Association which runs numerous community support projects throughout rural parts of Nepal, to serve the ultra poor.

I hadn’t appreciated the slogan Ayo Ghurkali is one that’s found in the streets today …and might be a Maobadi (Maoist) slogan. Would make sense as the 10 year guerilla insurgency would’ve infected the country on whole, and maybe there’s a lot of continuity between the Ghurka tradition and the Nepali people fighting back today .

Sunny, you are achingly middle class, spending your time in a foreign country hanging out with other backpackers. Glad to hear that you are having a good time.

Happy Navratri
Happy Dashera
Shubha Pujo Thake!

The last one is literary license, Durga Puja greetings!

He told her the story of the “Commissioners tennis court” The furthest advance of the Imperial Army was to Imphal and a scratch unit of walking wounded, Brits, Aussies, Sikhs, Jats, Dhogras and Ghurkas was holding the line against a superior but very overstretched Japanese army.

The front line was actually the tennis court and when the Japanese fire began to slacken the Ghurkas pulled Kukris and charged. Many heads were removed from bodies. It interests me that that the battle cry is Ayo Ghurkali. As all you Sylheti speakers out there will know Ayo is amara matri basha for “come on” or ” come in”. I can also read the slogans on those banners on the demos in Nepal.

One for you linguists here. Look at the map, not too much between Nepal and Sylhet with India in between. I never got to the wonderfully named “happy valley” in 1884. I wonder if it really is with all that smuggling going on.

Sounds like you’re having a ball. )

It’s not over yet but it’s a step in the right direction, was meaning to blog about it all day but work kinda didn’t allow it today (it’s 2.38am and I’m still working…):

A group of retired Gurkhas fighting for the right to settle in Britain have won their immigration test case at London’s High Court.
They were challenging immigration rules which said that those who retired from the British Army before 1997 did not have an automatic right to stay.
Prominent supporter actress Joanna Lumley said it was a “chance to right a great wrong”.
The government said it would now review all Gurkhas’ cases.

I spent six months in Nepal in ’78/79 and it was a great place then. I wonder how much it has changed and I wonder if some of the restaurants are still playing the punk cassettes we gave them. Most only had a solitary Bob Dylan tape endlessly rewound and replayed

I’ll be keeping an eye on your FB page for further updates…

Your journey sounds fecking cool man, very cool indeed. Look forward to hearing more and maybe a photo or two?