A long gap between my last post and this, reason being I have been travelling the length and breadth of the Himalayas for a new book I am writing...and it has been incredible. I don't always start a trip with a good vibe, often I am wary and full of foreboding, which all goes the minute you get on the plane. This time was no different, and yet by pure luck and happenstance I've managed to do far more than I anticipated- from trekking the Kuari Pass at the foot of Nanda Devi to meeting former headhunters in Nagaland to crossing into Burma to drinking tea in the Himalayan Hotel in Kalimpong (former residents Alastair Crowley and Alexandra David Neele) to walking over the 5000 metre Goeche La Pilgrimage in Sikkim to where I am now- at the Tawang Monastery 3000 metres up and about 30km from Tibet. Enough shameless boasting; I am soon going back to Cairo so what I have gleaned? Many things, which I shall unpack over the next several months; for now I am revelling in what I call the 'travel grinder'. Over time you get ground smoother by travel, your prejudices and ideas seem more like mere thoery and puffery, you get to living without 'having a view'. you naturally have to exercise intuition and best of all you have to start learning again- or else the grinder will get you but not in a nice way. Crammed into shared Sumo taxis going down atrocious roads you see how much you can strip away that you thought was 'you', was essential if not assumed. It's a lot about getting rid of baggage, seeing yourself in unfamiliar situations or reflected in your default reactions, the grinder wears it all away. Not over yet so luck still required, but if ever I needed reminding that solo adventure travel renews and reorients this last 2 1/2 months has proved it.