Most moderately active children – as long as they have full stomachs – cope well with exotic experiences, but parents should get fit for their trip. Young children will expect their parents to be All Powerful so they would be wise to prepare properly and arrive with toned quads or they might not keep up on the slopes.

To some, having children may seem as conducive to travelling as having your feet set in concrete.

I was wrenched awake at the tail-end of a stifled scream. I fought my way up from a deep dark dream. The scream had been mine.

We'd incorporated Asia into our bones - its colours and laughter, its smells, its rhythms, its tolerance and patience, its compassion, its lack of ageism.

A traveller with an open mind grows richer with each journey, with each encounter, with each conversation.

On life’s journey, every person met, every place, every new word, language, scent & sound changes the traveller a little: forms who they are and whom they become

The mountains were so wild and so stark and so very beautiful that I wanted to cry. I breathed in another wonderful moment to keep safe in my heart.

… everything was fresh, green and particularly beautiful. Afternoon light, filtering between remnants of monsoon clouds, picked out gullies and spot-lit patches of forest and scrub on the convoluted ridges of the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. Or, after a rainstorm, wisps of clouds clung to the trees as if scared to let go. Behind, himals peeked out shyly between the clouds.

Living on the edge - that's what I feel like when I don't know what my bowels are going to do next.

The Chinese say that there is no scenery in your home town. They’re right. Being in another place heightens the senses, allows you to see more, enjoy more, take delight in small things; it makes life richer. You feel more alive, less cocooned.

Travel is a joy, full of surprises. Perhaps some of the most enjoyable times are those where one comes close to disaster: the risks add spice, and make for great stories when you are safely back home again.

Living in the edge - that's what I feel like when I don't know what my bowels are going to do next.

Travel experiences are emotionally loaded. Often there is excitement and stimulation. The tingle-factor though comes partly from the fact that we're stressed, just a little.

getting angry and harbouring bitterness doesn’t help anybody, least of all the angry bitter person.

no-one would want to go through a traumatic experience but when you’ve survived something life-shattering and risen above it, you achieve a kind of serenity.

a Nepali outlook, pace and philosophy had prevented us being swamped by our problems. In Nepal it was easier to take life day by day.

GPs are almost the only doctors these days who understand all problems, can see the whole person…spend time with the dying…see things through to the end.

Major Chhetri's pronouncement when we'd first arrived in Nepal came echoing back: "Things that start in the rain end well.

I wished I could paint this ineffable beauty but I had never been artistic. I hadn’t even packed a camera, and my phone was out of charge. It didn’t matter. I just breathed in the feeling, savouring it. Suddenly I knew that I’d enjoy many more moving moments and visions of beauty, and that they’d sustain me for the rest of my life.

We found a smooth inviting boulder under a vast banyan tree, and sat in companionable silence. There unexpectedly, on that rock, I saw the secret of contentment. True happiness is only ever possible if you have been unhappy. And there, at that moment, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so peaceful. It wouldn’t have been possible for me to take in any more happiness. Moti turned to me and smiled as if she knew. I realised then that this moment and this wonderful feeling would sustain me for a long, long time.

... how could Britain operate in India for 300 years and take so little back from it in terms of understanding?

In Nepal, the quality of conversation is much more important than accuracy of the content. Maybe we get overexcited about information in England?

when the press and problems of humanity become too much, I love to escape into books, where people are served up in digestible portions and can be pushed to one side when one is satiated.

I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. Take on a lawyer!