Only a week to Christmas, but somehow without all the build-up and without any expectation of especial significance for that day, one hardly seems to notice. I hope, anyway, that you all had a good one (the tenses in these letters are a nightmare). Follows the threatened account of our journey here:

Varanasi Junction. Our train is due to leave at 7.15pm but, wary of a repetition of "the Delhi incident" we arrive at about 5.30 to be on the safe side. There was no problem identifying the platform, however, and we settled down to await its arrival and join the mad rush to allotted sleepers, etc. It was dark and quite cold & the platform was smelly and crowded with Indians awaiting passage along with their assorted chattels -- Indians do not travel light: blankets, bedding, steamer trunks, 3 course packed dinners, vast arrays of suitcases and even a nest of tables (!) accompanied these.

Indian stations always have a strange feel, even ignoring the ubiquitous crowds, beggars and vague figures swathed in blankets sleeping wherever the eye falls. There's something very old-fashioned about them, particularly this one for reasons I'll go into in a moment, but combined with a rather brutal utilitarian modernity. They're fascinating places, actually -- for a while...

Between us and the platform opposite ran four sets of tracks, lined with gallows-like structures every 10 feet or so suspending taps (of the water variety) over train-roof-height, dripping constantly. The trains which ply these particular sets of tracks are pulled by monstrous old steam locomotives, puffing smoke & coal dust everywhere and wheezing like grampuses, adding greatly to the antiquarian atmosphere, as well as to the dirt and smell. As ever in India, everything is in a state of semi-decay.

As time wore on, and let me tell you it wore on and on, the crowds of passengers drifted slowly up and down the platform, so that at times we were closely surrounded and at others quite clear. There was a continual flow of people (men, that is to say) across the tracks to pee; and bicycles up and down the platform, mysteriously; and cows, which tottered nonchalantly through the crowded ticket hall and jumped down onto the tracks to graze on the conspicuous absence of grass. None of which was interrupted by trains with any frequency, and on our platform not until well after 9pm, by which time severe boredom, frustration and discomfort were well and truly entrenched. It should be added also that the available refreshments were limited in the extreme, though we forced down a couple of sada vadas and a pretty vile masala dosa between us. Finally, after repeated assurances that it was on its way, somewhere, the train drew in about 9.45 and drew out again maybe 45 minutes later. We ensconced ourselves in our sleepers and let the puffing locomotive drag us off into the night.

We were due to change trains at Samastipur, which we did. We were due to arrive there at 7.45am, which we didn't, unsurprisingly. The connection left at 11, plenty of time one might suppose, but our train arrived precisely then, and for the second time in a week we found ourselves running furiously down platforms, heavily laden and struggling while all those around gazed on bemused, over bridges etc, to leap onto a train already pulling out. There were no reserved seats (we would have plenty of time to get ourselves a space, we were assured) but we squeezed in on the wooden benches and stayed that way for a very long time, reflecting on the sign conspicuous above platform 1 of Samastipur Station: "Our goal: Security, Safety and Punctuality."

Steam trains emit and admit a quite unbelievable quantity of filth -- we were soaked through with ash, coal dust, grit and sand, long before our arrival at Raxaul, the border town, some 2 hours late, long after dark (again). They are also incommunicably slow, boring and uncomfortable. This one stopped at every gathering of more than two huts and a tree along a basically quite short but effectively enormous stretch of backwater subsistence farmland; and every stop lasted 20 minutes minimum. The only foods available in the stations were peanuts and little sweetened puffed-rice balls (like rice cakes) -- quite horrible and unfoodlike, resembling nothing so much as polystyrene packing material.

In Raxaul, a non-entity border town with distinctly shanty-ish qualities, we supped on a tiny quantity of vile mutton curry and trudged for miles from one shack to another, said shacks (easily missed amongst others) being Immigration and Customs on both sides of the border -- though the Nepalese ones were at least less shack-like.

Eventually (this is hours later) we fetched up at a guest house in Birganj (the Nepal-side border town) which was, at least, very very cheap, but the town itself was by that hour closed, so refreshment was still not to be had. We slept, not for long, since we had to rise at 4.30 to catch the bus -- the quick one, we were told; incorrectly, it transpired. When we bought our tickets (the back row, never a good place to sit on these buses, but somehow where it seems we always do) they told us 9 hours, already an advance on previous estimates but still, er, economical with the truth.

The bus was cold and uncomfortable; then later hot and uncomfortable; and later also very very dusty. In truth, however, we had it easy, for there were others (locals of course) who had to stand more or less the whole way. It dragged on and on, excruciatingly slow, especially once we wound our way into the Mahabarat Hills, which anywhere else on Earth would surely count as mountains.

Once beyond the initial flat plains and into the hills, and once the sun rose, the trip began to reveal certain serious advantages over other such we had undertaken, despite the slowness, overcrowding, etc. Foremost among these was the spectacular and awesomely beautiful scenery to be viewed from the windows -- lushly forested hills, hundreds of little, and some not so little, waterfalls, hillsides cut into vast terraces of fractional fields, glorious mountain landscapes -- well, I guess you get the idea.

Even though the tiny villages we stopped in were fairly basically supplied, there was good food freely available, fruit, biscuits, at lunch a chicken thali-type dish, etc. We were still cramped into the bus for hours at a stretch and all that, but it was at least a help. And no sign of bloody Limca anywhere!

Still, as the day wore on and became hot and dusty, and the vegetation became slowly drier and less lush (though not parched like some we've seen) and further layers of grime coated us and bums became very sore indeed and no-one could tell us how long we still had to go and it was clear we were averaging less than 20km per hour... well, it wasn't fun.

When we finally arrived -- relief! Which became elation as we discovered quite how fab Kathmandu is, and when we finally had a really good meal (I've already mentioned it in my postcard but I could dwell cruelly on the hugeness and juiciness and tenderness and thickness and overall deliciousness of the steaks) after 48 hours (not long, one might think, but...) on the gruelling road -- rapture!