Arriving in Kathmandu is like stepping into someone else's dream. Clanging bells, shouts and rock music compete with motorcycle revs and car horns. Rickshaws wobble precariously past ambling hippies; young men in turbans and T shirts embroidered with 'Yakety Yak' stroll behind girls embellished with garlands, cigarette butts dangling from their multi-ringed fingers; cripples creep uncomfortably at awkward angles and above all the noise, Buddhist chants rise not from temples, but from dozens of music shops. The air is thick with pollution, incense and marijuana.

Deep inside the tangle of narrow streets in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist area, there is a crooked alley leading to a closed gate. To reach this gate you pass piles of torn cardboard boxes, rotting food scraps and rusty bicycles, but after pressing a well-hidden bell a smiling face welcomes you to the Himalayan Buddhist Meditation Centre.

'Namaste. Welcome. My name is Sunil. Let me take you to the office.'

I had booked a two day retreat to practise yoga and meditation. After checking in, I was led along a corridor to my tiny room containing a thin mattress and pillow and little else. The air was sweet - someone had placed frangipane flowers on the window sill. I dropped my pack and followed Sunil up metal steps to the first level, where several woven carpets had been laid on the floor of an area the size of a classroom, and above which a huge embroidered cloth had been hoisted onto poles to give shade. We went further up, to the meditation room, where butter lamps flickered, giving off a slightly sickly odour; to counteract it flowers had been suspended from the walls, but they were now too dry to have any effect. Melted yak butter is used to make candles and to make butter tea - a rancid tasting Tibetan favourite. Several low cushions were arranged on the floor, all facing towards an image of the Buddha of Compassion, below which a television screen seemed incongruous, until I learned that the centre has many videos about Tibetan Buddhism for participants' use.

I settled for my first meditation. After sitting crossed-legged in silence for a moment or two, I was told to close my eyes, take a deep in-breath and to imagine a golden light entering the top of my head. After breathing rhythmically for a few minutes I was then asked to 'push' this light around my body with the out-breath, through every limb, to the tips of my fingers and toes. A few minutes more, then I was to breathe in deeply again and send the light outwards from my body into the universe as white light, emanating peace and love. I felt completely surrounded by both, as if I were suspended in the light. I had no thoughts; I was totally still, my mind empty of all the usual noise. I was at peace, whole and complete. Time did not exist. I remained like this for around thirty minutes, until my teacher suggested quietly that I become aware of my breathing, move my fingers and toes and when I felt ready to come back, to open my eyes. When I did, I was filled with vitality and contentment.

Energised, I walked downstairs to the yoga area where three other people were laying flat, waiting for the teacher to start the session. I could discern the chaos of Thamel thundering on far away, yet here all was still and quiet. I lay down quietly and thought back to the previous week and to the sights and people I had encountered.

Before we started our breathing exercises my mind drifted to the mountains where I had trekked for four days with a motley group of witty characters including a sassy nanny from Croydon called Louise, Barry the jovial College lecturer-cum-Mister Fixit, Alex the jolly Geordie doctor and Andy the minerals expert in a floppy hat and boy scout shorts. Our guide, Harry, seemed permanently bewildered by our banter. We had stumbled, crawled and giggled our way along narrow terraces, squelched through rice paddies, squatted in foetid toilet tents, slogged up steep paths and staggered into camps to collapse into sleeping bags as soon as the sun went down.

Not long after setting off Barry, feeling a pinch on his ankle, lifted his trouser leg to reveal a leech suckling on his ankle. Fortunately, in his Mister Fixit role he had brought along a heavyweight first aid kit complete with enough toxic pharmaceuticals to render the invader lifeless within seconds. Alex was impressed and claimed she hadn't seen so many drugs in one place in her entire medical career.

When we reached our first campsite on the top of a hill our sleeping tents were already up for those who needed a pre-prandial nap. After a dinner of yak steaks and pasta we were entertained by villagers who had strolled up with an array of instruments including drums and cymbals. I couldn't keep awake despite the noise. The monotonous bangings and clashings drove me under canvas, but before I dozed off I had to stumble down the hill towards the small toilet tent, where I had to fiddle with belt and buttons in the gloomy light cast by my torch while swatting at dozens of flies.

The next day brought challenges for us all as we huffed and puffed up steep ascents, whilst the porters trotted past carrying our packs plus various pots and pans, sacks of dry food and plastic crates of drinks. Barry took perverse delight in playing with his new altimeter, informing us how far we had climbed, and more cruelly, how far we had yet to climb.  Whenever we floundered into camp the porters would welcome us with squash and popcorn, followed by a hearty three course dinner served in the dining tent. After dinner the porters cleared, washed up and stowed for next morning and still had the energy to joke, laugh, sing and dance.

After our second evening meal we were treated to a very red cake which Louise decided was quite possibly the heaviest sponge ever baked. We sat either side of a long trestle table lit by five or six candles. As we were by now quite filthy we were happy to be visually impaired.

With the snow-capped Annapurnas glistening in the distance we wended our weary way on, passing chickens, goats, water buffalo and people bent double in small fields. Transplanting young rice plants looked like back breaking work, yet the people looked content.  Andy couldn't help but wonder what they must be thinking of us and our trek. We had, after all, he said, flown halfway round the world to walk from one of their villages to the next.

Our last day brought temperatures of over 38C, and some of us were getting very hot and bothered. We were on the final track downhill, plodding past mud-bricked homes and vegetable gardens. Andy threw in the proverbial towel and planted himself in the middle of the track until a lorry came along. It had no choice but to stop or run him down, and hurling abuse at the rest of us, he waved at us regally from his vantage point hanging onto a rail behind the cab as he passed us on our way down to the road.

We celebrated later in Kathmandu's famous Rum Doodle restaurant - named after W.E. Bowman's hilarious book The Ascent of Rum Doodle, where every trek group is given a blank cardboard 'footprint', which is duly handed round for signatures. The footprint is then ceremoniously tacked to the wall to join hundreds of others, ensuring that every trekker's name is displayed for visitors. There is almost no space left nowadays despite the hugeness of the bar, and signatures are starting to ascend onto the ceiling. Most of the footprints are decorated with 'in' jokes understood only by fellow trekkers, but there are also photos, and some inscriptions bear the names of world famous mountaineers including the recently deceased Sir Edmund Hillary. We discovered that one of our group, Kenny, had exceptional skills as a cartoonist after he created a very appealing image of a hairy bum hovering over a hole, with the caption 'Harry and his Shallow Shitters' - thereby ensuring that none of us can ever return to show off our footprint to our friends.

 
As we began our yoga session back at the centre, I closed my eyes, my inner voice repeating the untranslatable chant 'Om Mani Padme Hum' to a tune which was audible on every street corner of Thamel as it emanated from dozens of music shops. I visualised the mountains, the paddy fields, the cultivated terraces, and the smiling Nepalese children. Those of their fathers who work as porters would return home - perhaps only a few times a year - disappointed that they had not earned enough to support the family after humping baskets weighing forty kilos up and down hundreds of metres of track for less than five dollars a day, without training, without insurance, without adequate clothing.

We commenced our side bend; every time I practise this pose now I remember that peaceful yoga terrace, the smiling children, the thrill of seeing distant peaks and valleys from the top of a steep climb. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, and it is also one of the most beautiful I have seen.
 

For more information about the plight of porters in Nepal and to find out how you can help, visit

www.friendsofnepal.org.np