Kathmandu corners - little bits of beauty

A welcoming offering to guests at the
entrance of the hotel.

Mud, mosquitoes, and mould. That's Kathmandu's monsoon season reputation.

Added to the year-round chaotic traffic congestion, why come to Nepal's capital in the wet season?

Don't get me wrong, I have always enjoyed my time here. As we got off the plane on Friday after crossing a couple of time zones sustained only by the queues, dubious vegetarian meals and dodgy in-flight movies provided by Thai Airways, a blast of city dust and humid air hit me - and I realised I was wearing a great big smile. Happy to be back.

Kathmandu has a way of charming visitors. The careless and careful placing of flowers in water at entrances to delight your senses. The patience and humour of Nepali people in the face of crazy rudeness by us foreign tourists.

Leaving on a jet plane

That's the packing and prep done,
now we can start the travelling.

And we are off!

The apartment is clean, the fridge is kinda empty, there's a cardboard box for the tenants to put our mail in.

Our bags are zipped and padlocked for the last time.

Now there is just time to sit in the departure lounge listening to Simon cough (because he finally came down with the respiratory tract infection that has knocked me around for the last 3 weeks), and wondering why the Bluetooth keyboard won't talk to the iPad. 

Is this a harbinger of future tech snags and gear failures?

And there might be a problem getting our Tibet visas .....

The joys of travel. 

What's your worst departure experience?

A quart into a pint pot - packing it all

My overwhelming pile of stuff. Do I really need 2 tubes of
Vegemite and a sketch book with 5 pencils?

An hour into the first Jaws movie: Roy Scheider is cheerfully shovelling burley into the ocean from the shark-catching boat owned by Quint (Robert Shaw). Without warning, without fanfare, the truck-sized head of the monster shark pokes above the waves, jaws gaping, teeth bared. Shocked and appalled, Scheider's character turns to the skipper in the wheelhouse and murmurs, 

"I think we're going to need a bigger boat."

Two tiny bags

I reached that stage in my packing last week. 

Larger than a monster shark, the mountain of accumulated stuff on the spare bedroom floor loomed over my two tiny empty bags, which looked hopelessly inadequate. 

Laundry on the road

Travel laundry challenges that happened to me and fellow travellers:

Typical hotel laundry costs -
but at least this one offers
to wash your monk robe and
safari suit

• It took me one whole week to dry my wet jeans in an Iceland summer
• Meg says she has to stay 2 nights everywhere just so she can dry t-shirts
• Felicity sent her travel pants to the Moroccan hotel laundry, who set them on fire.

But you can travel with a small bag of clothes - or even just cabin baggage - and keep moving from place to place once you figure out how to wash and dry items overnight, without running up outrageous hotel laundry bills (or having your clothes charred beyond use).

Imelda Marcos in the Himalayas - what shoes shall I pack?

From the Pyrenees to the Himalayas, my boots have
seen a lot of the world.

Planning travel footwear needs thought.

Clothes are soft, fold flat, roll up, squish down and you can wear a lot of layers if you run out of room in your luggage. 

Shoes, on the other hand, take up a lot of space in a bag and you can only wear one pair at a time.

Choosing a pared-back footwear list has been a challenge during my packing planning. For someone who prefers to walk around barefoot, I already have way too many pairs of shoes lurking in my closet: heeled courts for a woman who has poor balance and dodgy ankles; two pairs of tango shoes although I haven't danced Latin for 10 years, four pairs of streetwear boots even though I live in sweaty Brisbane.

The last trip for my Keens. Despite
the wear on the heel, they will
have a new life with a friend on
the Granite Belt.

In this Himalayan adventure, I plan to travel across deserts, over mountain passes and around mountains, up and down valleys and across streams, through markets and towns and villages. I don't plan to go clubbing, dancing or going to cocktail parties - but why rule out the possibility?

What shall I take to wear on my feet? How shall I choose which pairs to take and whether to buy new pairs?