Quotes from Jane Wilson-Howarth

red-trunked rhododendron trees looked like so many writhing russet snakes. In some places the forest floor was carpeted crimson with fallen rhododendron petals.

Good writers are like magpies, attracted to shiny things and storing away treasures - pieces of dialogue and experience - which pop up from memory unexpectedly.

Wherever there was a scrap of soil amongst the ravaged crags, emaciated trees struggled to cling on: a poignant metaphor for the way so many Nepalis eke out an existence, defiantly surviving on less than nothing.

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

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.

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

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.

There's a rumble in your tum, That makes you feel glum, Diarrhea, Diarrhea. There's a feeling in your rear, That fills you with fear, Diarrhea, Diarrhea. Then it comes out of your bum, Like a bullet from a gun, Diarrhea, Diarrhea. Discovered and remastered by Max Tew and Seb Howarth

A small, light object landed on my head. I looked around. Another small something hit me. I looked up. After a third thing hit me, I untangled a couple of deer droppings from my hair. It was spotted deer poop. I must be one of the only kids on the planet to recognise the sultana-like pellets of hares and deer and the boulders left by elephant and rhino. I heard a cackle behind me and turned to receive a handful of deer pellets full in the face.

the Lord Ratnasambhava keeps all his treasure inside mongooses. When the god needs his gems and jewels, he squeezes one mongoose and makes it vomit them up!

Three mongooses, playing chase, burst out of the undergrowth and came galumphing across the track. The leader stopped and the other two bounced on him. There was a crazy bundle of squealing fur, ears, noses and tails. The mongooses broke apart. All three stood up on hind legs to look at us.

We came to a tiny hamlet. There were no more than six little houses nestling in the deep steep valley. Smoke, rising through the rough wooden roof-slats, made the homes look cosy and inviting but we didn't expect a welcome there.

Snow always makes me think of ice-cream. Glaciers look like where it's dribbled.

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

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

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.

Huge up-draughts – invisible forces – tossed our little plane like it was an insect.

Sunlight streamed through grumbling storm clouds that played like tiger kittens around the mountain ridges.

Buddhist mantras are deliberately deep yet superficially meaningless - to take your mind off things

Fear is a funny unpredictable thing.

the doctor] clicked by mistake on the notes of a patient she'd got to know well - too well. The unfortunate Mrs. Swayne had become unhealthily doctor-dependent. But had she grasped the nettle? Had she actually finally and against all predictions left the country?

I laughed at myself for getting so peeved. It did not matter that it had taken a week for the tailor to make the mattress. I had time and so did everyone else: time was the one resource everyone was rich in and generous with in Nepal. How maladjusted of me not to recognize this.

I tried to avoid looking at the skull, but somehow I wanted to keep checking that it was still there. It's like when you have a sore in your mouth or tooth ache – your tongue keeps going back to check it still hurts.

Morning mists skulked over the river.