Let me tell you first though about the couple of days I spent in Moscow over the weekend.

Now as with anywhere, I had certain expectations when I arrived in the Russian capital.

However, I think it's fair to say that one thing I DIDN'T expect was to end up meeting none other than The Prince Of Fucking Darkness himself - yes, Ozzy Osbourne!

I really don't know how these kind of things always happen to me!

It all came about though yesterday - Sunday afternoon.

Basically, I was just mooching around Moscow, and happened to wander past the city's uber-posh Hyatt Hotel - and couldn't help but notice a small gaggle of people loitering outside, most of them wearing Ozzy T-shirts.

Now I was fully aware that Ozzy was in town to play a solo gig that evening. Indeed my first thought when I'd discovered this had been "Wow, should I go?"

After all, seeing the great man do his thing would surely be entertaining.

As it turned out though, tickets for the show cost equivalent of about sixty quid - which seemed a bit steep really to go and see someone who I've already actually seen live on a previous occasion.

Yes, I saw Ozzy way back in the summer of 1998, when I went along to the Ozzfest at Milton Keynes Bowl.

This had involved spending all day stood in ankle deep mud watching a series of dreadful metal bands. It turned out to be worth it though for the grand finale of the day, which involved Ozzy croaking his way through 'Paranoid', 'War Pigs' and the rest of the classics with the original Black Sabbath line-up.

My main reason though for deciding not to bother with the gig in Moscow last night, above the twin factors of cost and having seen Ozzy before, was actually the fact that I'd already booked a ticket to St Petersburg - and my train was scheduled to leave Moscow approximately ten minutes after The Prince Of Fucking Darkness was due on stage!

Still, on spotting the throng of Ozzy fans outside the hotel, I naturally put two and two together and concluded that the Hyatt must be where he was staying. And having decided that fraternising with a bunch of Russian metalheads might be quite entertaining, I decided to wander over and have a chat with them!

It turned out that they'd been waiting patiently all day for their hero to emerge.

In stark contrast, I'd simply stumbled upon the scene unwittingly - and yet literally within about two minutes of my arrival, Ozzy suddenly emerged from the hotel lobby, flanked by a platoon of burly minders!

Apparently he was on his way to do a soundcheck at the venue where he'd be appearing later in the evening - and needless to say, there was a great deal of jostling as everyone descended upon him to try and get an autograph or photo!

Now when you get a chance to have a fleeting encounter with someone famous, you often end up a bit tongue-tied and saying something really naff. I still cringe whenever I recall the time I met Lemmy after a Motorhead gig in Liverpool, and couldn't think of anything better to say than "Hey Lemmy - you really rocked tonight!"

Am pleased to report though that I was in much better form on this occasion!

Seizing the moment, I thrust myself into the melee, managed to give The Prince Of Fucking Darkness a sort of pat on the back, and yelled "Hey Ozzy, don't go pissing against the Kremlin!" 

My comment, of course, was in reference to the legendary incident back in the 80s when he ended up getting banged up in Texas for taking a leak on the Alamo! Alas, I wasn't able to make out whether Ozzy even heard me - because as soon as the words left my lips, I was unceremoniously shoved out of the way by one of the minders, as they cleared a path so The Prince Of Fucking Darkness could get into a people-carrier that was waiting to whisk him away!

All quite exciting really!

Ozzy's wife Sharon was also in tow - and fair play to her, she actually spent a good five minutes chatting amiably with everyone and posing for photos.

And the fun and games didn't stop there either. When the people-carrier containing Ozzy and Sharon eventually sped off, I was expecting the fans to disperse - however, they all remained firmly rooted outside the hotel.

Naturally, I was curious as to why this was.

It was like "Aren't you going home now - I mean, you've met the Osbournes, right?"

As it turned out though, they had their sights set on more celebrity flesh - because they'd been tipped off that none other than Yoko Ono was due to be checking into the Hyatt any time, as apparently she has an art exhibition due to open in Moscow!

I was like "Wow!", and decided to stick around for a bit to see if she appeared! And yes, just minutes later, the hotel security guards suddenly started barking frantically into walkie-talkies as another people-carrier pulled up outside.

The door of the vehicle duly swung open, and out jumped... bloody Ozzy again!

Yes, presumably he'd left something behind at the hotel!

I actually felt slightly let-down - though in the end I decided I couldn't be arsed to hang around and wait for Yoko.

Just seeing the Osbournes was more than enough excitement for one day - and besides, there was the small matter of having to catch my train to St Petersburg!

My unexpected celeb encounter was certainly a great ending though to a highly enjoyable couple of days in Moscow - a city which I've always wanted to visit.

I think my curiosity about the place was first roused about ten or 12 years ago. My mum and dad, you see, live next-door-but-one to a cool Italian family - and back in the 90s, the daughter from the family, Rosa, spent a number of years living and working in Moscow.

During this time, Rosa used to send me bits and pieces of paraphernalia relating to Spartak Moscow - the city's main footy team. And I guess that's what sparked my interest.

So what's Moscow actually like then?

Well for starters, it's a massive city. And it's a really attractive place too, with some amazing architecture.

The entire duration of my visit also saw the place bathed in glorious sunshine, with temperatures as high as 36 degrees celcius!

And in terms of activity, it all seemed to be happening in Moscow this weekend!

Friday night for instance saw a solo gig by the woman out of 90s one-hit wonders Deee Lite - and with 'Groove Is In the Heart' being one of my fave songs ever, I probably would've gone along were it not for the fact that I didn't find out about it until the following morning!

Last night meanwhile, the entertainment on offer in the city was by no means restricted to just Ozzy. Surreally, there was also a Smiths-themed club night due to take place!

This event in question was being put on by the Moscow chapter of the Smiths fan club, and was being held to mark Morrissey's birthday - which was apparently last Tuesday!

I'm sure this would've made for quite a surreal and entertaining event - though like the Ozzy gig, I was prevented from attending due to my prior appointment with the train to St Petersburg.

Still, I think it's safe to say that Moscow is a pretty 'happening' place really if what was on this weekend is anything to go by..

However, there are a few things that I've found less than appealing about the place.

First of all, one thing that's struck me about Moscow is that it's much less friendly place than Irkutsk. I guess it's probably 'capital syndrome' - indeed, I always find London quite a cold, unwelcoming place compared to the rest of England.

My hotel was so inhospitable though it was almost funny! The staff were ridiculously brusque - and the place was such a shithole too that I couldn't help wondering whether I'd inadvertently booked into a 'theme' hotel designed to show how grim life was back in the days of the Soviet Union!

The second less appealing thing about Moscow meanwhile is the 'Metro' underground train system - which is apparently the biggest in the world... and utterly, utterly baffling! 

Armed with a map of the various criss-crossed lines, I'd thought I'd be fine - however, half the stations don't seem to have any signs showing their name, so you quickly lose track of where you are. At one point I got so badly lost that I thought I might be doomed to spend the rest of my life on the Moscow Metro!

I had little choice however but to struggle manfully with the Metro, as Moscow's such a huge city that it's the only way you can really get around. And there's certainly plenty to see here.

Top of my list was Red Square.

On arriving, I was a bit disappointed to discover that it isn't actually red - however, with St Basil's Cathedral on one side and the Kremlin on the other, it makes for an impressive sight.

The spires of the Kremlin just scream "Russia!", though it does also have a slight whiff of Disneyland about it as well.

Also in Red Square is the mausoleum of Vladimir Lenin, and 'The Tombs of the Russian Heroes' - which is where various luminaries including Yuri Gagarin, the first man to go into space, are buried.

Needless to say, all these things make Red Square a huge tourist trap - and so inevitably, there are stalls everywhere selling all manner of tat ranging from Russian dolls to Faberge eggs.

There are also professional Stalin and Lenin lookalikes wandering around who you can pay to have your photo taken with; though by far my favourite bit of Red Square was a sort of bronze circle in the ground that people take it in turns to walk into the middle of, in order to throw some small change over their shoulder.

The idea of this is that it brings you good luck. It also provides a bit of income to the city's poor, who surround the circle like vultures and ensure your coins barely hit the ground!

At one point while I was stood watching this spectacle, a group of teenage scallies caused a bit of a rumpus by steaming into the circle en masse and grabbing a load of the money, before promptly scarpering - presumably on their way to the offie to spend their ill-gotten gains on a bottle of cider to drink down the park!

Personally, I actually found the bronze circle far more entertaining than the 'big two' - namely Lenin and the Kremlin.

Having missed out on seeing the body of Ho Chi Minh when I was in Vietnam and then Chairman Mao when I was in China, I was quite excited when I discovered that Lenin was very much available to receive visitors - and so I promptly found myself joining a queue to go and pay homage to the founding father of Russian Communism.

However, it turned out to be a bit underwhelming - although in hindsight, I'm not sure exactly what kind of excitement I'd really been expecting from a quick glimpse of a corpse in a glass case!

As for the Kremlin though, I had truly been hoping for big things. But upon going inside, you discover it's merely a cidatel-style cluster of buildings with a perimeter wall around it.

Granted, some of the buildings are quite attractive - but it was hardly the top-secret miliatry bunker I was expecting.  

That said, I did get to see the 'changing of the guard' outside, which was a ridiculously overblown ritual and thus quite entertaining. Indeed, the presence of military personnel around Red Square and the Kremlin is actually quite ridiculous in general. The area is swarming with literally hundreds of soldiers - though most of them, as far as I could tell, seemed to be just standing around not really doing anything, and so the atmosphere was far less sinister than I'd expected it to be.

I'd kind of thought you'd see soldiers dragging innocent people off down dark alleyways for a good beating! However, the occasional pointless roadblock where they'd demand to see your passport was about as menacing as it got.

And most of the soldiers only looked about 12, so it's hard to take them all that seriously really! 

Lastly, the other main thing I got up to in Moscow was a visit to a traditional Russian bath house!

The first involved being ushered into the men's changing room - though far from being like the changing rooms at your local municipal swimming baths in the UK, this was a fabulously opulent oak-panelled room with comfy leather chairs and a bar!

Here, I was presented with a sort of sheet that you wear like a toga - and it was then through to the sauna.

Russian folk clearly like extremes, because the general idea seemed to be to stay in the sauna for as long as you could possibly stand - before diving into an ice-cold plunge pool!

It was all fabulously decadent. Lazing around in my toga, I felt a bit like Julius Ceasar or something! And as far as I could gather, most Russians make a whole afternoon of their visit to the bath house, making numerous forays into the sauna and otherwise just relaxing in the comfort of the changing room.

There were certainly some interesting looking characters there - I'm sure half of them were gangsters!

And when in the sauna, you could pay to have a guy come and thwack you all over your body with what appeared to be a small tree branch!

The sight of some of the clientele partaking in this treatment, whatever the theraputic benefits are meant to be, was certainly entertaining.

I decided to give it a miss though myself - I mean, I'm not sure what it says about you really if you're the sort of person that pays good money to have another bloke give you a good thrashing with a bunch of twigs..!

And entering Russia is something I'm very much hoping to do later this month, as I've long been planning to make the majority of my journey home to the UK via the Trans-Siberian Railway – which runs all the way from Beijing to Moscow. 

Now not so long ago, due to the numerous obstacles that presented themselves in my attempts to get aforesaid visa, I'd started genuinely thinking I was going to have to drastically change my plans.

Happily though, that now shouldn't be necessary – as I'm pleased to report that the visa is now very much in the bag!

That said, while getting the Russian visa solved one problem, it did create another one – one which led to an incredible amount of faffing around over the last week.

Last Wednesday you see, I went along to the Russian embassy here in Kathmandu to lodge my application. And while I was hugely relieved when they immediately accepted it, I was told that it would take them three working days to process my visa.

As such, I wasn't able to collect it until 10am yesterday morning. And this meant a massive race against time for me to get back over the border to India and to Delhi – which was where I needed to be for a flight to Beijing at 7.45pm the following evening.  

Now allowing two hours to check in for my flight, I had 31 and three-quarter hours to get to Delhi. And my original plan had been to make the trip back there from Kathmandu by bus – a journey which takes 31 hours.

In other words, going by bus was, in theory, still do-able. However, from my previous experience of bus travel in India – which usually involves arriving at your destination hours late – I decided it was simply too great a risk. 

But hey, there are surely other options, I thought to myself. Surely I could ring Sri Lanka Airlines – who my flight was with – and get them to rebook me onto a later flight? 

Unfortunately this was 'no go' – as all the later flights were full.

Still, I was undeterred – and though it would cost a great deal more than the bus, I decided I'd surely be able to fly to Delhi.

However, after spending most of last Wednesday afternoon calling in in person to the offices in Kathmandu of the various airlines that fly from here to Delhi, I was again facing a brick wall. Yes, all the bloody flights were full!

Shit! 

Now by this stage, I was starting to panic. What's more, I really needed to get something sorted out quickly – as the following morning, I was due to head off on my three-day trip into the jungle at Royal Chitwan National Park. 

I was pretty certain that there'd be no internet or telephone facilities in the jungle that would enable me to explore further possibilities – and by the time I got back, it'd be just a few days before my flight from Delhi left. And the later you leave these things, the more difficult it tends to be to find solutions.

In the end, there was only one thing for it. I did the thing that all boys do when they're in a spot of bother. Yes, I called my mum!!!

Now they may well big to differ, but I like to think that I'm generally pretty self-sufficient, and don't tend to ask all that much of my parents.

However, during those occasions that occur every so often when I find myself well and truly in the shit, they are without doubt the most dependable people on the planet – and never fail to pull out all the stops to help solve whatever problem it is that I'm having.

And this was very much the case here. Yes, while I was enjoying myself in the jungle, my mum was tirelessly ringing around travel agents – and thanks to her efforts, everything is now sorted! 

It's all a bit of a long story really. But in a nutshell, my mum very quickly come to the conclusion through talking to these travel agents that getting me to Delhi in time was going to be impossible.  

However, she managed to find a workable alternative – namely, she got my flight from Delhi cancelled with a full refund... and then simply booked me another flight that goes straight from Kathmandu to Beijing!

Being at relatively late notice, this has ended up costing a fair bit – mainly because the only seats left available were in business class! 

Still, the fact that I'll almost certainly be the scruffiest person in business class should be quite amusing!

And I'm just relieved really that everything is sorted, with this new flight leaving from Kathmandu this afternoon.

I'm kind of sad to be leaving Nepal, as I have absolutely loved it here. Though it's probably a good time really to be getting the hell out of here, as the monsoon season is about to start!

I'm also sad in a way that I've had to jettison my original flight from Delhi – as that would've involved a brief stopover to change planes at Colombo in Sri Lanka. And during this stopover, I'd very much been planning to pay tribute to a little story that has long since gone down in Fisher family legend!

A good few years ago, you see, my mum and dad went away to Sri Lanka. And there are two amusing things to tell you about this particular holiday.

First of all, upon their return, I naturally asked them how the trip had been. And my dad's response was one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

What do you think he mentioned first? The beautiful beaches? The amazing weather? The incredible food?

No, dad's apparent top highlight of the holiday had been... wait for it... seeing an elephant taking a shit!

"It was like a football coming out of its arse," were among the exact words used, I seem to recall! Priceless...

The tale that has lingered longer though in Fisher folklore actually relates to a statuette of the Buddha that my mum had bought during the holiday, thinking it would make a nice souvenir of the time they'd spent in what is a predominantly Buddhist country. 

However, what my mum hadn't realized is that taking a Buddha out of Sri Lanka is strictly illegal! And yes, at the end of the holiday when mum and dad were checking in their bags at the airport ready for their flight home, the X-ray machine revealed a suspiciously Buddha-ish shaped object in one of their suitcases!

They duly had their bags manually searched – and after a severe bollocking off the airport security officials, the Buddha was confiscated, never to be seen again! 

Now with this tale in mind, I'd actually bought my own statuette of the Buddha whilst here in Nepal - purely for the amusement of seeing if I could succeed where my parents failed, by smuggling it (in and) out of Sri Lanka!

Given the change in flights though, I guess we'll never know now whether I'm the Fisher family's premier Buddha smuggler!

Still, I suppose my statuette will make a good present for my mum - to (finally) replace the one that she failed to bring home all those years ago.

And of course, to thank her for getting me out of the shit! Cheers ma..!

So what of Lumbini then?

Well having been the birthplace of the original Buddha, it's pretty much Buddhism's equivalent of Bethelehem.

And although I'm not a religious person in any way, I've always thought that if I was forced to follow any of the existing ones, then Buddhism would definitely be the ine I'd choose.

I don't know what it is about it. Compared to Christianity, it just seems more pure, and less sanctimonious and hypocritical...

Lumbini is right on the border between Nepal and India - and getting there from Royal Chitwan National Park involved a four-hour bus journey by local bus.

Being so close to India, the place almost unbearably hot.

On a happier note though, it was much less touristy than I'd been expecting - in fact, it's no more than a small village, with lots of the houses nothing more than straw huts.

Having arrived in the early evening on Saturday, I decided to leave all the 'Buddha stuff' until the following morning.

But what to do in the meantime for an evening's entertainment in Lumbini?

Well with it being Saturday night, I decided that a few drinks were the order of the day = and in the village's only internet cafe, I got chatting to a couple of fellow backpacker types who were very much of the same opinion.

One of my new friends was a girl from Denmark, and the other was a girl from Poland. Thry'd also just arrived in Lumbini, and both of them were really cool - and bizarerly, it turned out the Pole chick had actually been in Nottingham more recently than me, having been living and working in the city up until she left to go travelling in late January.

What's more, her job happened to be with one of my own former employers - yes, Boots The Chemists!

It really is a small world sometimes...

What's more, it's also a frustrating world when you happen to be in Lumbini and want to partake in the simple pleasure of a few drinks!

Yes, finding somewhere in the village that actually sold alcohol! It took us the best part of an hour!

And when we did finally find somewhere, it was a restaurant that seemingly only had one CD - 'The Best of the Vengaboys'!

Unbelievable...

Still, they sold booze, and that was good enough for us! Though even this place had a closing time of 10pm... so it ended up being quite an early night, and possibly the tamest night out on a Saturday of all time.

Now don't get me wrong, I hadn't come to one of the most important religious sites on earth and expected it to be like Ayia Napa. Far from it.

But even so, I'm sure even the Buddha himself was partial to a few pints every now and then... and maybe even the occasional game of darts too!

So at 10pm, the three of us went our separate ways and back to the respective guest houses that we'd each booked ourselves into.

With it still being early by my standards, I'd figured that I'd sit up reading in my room for a few hours.

However, when I'd checked in earlier. I'd literally just dumped my bags in the room and headed straight out - and so it was only when I arrived back after our valiant but failed attempt to paint the town red that I realised that the guest house didn't actually have electricity.

What's more, after fumbling around in my bag to locate my torch, I discovered that its battery was flat.

So it really was night over!

It was a frustrating night for me too for another reason - because I was strongly aware of the fact that back, home in UK time, Nottingham Forest would be just finishing their final league game of the season.

And if they bagged a win and certain other teams only drew or lost, it'd be mean automatic promotion from League One back to the Championship for the mighty Reds!

Now before arriving in Lumbini, I'd assumed I'd be able to find somewhere on the Saturday night where I'd be able to either phone home or jump on the internet in order to find out how Forest had gotten on.

With there not even being anywhere to go for a drink though after 10pm, it was pretty obvious that I'd been hopelessly optimistic - and so I spent the next 12 hours in suspense.

It reminded me a bit of 1998. That year, I missed one of Forest's last games of the season, as I was running the London Marathon the same afternoon.

Again it was a massive match - with Forest needing to win to clinch promotion to the Premiership.

The game was also being televised - and as such, I duly got my dad to set the timer on the video... and managed to avoid any news of the score throughour 'Marathon Day' in order to enable me to watch the game 'as live' when I got home.

Happily, Forest were successful that day in getting the win they needed. As for whether history would repeat itself - well, I had little choice but to wait and see.

Still, at least there was stuff to see in Lumbini to take my mind off Forest - and I duly got up bright and early the next morning in order to walk a mile or so from the village to the Maya Devi Temple, a Buddhist place of worship built on the very site where the Buddha was born.

I must say, it was far from being the most interesting temple I've seen - just a fairly small squat building.

Nevertheless, it was still pretty cool to be able to stand right next to the exact spot of the birth - and there were still quite a few pilgrims hanging around, many who had travelled thousands of miles to Lumbini in order to mark the Buddha's birthday, which had been four days previously.

What's more, as I arrived at the temple, I was greeted by the sight of loads of monks chanting, which was pretty ace!

After seeing the temple, it was back to the village - and with the internet cafe having by now opened, I was finally able to find out how Forest got on.

And yes, it turned out that they'd bottled it, only drawing 0-0. Though even if they had won, it wouldn't have been enough - as other results unfortunately didn't go the Reds' way.

Thus, Forest now have to slug it out in the play-offs in order to try and get their sorry arses out of League One. Still, I'm not entirely unhappy about this - because as I've mentioned previously on this site, the League One play-off final is on Sunday 27 May... at the new Wembley stadium!

And guess when I'm due to arrive home in the UK? Yes, Sunday 27th May!

Could be quite a homecoming if all goes according to plan for Forest in their forthcoming two-legged showdown with Yeovil Town in the play-off semis.

Fingers crossed!

In Lumbini meanwhile, my thoughts were focused very much on a more immediate journey than going home - yes, getting back to Kathmandu!

With Royal Chitwan National Park having been west of Kathmandu, and then Lumbini even further west, I was now around 12 hours away from Nepal's capital city by road. And from my previous experiences of the treacherous roads in this country, I didn't really fancy a bus ride of that kind of duration!

Happily though, an alternative presented itself - yes, flying!

Here in Nepal you see, there's a brilliantly named domestic airline called Yeti Airways - and they had seats available for a flight from Lumbini to Kathmandu that afternoon!

What's more, it was dirt cheap - and so I soon found myself at possibly the world's smallest airport!

It was such a basic place that they didn't even have any metal detectors for checking luggage. Instead, they get you to plonk it all on a table, and then just open your bags and go through them by hand!

This was a bit of a nightmare - not so much having them rummaging through my stuff... more having to get everything back into my bag again afterwards!

Still, the security fellas were pretty cool - and unlike Air Asia when I flew from Cambodia to Malaysia, they didn't try and charge me for being slightly over the 20kg baggage limit.

Check-in procedures completed, I soon found myself stepping onto another tiny 18-seat aeroplane with propellors!

And less than an hour later I was in Kathmandu!

I've subsequently spent the last 24 hours just taking it easy, trying to replenish my energies for the next big step on my trip - China

I've also discovered that there's a bar here called Tantra*! It's great, I can feel like I'm a trendy Lace Market tosser, even though I'm in Kathmandu!!!

* For the benefit of those of you unfamiliar with Nottingham, there's a bar in the centre if my beloved home city called Tantra. And it's totally Tossersville, Tennesse in there...

But what about the rest of Nepal?

Well Thursday morning saw me depart very early from Kathmandu to commence a four-day whistlestop tour taking in some of the country's other attractions - the first of these being Royal Chitwan National Park, a protected area of jungle that's home to loads of wild animals... including elephants, tigers, rhinos, bears and crocs!

Now getting to Royal Chitwan involved a five-hour bus journey - and what a bus journey!

As I explained in my last update, Kathmandu is situated in a valley right in the middle of the Himalayas - and getting to Royal Chitwan involved our driver having to negotiate his way out of this valley via possibly the most treacherous winding roads I've ever travelled along.

It was proper 'heart in mouth' stuff. If our driver put a single foot wrong, it was highly likely that our bus would go over the edge, and that we'd plunge several hundred metres to almost certain deaths! Seemingly oblivious though to this big potential hazard, the fella behind the wheel was hammering along at a good 80 miles per hour, taking corners like he thought he was Ayrton Senna or something.

Suddenly, the astonishing statistic I'd seen bandied about that you are approximately 30 times more likely to be killed in a road accident in Nepal than any other country in the world started to make sense!

That said, the scenery was amazing - and somehow, we arrived at the National Park unscathed.

Now my stay at Royal Chitwan was a three day/two night package deal, which involved me staying at Island Jungle Resort - a sort of holiday resort right in the middle of the park.

And I'm pleased to report that this proved a shrewd choice!

As suggested by the name, Island Jungle Resort is actually technically an island - an area of the National Park covering approximately 20 square miles, that's surrounded on all four sides by rivers.

To get there, we had to be taken across one of the rivers on a ricketty rowing boat. Myself and the others booked onto the trip were then able to check into our digs for the next few days - which turned out to be charming chalets, each with their own verandah overlooking one of the riverbanks.

They were pretty basic, with no electricity apart from generator-powered lights that you could only switch on between 6pm and 10pm.

But hey, what do you expect in the middle of the jungle?!.

Now the main reason I chose Island Jungle Resort was because it would enable me see Royal Chitwan largely from the back of an elephant! Yes, the resort has its own 'fleet' of five domesticated elephants, which are each able to carry up to five people on safaris across the jungle.

However, I was a bit worried when I arrived - as when I was in India, I'd read an article in a magazine about how recent years have seen a huge increase in instances of domesticated elephants going on the rampage and killing sometimes up to dozens of people.

Apparently the reason for this is because of elephants being increasingly ill-treated, and eventually get to a point where they can’t contain their rage any longer.

And needless to say, I would have felt really uncomfortable with the idea of staying at a place where elephants are treated with anything other than utmost respect.

Happily, I needn’t have worried. Indeed, when they're not 'working' the elephants at the resort aren't even tied up - they're allowed to roam free around the island!

It was pretty cool - there were times when I was sat at the bar in the resort, and suddenly you'd see one of the elephants come ambling along on its own, on its way down to the river!

Of course, it's hard to really say whether an elephant is truly happy, as they always have such sad eyes. But the ones at the resort did seem genuinely content as far as I could tell, and there was definitely a lot of affection and a genuine bond between the beasts and their handlers.

One incident in particular that I witnessed seemed to underline this.

When 'driving' the elephants, the handlers sit on the elephants' necks, and direct them through a variety of gentle taps with a stick on different parts of their heads.

And in one occasion, one of the handlers accidentally dropped his stick on the floor - only for the elephant to immediately pick it up with his trunk and pass it back to him!

Now I got to go on two elephant safaris during my stay at Island Jungle Resort, each lasting two hours. And needless to say, it was quite exciting as we clambered onto the back of one of the giant beasts for the first one!

One thing that always surprises me about elephants is how hairy they actually are!

The first safari saw me sharing an elephant with a French couple, and we set off as part of a line of three elephants - though the 'convoy' quickly split up.

This was quite funny, as we'd suddenly spot some movement in the jungle and get all excited - only to discover that it was just one of the other elephants!

The name of the game was obviously spotting other animals. However, just sitting on the back of the elephants and watching them as they ambled their way through the jungle was a fascinating experience. The care they take with each step they make is amazing, and they're a bit like dogs in that they're constantly sniffing everything with their trunks as they go!

They also make regular stops to fill their faces with grass - and they also sometimes grab tree branches with their trunks and use them to swat flies away from their legs!

As for the jungle itself meanwhile - well, it was much less dense than the jungles I'd previously visited on my trip in New Zealand and Malaysia

There were lots more open spaces too - and as such, much greater potential for spotting animals.

Indeed, the first elephant safari saw us spot a wild pig and some deer... and we also saw various birds flying through the sky including a hornbill, a mynah, and a massive eagle.

We all knew full well though that the island is home to both rhinos and tigers - and so they remained the main prize.

We knew that the chances of seeing a tiger were pretty much zero - however, rhino sightings at Royal Chitwan are apparently common. And so while the safari had been fantastic, there was a slight tinge of disappointment as we started to get towards the end of the two hours without having spotted one.

It felt a bit like having watched your football team play out a thrilling but ultimately frustrating 0-0 draw.

As it turned out though, we ended up bagging a dramatic last minute winner!

Now one of the benefits of going out as a convoy of three elephants and then splitting up was that it dramatically increased our chance of seeing animals - as the elephant handlers have a series of codes for alerting each other when they've spotted something.

And just as we were starting to head back to the resort, we suddenly became aware of a suspiciously human-sounding 'owl hoot'!

Now up until this point, we'd been sticking to marked paths. However, an owl hoot presumably means "We've seen something - get here quickly!"... because with a series of taps with his stick, our handler immediately got our elephant to go off the track and thrash its way through the trees in the direction of where the sound had come from.

This was utterly exhilarating. Elephants can move surprisingly quickly when required - and it was humbling to witness the sheer power of the beast as it effortlessly knocked trees out of its path!

Perched on the elephant's back, we had to cling on for dear life! I love this sort of thing about Asia though - the fact that you can do all these sorts of things that you'd never get to do in a million years in Britain what with our beloved nation's ridiculously over-the-top health and safety regulations.

Within a few seconds, we'd made it at the appropriate place - and we were just in the nick of time, as we got to see a brief glimpse of a massive rhino beating a hasty retreat through the trees!

So that was the first elephant safari. And if that one saw us rely on a last-minute winner, the second one saw us have the three points sewn up inside the first ten minutes!

One minute, you see, our elephant was ambling its way through the trees - and the next minute, we came to a clearing where a rhino was stood eating some grass!

It was amazing to get a proper look at the thing. With their 'armour', they look totally prehistoric. And they're much, much bigger than you think they're going to be!

At first, the rhino seemed oblivious to our presence, and so our elephant handler inched us closer.

However, we perhaps got a bit TOO close - as the rhino suddenly looked up at us and began rearing up, as if it was going to charge at us!

We were like "Shit! The rhino's going to attack us!"

Amazingly though, at this point our elephant began flapping its ears madly, and started growling at the rhino!

Now I'm no Dr Doolittle, but it seemed to me like he way saying "Don't even think about charging at us, you ugly, horn-headed motherfucker!"

The jibe didn’t appear to cause any offence – clearly, our adversary had the skin of a rhino (groan..!)

However, the message was clearly heard and understood – as it promptly turned on its heels and beat a hasty retreat into the trees.

A pretty exhilarating experience then!

My time at Island Jungle Resort also saw me get to go on several guided walks through the jungle. Obviously, this wasn’t as exciting as being on the back of an elephant – but nevertheless, it did enable me to see loads more wildlife, including monkeys, a massive croc, lizards, frogs, snails, and loads of butterflies and other insects.

We also saw loads more birds, including a woodpecker and a type of green parakeet called the moustached parakeet!

Now my love of parrot-type birds is no secret – so needless to say, I was pretty pleased when we spotted the latter. However, there was a slight tinge of disappointment too – as purely from its name, I’d built up an image in my head of a little bird with a handlebar ‘muzzie’, that sits in the trees wearing a cravatte and listening to vintage jazz!

Meanwhile, one of our trips into the jungle on foot also saw us find a set of fresh-looking tiger paw prints! Oh, and we also stumbled upon another rhino!

Now as I’d already discovered, rhinos are big scary bastards – even when you’re looking at one from 12-feet in the air from the back of an elephant.

To be stood at ground level though just five metres away from one of the buggers – well, let’s just say that it well and truly gets the pulse racing! 

Of course, our guide had briefed us very clearly on what to do if we were to end up in a situation where it looked like we might end up getting attacked by one of Royal Chitwan’s more dangerous residents. With tigers, you have to stand deadly still and stare them out until they go away; while with bears, you have to try and scare them away by making yourself look big and make as much noise as possible.

And rhinos? Well, the things have such poor eyesight that you just have to run away from them in a zig zag fashion, and then hide behind a tree!

Fortunately though, this wasn’t a method we had to put into practice – for after staring at us for about ten seconds, the rhino simply wandered off into the trees!

All in all then, I think it’s fair to say that I was pretty lucky really in terms of what I saw during my time at Royal Chitwan.

And when not exploring the jungle, I also had a great time relaxing at the resort, chatting to the friendly staff and the other guests.

Some of the other guests were really cool. One of them was a guy from Germany who works as a roadie at rock concerts! During his career, the guy has helped erect stages for music luminaries ranging from the Rolling Stones to Tina Turner!

We also got to eat like kings while at the resort, as the three day/two night package I’d booked on included all=you-can-eat buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Oh, and there was also the small matter of getting to join the elephants for their daily bath in the river at 3pm every afternoon!

This was incredible – you basically got to go in the river and play with the elephants! And judging by the way they kept enthusiastically ‘trumpeting’ at each other, it was definitely their favourite part of the day.

The best thing to do was to climb onto the elephants’ backs. Then, if you gently tugged their ears, they’d fill their trunk full of water and ‘blast’ you with it!

There was also one of the elephants that quickly acquired the nickname ‘Bucking Bronco’ among myself and the other guests, due to the fact that he’d be all gentle and let you climb on his back – only to then take great delight in rocking from side to side until you lost your balance and fell off!

Always one for a challenge, I decided to attempt a spot of ‘elephant surfing’ – and yes, I’m pleased to say that I successfully managed to stand up on the back of Bucking Bronco! And there’s photographic evidence to prove it!

Alas though, just as I was considering attempting a backflip into the water, Bucking Bromco made a sudden lurch and I was unceremoniously thrown into the water!

All in all then, a fantastic few days, and I was sad to leave Island Jungle Resort when the time came to move on.

I was also sad about the fact that it’s May and not December – as every December, there’s a massive tournament just down the road from Royal Chitwan in which teams from all over the world compete against each other at elephant polo!

Yes, you read that correctly – elephant polo! It’s just like ‘normal’ polo… only using elephants rather than horses!And crazily, a team from Scotland are apparently the current reigning champions. I mean, what the..?!

As for now – well, after leaving Island Jungle Resort, I moved on by public bus to the village of Lumbini…. which is where I’m sat now writing this.

Though a tiny place, Lumbini is significant in that it’s the place where the Buddha was born some 2,500 years ago.  

Given though that this update is already pretty long, I shall leave telling you about what it’s like here till tomorrow…

So, it's been six days since my last proper update on this site - and it's fair to say that I've got quite a lot to report back on!

In fact, I'm going to do this in two parts - otherwise this may end up being even longer than 'War and Peace' by Leo Tolstoy!

Tomorrow then, I shall endeavour to write about a four day trip out of Kathmandu, which saw me spend two nights and three days in an huge area of protected jungle... plus a day and a night in the small town of Lumbini - birthplace of the Buddha!

And today - well, let me tell you about this Wednesday just gone - as it was officially one of the greatest days I've had so far on my travel adventure!

Now the day in question was my first full day in Nepal, after I'd arrived in Kathmandu by plane from Delhi the previous afternoon.

And two amazing things happened...

First of all, I'm pleased to report that I successfully conquered Mount Everest = and did so so quickly that I was back in Kathmandu in time for breakfast!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Sir Edmund Hilary!

Okay though, I admit it - I didn't actually climb the thing! No, I got up at dawn in order to go on an hour-long 'scenic flight' that enabled me to get close-up views of not only Everest, but also most of the Himalayas.

Indeed, that's the crazy thing about the Himalayas - as well as Everest, there's actually a fair few other mountains that are almost as big... yet which you've never even heard of!

Needless to say, the view of all these mountains from just under 30,000 feet - roughly level with the summit of Everest - was jaw-droppingly spectacular.

The mountains are indescribably huge. How anyone could even think of climbing any of them, I will never be able to comprehend!

The flight was witn the amusingly-named airline Buddha Air - and it was on a tiny 18-seater plane with propellor engines!

It felt a bit like being on tour in the 1970s with Led Zeppelin, on their infamous private jet!

Amazingly, you were actually allowed to go and wander into the cockpit and have a chat with the pilot, a bit like you used to be able to do when you went on holiday abroad when you were a kid - back in those halcyon days before terrorists were invented!

And another thing that really tickled me was the terms and conditions listed on the flight ticket - which, among other things, stated that passengers were strictly forbidden from bringing any "offensive or irritating materials" on board.

This gave me a very happy image of people with really bad taste in music having their James Blunt albums confiscated at the security check!

An amazing experience then - though sadly I didn't manage to spot any yaks. Or a yeti!

Still, straight after landing, Wednesday's second 'amazing thing' promptly happened!  

As you will know if you're a regular visitor to this site, I've been having some trouble in the last few weeks in my attempts to obtain a visa that I need to be able to visit a place that I've been referring to as That Certain Country That Shall Remain Nameless, Which I Hope To Visit On My Way Home To The UK - or for short, TCCTSRN,WIHTVOMWHTTUK!

Now the reason I've shrouded the place in question in a cloak of anonymity was in case any of TCCTSRN,WIHTVOMWHTTUK's agents happen to read this blog.

Of course, I'm probably flattering myself and being overly paranoid in thinking in this way - but hey, you can't be too careful. After all this is Russia we are talking about!

Yes, some of you who are familiar with my planned movements over the coming weeks will have guessed this already... but for those of you who haven't, I'm now officially able to unmask TCCTSRN,WIHTVOMWHTTUK as being the land of the Kremlin and vodka!

For immediately after my 'scenic flight' round the Himalayas touched down, I hotfooted it straight to Kathmandu's Russian embassy - and in stark contrast to my experiences in Bombay and Delhi, I immediately had my application for a Russian visa accepted!

Now I still haven't actually got this visa - as it takes the embassy three working days to process applications, and so I can't go and collect it until Monday.

Touch wood though, everything will be hunky dory. And this will be a big weight off my mind, because I had genuinely started to think that I was going to have to cancel my plan to do the bulk of my journey home via the Trans-Siberian Railway - which, all bering well, will involve me leaving Beijing by train next weekend, and travelling all the way to Moscow via Mongolia and Siberia... some 6,000 miles in total!

Getting my application accepted in Kathmandu was also a huge relief in another respect - because if they'd sent me packing, I'd have had little choice but to head straight back to Delhi and try and get my visa there.

This would've been a pisser to say the least - as I've obviously already been to Delhi, and I didn't particularly like the place the first time!

Plus, it would've been galling to have had to cut short my time in Nepal - as within minutes of arriving here it became immediately apparent that it's a brilliant place!

In fact, having been here for five days now, it may well have even wrestled the 'best place I've visited so far on my trip' crown from Vietnam!

So why's it so great here?

Well first of all, let me quash a bit of a misconception that a lot of you will probably have about Nepal.

Now if most of you only knew one thing about Nepal, it was probably the fact that it's where Mount Everest is... right? And as such, most of you were probably under the impression that it's a freezing cold place, permanently covered in a blanket of snow?

Wrong!

Granted, it's not quite as hot here as it is in India. However, after my flight from Gandhi International Airport in Delhi arrived in Kathmandu, I stepped out onto the airport tarmac into a very pleasant heat of 30 degrees celcius!

Immediately after getting through immigration, I was accosted by a gaggle of hotel touts. However, they were all really charming and helpful, and not pushy at all. And as a consequence, I very quickly found myself in a taxi heading towards a hotel right in the centre of town - a place where, as it turned out, I could get a room for equivalent of just three quid a night!

What's more, the hotel dudes even arranged to get me dirty washing done for me!

As for Kathmandu itself, it's a beautiful city, nestling in the Himalayan foothills. It's quite small, certainly for a capital city. It's probably about the same size as Nottingham.

That's where the comparison ends though. Kathmandu is a bewitching labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys, most of which don't actually have names - making it very easy to get lost here! In terms of look and feel, the city is quite similar to Hanoi in Vietnam, only much brighter - with lots of trees everywhere that look like cherry blossoms, only with purple petals.

The roads are also less crazy than Hanoi. That said, Kathmandu is much the same as some of the places I went to in India, in so far as the fact that there you get loads of untethered bulls and goats wandering round the streets, seemingly not belonging to anyone, and blocking the traffic whenever they feel like it!

The people of Nepal are also fantastic. I'd suspected this would be the case right from the start through my positive experience with the hotel touts when I first arrived.

And indeed, everyone I've met in this country has been ridiculously friendly. They're also really laid back - wandering around, you don't really get any hassle.

And there's lots of characters lurking around!

About an hour after arriving in Kathmandu, I got chatting to a really cool bloke in the street who was carrying a massive cage containing about six green parrots! It turned out that the guy makes his living by breeding them and selling them - at equivalent of three quid a pop.

I also got chatting to a lad who couldn't have been older than 18, who initially approached me to ask if I wanted to buy any drugs!

I don't know what it is - I must just look like Pete Doherty's long-lost brother or something, as everywhere I go, I always seem to get singled out as a likely potential customer by the local drug pushers!

As always, this occasion saw me politely decline, despite assurances that it was an opportunity to get "the best shit"! I did get chatting to the lad for quite a while though, and he was really cool. Randomly, he reported having spotted cod-Latino pop buffoon Ricky Martin wandering through Kathmandu the previous week!

Meanwhile, other cool characters I've met in Kathmandu include two kids aged no more than seven, who spoke brilliant English and could name the capital city of pretty much any country in the world!

There was also a really friendly bloke in an internet cafe who I ended up helping to write a job application, as he was having to write it in English!

As well as being charming and friendly, the people of Nepal are also very spiritual. Both Buddhism and Hunduism are absolutely massive here, with loads of temples everywhere. And without ever having planned to, I actually arrived in the country during quite a significant week within the Buddhist calendar - as this Tuesday, it was actually a national holiday to mark the Buddha's birthday!

The strong focus on spiritualism means Kathmandu has a very peaceful feel about it. Yet Nepal has actually been quite a troubled place in recent years - so much so that I had to check a few days before my arrival that it was even safe to visit.

The problems all stem from nearly 20 years ago, when Nepal threw off the shackles of communism and introduced democracy.

Now you'd think that this would be a Good Thing. However, the democratic era in Nepal has been fraught with problems - and in the mid-1990s, this saw the beginning of a civil uprising initiated by a group of communists calling themselves the Maoists.

This uprising is still ongoing, and has caused over 12,000 deaths so far. And sadly, this has led to a strong presence of military police on the streets of Kathmandu - though they are quite discreet, and it doesn't seem to have overly affected the laid-back atmosphere of the city.

The Maoist activity has however hit the tourism industry badly - which is sad, as Nepal is an incredibly poor country, and a huge number of the people here depend on tourists to be able to make a living.

That said, there still seem to be plenty of backpacker types all over Kathmandu. Amusingly, this includes lots of ageing hippie types, who look like they got here in the sixties and have never left!

A lot of the hotels and tour companies have apparently been forced to slash their prices though in recent years - and indeed, everything here does seem dirt cheap.

As well as having been paying equivalent of just three quid a night for a hotel, I've also been getting amazing plates full of food for equivalent of less than a quid!

The currently here is the Nepal rupee - and the banknotes are really cool. All of them have different native Nepali animals on them, from the 1,000 rupee note (tiger), the 100 rupee note (rhino) to the humble 20 rupee note (deer).

And I'm pleased to report that I actually saw wild rhinos at very close distance on several occasions over the last few days during my time in the jungle - however, you're going to have to wait till tomorrow's update to find out about that!

Ooh, I hear you say, it's just like an EastEnders cliffhanger ending..!