BAREFOOT IN THE HIMALAYA

<p>The year was 1974 and that year the monsoon had brought biblical rains all over Hindustan soaking without any partiality Hindus and Muslims and causing massive floods all over North India. My wife Janina and I left Delhi around the end of August completely unaware of how desperate the situation was between the capital and Raxoul a town only a few hundred kilometers in the East and on the border with Nepal. The train journey was a long wet ordeal involving many unscheduled halts in hitherto unknown places plus several changes of itinerary due to the impossibility of crossing areas that had turned into vast lakes. At last three days after we'd left Delhi Janina and I reached Raxoul. It was late in the evening; humidity was way up there and thick clouds of insects buzzed around each one of the few crooked and rusted lampposts that were trying to illuminate the small rain drenched square outside the Raxoul station. Through the thin haze we could see a guest house nearby on the left. It looked quite rundown but for one night it could have done...</p>