tHe GrEat NoRtH iNdIan ExPeDiTiOn(coming soon...watch out for this space)

Each time you leave the cosseted and hygienic world of towns and take yourself into the hills you go through a series of staged transformations - a kind of gentle descent into squalor - and each time it is as if you have never done it before. At the end of the first day, you feel mildly, self-consciously, grubby; by the second day, disgustingly so; by the third you are beyond caring; by the fourth you have forgotten what it is like not to be like this. Hunger, too, follows a defined pattern. On the first night your are starving for your noodles; on the second night you are starving but wish it wasn't noodles; on the third night you don't want the noodles but know you had better eat something; by the fourth you have no appetite at all but just eat because that is what you do at this time of day. I can't explain it, but it's strangely agreeable....