Back to where it all started. At my own PC in the spare bedroom at home. Reverse culture shock is almost as shocking as its better-known relative: after a place which bombards the senses as relentlessly as Asia does, the dullness and mundaneness of Britain is overwhelming.

At the moment I'm in an Internet cafe slightly more than a hundred metres from the Taj Mahal. This evening Chris and I will take the short train ride to Delhi. Perhaps it's because I've been mentally prepared by our previous experiences in India, perhaps it's because I haven't yet got ill again, or perhaps the cities we've visited in this country - Agra and Varanasi - have both been fascinating and truly unique places, but the last four days in India have actually been a lot of fun.

We're back in India, a return which, after last time, I'd almost been dreading. Doing it was fortunately less bad than thinking about it, and, perhaps because Chris and I were prepared for it, India feels somehow less intimidating the second time around. This is good, because the place we've landed in is the epicentre of Indian-ness.

This will be my last entry from Nepal, and both Chris and I will miss it desperately. The flawed, damaged beauty of this country has made a profound impression on us, and we have already decided we'll come back. Apart from a coast and an interesting national cuisine, Nepal has everything to offer the independent traveller - spectacular scenery - eight of the world's ten highest mountains lie within or along its borders - a fascinating and diverse mix of cultures, striking architecture - this is the nation who taught the Chinese to build pagodas - and some of the friendliest people you could hope to meet.

We're safely back in Pokhara now after nine days trekking in the Annapurna range. My trek didn't really go to plan - my Indian illness came back to haunt me in a big way and I didn't have the energy to continue beyond Annapurna's inhabited foothills into the Sanctuary itself - but Chris made it all the way up to Annapurna Base Camp, at 4095m above sea level.

This will be the last update for a few days. Tomorrow Chris and I will go to one of those rare places beyond the reach of global communications. Our next destination will be the Annapurna Sanctuary, a natural amphitheatre of Himalayan peaks, including Annapurna I, the tenth highest mountain in the world. The only way in or out, except by helicopter, is on foot: it'll take us up to twelve days, and we'll gain and lose more than three vertical kilometres.

Nepal's growing on me. Chris and I haven't seen much of the mountains yet, but the city of Kathmandu is a pleasant enough place, with culture by the bucketload. One of the things about Nepal which I didn't really appreciate until I got here is the country's ethnic and cultural diversity. This is where India collides with the rest of Asia, in terms of religion, language and ethnicity: the place where Hinduism meets Buddhism, where Indo-European meets Sino-Tibetan, where Caucasoid meets Mongoloid.

Yes, you read that right. Nepal. After five days travelling across India more or less non-stop, we arrived in Kathmandu, the nation's capital, this afternoon. Getting here has been the longest, and possibly the hardest, journey I've ever made, but I'm daring to hope it may have been worth it.

Today is the first rainy day of our trip, and we're in Delhi, which doesn't look any better in the rain. Chris and I have left Rajasthan and this evening we'll take the train to Gorakhpur, near the border with Nepal. I'm feeling better now, and feeling more comfortable with being in India. In Rajasthan we did some great things and met some fascinating people, and now I feel that my passion for travelling has recovered to a certain extent.

Today we enter the second half of our trip, and the last week has been the lowest ebb of the trip so far. Chris and I have both been ill. I saw a doctor on Tuesday who diagnosed me with gastro-enteritis and prescribed me antibiotics. I feel better each morning than I did the day before, but my appetite is still small and I'm not yet back to full fitness. Getting ill so soon after arriving in India has been a shock to the system, and I feel my sense of adventure and my desire to see new places: it's as if getting to the end of this trip in one piece will be good enough.