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.

This is an odd thing to say, but I have found watching the changing political situation in Nepal to be one of the most fascinating and rewarding things I've done on this trip. Seeing a country from the inside at a moment when its medium-term future hangs in the balance is a privilege - from the point of view, I ought to point out, of somebody who has the freedom to leave whenever he chooses and not for Nepalis who actually have to live here. Today, for example, on our way to the Hindu temple at Budhanilkantha, we saw another colour to the Nepali political chameleon: a large rally in support of the king. At least a thousand people, many of the holding aloft large photos of the king or the queen, had gathered at the Tudhikel, the large military parade ground in central Kathmandu. Some were schoolchildren in identical beige uniforms, and others had clearly been driven in from outside the city in the many buses parked nearby, but it's clear that most of them genuinely wanted to show their respect and support for the king. It's hard to imagine, even in Nepal, so many people being coerced into such a demonstration.

I noticed something about humanity yesterday. In democracies like India, Thailand or Britain, people's interest in politics is academic. I never discussed politics with an Indian or a Thai. In a country such as Nepal, however, where people dare not speak their mind openly, politics is a matter of life and death and people crave news. The English-language newspapers are no more than eight pages long, and the Nepali-language papers look (I can't read them) to be even thinner and more watery. Everybody knows they are heavily censored. By contrast, I met a man in the mountains whose only link to a more rational world was a battery-powered radio (most villages have no mains electricity) which he would tune in religiously at 8.45 every evening to BBC World Service's Nepali broadcast, holding the radio up to his ear as if to prevent the purity of the truth being sullied by Nepal's dirtied, censored air. Ironically, then, the king's takeover has in a sense given politics back to ordinary Nepalis.

The remainder of our itinerary is more or less fixed (this is beginning to sound worryingly like work): in two days' time we fly to the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges, which we've been told is 'atmospheric'. Having seen and smelt the atmosphere in other Indian cities, this is a daunting prospect: our guidebook simply says, 'this is India in the raw'. From Varanasi we'll make our way back across India by train, stopping along the way at Agra, home to the Taj Mahal - after all, you can't go to India without seeing the Taj.

We have a little over a week left, and my big trip is coming to an end. But there will definitely be at least one more entry from India.