Nepal - a land where a chance encounter may bring you across the ritual sacrifice of a goat, the stoking of a funeral pyre on the banks of the river or sacred bulls lumbering slowly down a street in Kathmandu. Charlie Pye-Smith's travels take him east to Namche Bazar where, within sight of Everest, he discovers a phobia for heights: west down the well- trodden Kali Gandaki gorge and in search of the elusive Chepang people: south to the thin ribbon of low-lying land - Ther Terai - which runs along the Indian border.