Freezing hair at a chilly Panch Pokhari. We hadn’t meant to go over this 4,450m pass, but rather than heading straight down-valley on a minor trail as intended, we missed our turn-off and stuck to the main trail which climbed 1,000m to these sacred lakes. Low cloud meant there were no views of Mera Peak and other large mountains in the area.

At a tea house in Phedi. We stayed here in 2007, when this friendly young lad wasn’t around. With no tourists in this part of Nepal, our faltering Nepali was given a run out, after not being needed for long spells in tourist areas. In most villages it wasn’t long until our presence would bring the local school teacher running and we could have slightly more in-depth conversations in English with them.

A typical village in east Nepal.

Schoolgirl in Khande Bhanjyang, near Taplejung. We’d stopped for a cup of tea and some biscuits – part of our staple diet in eastern Nepal.

We’d hoped to get closer to the Kanchenjunga massif, but with the February snow decided to stay in the lowlands. During a spell of clear weather we were treated to wonderful, though distant, panoramas of the world’s third highest mountain.

Lady in Sablakhu Bhanjyang, Taplejung.

Typical houses on the way to Chyangthapu, near the Sikkim border.

Valentine’s Day 2013 on Chiya Bhanjyang, the Nepal/Sikkim border. After 100 days and 1,600km of trekking, and 60 days and 3,700km of biking, this is where we ended our 8 month traverse of the Himalaya, having begun on bikes in Manali in July 2012. All very anti-climactic. Is this the end of our GHT, or just a pause until we head to Pakistan at some point in the future?

The lovely lady in Chyangthapu who won our ‘find a nice old person to give a Leki pole to’ lottery.