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With a shuddering sob Helen collapsed on the ridge and burst into tears.“I cannot take another step,” she sobbed. “Oh, I know it’s all vanity and pride!”

She was referring to the summit, looming in full infuriating view an hour’s slog above us. “You go on,” she said with quivering lip, “I’ll wait for you here”.

“Forget it, I’m not going up without you and frankly I’m not that bothered about the summit. And for goodness sake stop crying. You’ll need that energy for the descent”.

So that drew a line under our climb of Stok Kangri in Ladakh, surely one of the Himalayas most accessible 20,000 foot peaks. The error that day was to have taken the summit head on across the moraine from our advanced base camp, which was set up on the wrong side of the glacier. Had we crossed the glacier and pitched our tent on a platform below the start of the climb, and then headed off diagonally left across the moraine towards the ridge… who knows?

It doesn’t matter: I repeated the mantra to myself on the silent trek back to base camp and down the trail to Stok village at the road head, the last stop before picking up the jeep to Leh. Success, failure – every mountaineer knows these are mere words, devoid of significance. The summit is a trap cunningly laid by our ego, designed to keep us bound to the wheel of samsara.

What’s that, you failed to summit Stok Kangri? There it is, the very word of shame and humiliation, enslaving us to our egos. It’s all rubbish, of course, we reassure ourselves. What really matters is the camaraderie, the days spent with good companions in the inspiring environment of the high mountains. The summit is a bit of icing on the cake. It adds nothing to the experience apart from a false sense of prestige, derived from the Latin praestagium, meaning illusion. The summit, in fact, is a mere illusion.

Oh yes.

So it was that the following August found us starting off once more from advanced base, this time camp properly sited on the far side of the glacier, plodding manfully across the moraine straight towards the summit ridge.

Two hours into the climb and “Oh, God,” Helen moaned, collapsing once more on the ridge, in fact the very same spot as the previous year. “It’s such a long way…”

Not again, I thought with inner rage, an eye fixed on the beckoning summit.

“All right, have a little rest. Have a drink of water, catch your breath, count to ten – but we’ve got to carry on because the weather is looking pretty naff.” Bands of mist rolled up from the valley, intermittently obscuring the snow-capped summit. It was obvious we would have to move smartly if we were to enjoy any view at all from the top. Helen began rummaging in her day sack and what happened next left me gaping in stunned disbelief.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing with that?” “It’s all right,” she smiled. “It’ll boost my morale”. But – lipstick! We’re nearly twenty thousand feet up in the Himalayas and you… “There we are.” She zipped up her sack, smacking her brightly rouged lips. “Let’s go.”.

Helen is six feet tall and she is maddeningly unaffected by altitude. Once suitably made-up off she marched at a sprightly quip, unheeding of my protests about the importance of keeping a slow and steady pace. We negotiated the handful of slightly exposed spots on the ridge and three and a half hours after leaving out tents we found ourselves on the top of Stok Kangri, with just enough sunlight left for a couple of snapshots of K-2 on the horizon, before the mist billowed over the summit.

Jules Stewart is leading a Ladakh trek and ascent of Stok Kangri on 17th-31st July 2004. Details are available on 0207 2294774 or e-mail: Jjulesstewart@aol.com

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That night the local tribe was going to perform a ceremony that would involve singing and some sort of dancing, and Adam Baines and I were invited go along. The tribe held hands and formed itself into two circles, one inside the other, both facing inwards.

One circle moved to the left and the other moved in the opposite direction and at the same time started moaning. This singing or sort of moaning continued as the circles moved slowly in opposite directions. I started the tape, the moaning continued, the bullfrogs joined in, the jungle added its chorus, the circles turned.

Adam and I stood there bemused, as the minutes went by, with nothing more happening other than the continuous circling and moaning. I joined the tribe, held hands and moaned with everybody else, circled with everyone else and, I think just like everyone else, wondered what the hell was going to happen next.

I was beginning to think that this whole ceremony was being put on for our benefit, as a sort of show for these strangers from the outside world. I stepped out of the circle and stood back with Adam whilst continuing to watch this ritual. Adam asked me what the ceremony had done for me. I replied that I had always dreamt about holding hands with strangers, walking in circles, moaning out loud under the stars in the Amazon rainforest! Adam tried everything to stifle his laughter.

We both concluded that this show was being put on for our benefit and, deciding to call it a night, thanked our hosts and walked back to our hut, leaving the tribe still moaning under the full moon. As we reached our hut the moaning stopped and we smiled at each other as we went in, but the last laugh was to be on us. We slipped into our sleeping bags being careful not to let any mosquitoes under our nets and I fell gently asleep after such a busy day.

I awoke to my shoulder being shaken by one of my moaning friends who said it was Party Time, and that this hut was the party hut. We were to sleep in the next hut with others that did not want to dance the night away. I looked at Adam stumbling about when he was woken as I had been. We grabbed our belongings in our arms, everything falling out of everywhere, and moved huts in pitch darkness.

We staggered to the next hut, which was totally full off about fourteen hammocks, mostly containing a couple, to find the only place we could sleep was under someone’s hammock. The music started, not the moaning of a couple of hours before but the loud music called Forro, which was coming from a ghetto blaster running off a car battery and which was overlaid by the noise of dancing feet.

The Forro, a corruption of the English ‘For All’ came from the North East of Brazil,. As the British who built the railway there sometimes had parties for which the invitations were ‘For All’. It was now my turn to feel like moaning as the music blasted into the night from all of twenty yards away.

The Indian in the hammock above Adam started to do the horizontal samba with his woman and the swaying and groaning made me see the funny side of life. Or would have, if the mosquitoes hadn’t been eating me alive and something I’d rather not know about slithered over me. A hellish night, to end a near perfect day.

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I was rather disappointed by my trip to the Angel Falls – let’s get the bad news out of the way – it was over priced and pretty basic stuff.

I was there 2 ½ years ago or so. It was not possible to visit the Angel Falls independently, so we had to join a tour. The land is owned by the indigenous people, and they run the tours. We flew from Caracas to Ciudad Bolivar and then on to Canaima. From there, we joined about 6 others and took a succession of curiaras, supremely uncomfortable dug out canoes, but powered by outboard motor, up the river. The water is an interesting brown colour – the colour of tea with all the tannin from the land. We ended up on Rat Island, along with 100 or so other people all in different groups, and spent the night here (Isla Ratton – aptly named) which consisted of about 100 hammocks strung out in the open under a corrugated iron roof (no sides) and very primitive bathrooms, hurricane lamps etc. A very early start the next morning, bread and strong black coffee, for a short walk/climb – not at all strenuous, to a viewing point across which we saw the Angel Falls. The entire group sat on ledges etc gazing across at the Falls for about 30 minutes, took photos and then went back down the mountain and returned by curiara to Canaima.

And that was it. It cost an awful lot and we got very little in return. You don’t get particularly close to the falls and the service, food, accom was appalling, considering how much it cost. Now, I’m a backpacker and I don’t mind roughing it, and had hoped it was all going to be a great adventure, but it just felt like a huge rip off. I was glad to be away from the place – it did not feel good.

With hindsight, I would rather have spent longer in the Gran Sabana and Kavak and have been content with having seen the Iguaçu Falls – 100 times more impressive! Alternatively, trekking around the region might have been better.

Whilst the Angel Falls was the enduring disappointment of our trip, our 5 days spent in a 4WD with driver (we were told it was not advisable to drive ourselves) around the Gran Sabana was fabulous – completely recommend this – beautiful landscape, lots of tepuys, lakes, waterfalls, water holes – really, really nice and relaxing, friendly people, easy and reasonable places to stay. Our absolute highlight was a short stay at Kavak and visiting the slot canyon – amazing!

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We’ve never had it so good, travelling around South East Asia, particularly Thailand, with increasing numbers of opportunities to take low cost flights.

Thai Airways International recently announced that it would form a budget airline, Sky Asia, with five domestic partners to fend off competition from a crop of new low-cost carriers. Sky Asia will start operations in the second quarter of this year.

Thai AirAsia, to be launched next month, will also compete with privately owned domestic Thai carriers such as Phuket Air, www.phuketairlines.com Bangkok Airways www.bangkokair.com and PB Air www.pbair.com that has several routes in Thailand including: Lampang, Phetchabun Roi-et, Sakonnakhon, Nakhon Phanom Krabi, Nakhon Si Thammarat and overseas: Danang, Luang Prabang, Bagan.

Another Thai domestic carrier, Orient Thai, http://www.orient-thai.com launched a no-frills airline last month with a one-way ticket to Chiang Mai at half the current Thai Airways market price. Its other routings include Bangkok to Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, South Korea

Malaysian based Air Asia www.airasia.com says that it is Asia’s first low fare no frills airline to introduce “ticketless” travelling, and has flights within Malaysia and to Singapore and Thailand.

Indonesian based Lion Air currently flies to 32 destinations, including four regional flights connecting Jakarta with Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City. They plan to start selling business class seats underlines its attempt not to position itself as a low-cost carrier. They say: “Our air-fares may be the cheapest, but we reduce costs through the choice of aircraft – single-type MD82, which are bigger than the Boeing 737, commonly used by other domestic airlines.

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And gets propositioned on the way… read on!

I got to Buenos Aires in pouring rain from sunny London without mishap. My hotel was ok, in the historic area of Buenos Aires and cost around £12 a night for bed and breakfast, and it has a bathroom too, so not bad. This is a good time to visit Argentina as prices are very low – most meals are under £5 and a giant bottle of beer just £1! I wanted to visit a tango show last night but was just too tired around midnight, the time it is all supposed to kick off. Plan to take a city tour of Buenos Aires.

Went to a place called Puerto Madero and it reminded me of all the regeneration that has taken place in Docklands in London. There were very few people and a lot of brand name American eateries, so, I was a little disappointed. I walked back to town where the real people live, but my poor feet hurt after that! On the plus side, it could be classified as training for my forthcoming Patagonia trekking!

The local beer is good and it is now sunny, in sharp contrast to the day I arrived, so prospects are promising. Then headed by bus to El Calafate in Argentina. I am having great weather – sunny, dry unusually windless, and hot, even by my standards! I was even down to a plain shirt and wished I had packed my sandals. I did a 8-9 hour trek from a place called Refugio Pehoe on the lake of the same name (pronounced correctly as “pewe”. to glacier Grey. It was a very scenic walk compared to the one done the other day to Torres (or more accurately “torture”. del Paine which is featured on the all of the postcards here. I reckon this one was a bit tougher than the Machu Picchu trek in Peru, although that was nearly 5 years ago and my age is definitely beginning to show in my knee joints. Maybe it’s just a matter of time before I start considering Saga holidays!

We met some travellers who had to forego their plans as there was no accommodation at the next two destinations we are heading to, the only other option being to set up your own tent! Having roughed it for the last two nights I am not ready for a repeat performance. The alternative was 180 US dollar per night hotel with everything priced in good US $ – the cheapest item on the menu being a coca cola at only $4! Taking of prices, I was shocked at the London prices of everything in the Torres Del Paine National Park. Still, it didn’t stop me from having 2 bottles of Chilean red last night at £8 each. The idea was to stun myself into a deep slumber in the tent and not notice the gale winds and rain.

One thing I have been disappointed about is not being able to gaze at the night southern sky. Chile has some of the best skies for star gazing – but it has been too cold or too cloudy or both! I am beginning to feel quite worn out now and looking forward to taking a hot shower and sleeping in a proper bed! Sleeping bags are not for people like me who toss and turn and sleep in the spread-eagle position!

On a bus from Puerto Natales, I met an unemployed doctor from Spain. As a result of having a fluent Spanish speaker on the team, we were able to find a hotel room very quickly and cheaply, and sorted out our transport – or more accurately dis-sorted! I decided to abandon my very much desired plans to go on into Chile via Coyhaique and head north through to Puerto Montt on the scenic Carretera Austral, now nearly completed, connecting the upper part of Chile to the remote Southern part. This is a lasting legacy started by General Pinochet. It is said that he wanted it named after him but this was met with a fair amount of opposition.

From Puerto Montt, in Chile, we went to the small but pretty and very touristy, town of El Calafate in Argentina. We visited the Perito Glacier, (a natural wonder that grows by 2m a day) almost immediately after we arrived. It was hot and baking there, but a bus ride one hour later, it was rainy at the glacier. This is Patagonia, so the weather remains ever changing after all! Our Spanish doctor refers to El Calafate as a “tourist trap”. apart from the Perito Moreno, there are other excursions but all priced in US $ and upward of $200! We could move on to our next planned destination of Fitzroy, another “must see” place, but nothing to move on from there til Saturday when we head for the Chilean border once again – and then there is no way of connecting to the Carratera Austral with any certainty!

So, the three of us decided to leave town and take a plane, considerably cheaper than taking the bus over 4 days to Bariloche – another very touristy place renowned for its Swiss like setting and more importantly for me, chocolates! We rented a car at Bariloche airport and although not planned, we managed to tour the whole of the Argentinean lake district in 24 hrs – something that would normally take at least 3 days! With our Spanish doctor friend, we did some intense travelling and did not sleep in the same bed twice. When we all split, I missed our new friend’s animated conversation: drink coffee … dug.. dug… dug…, visit x click, click, click….. and his favourite phrase: “we have 2 possibilities”…. to which I would reply: “what about?” The response would be: “we have 3 possibilities… you decide”. He had all makings a 1st Division civil servant or indeed Local Govt officer, if only he could make decisions! We became good mates and did a list of countries we will travel together in the future – almost all except Britain and USA! A real Globetrotter in the making, rucksacks and only economy class for the “authentic experience” – not sure if it meant not hiring cars!

I did things not “programmed” like hire cars, and which our Spanish doctor friend drove like an aspiring Italian Grand Prix driver in a red Fiat Punto replica. This even gave time to visit the island of Chiloe, S America’s 2nd largest) – did in half a day (instead of whole day) by special negotiation. The place where we stayed In Castro also did the tours, ran the Tourist office, the taxi company ..the lot!

Arrived back in Buenos Aires – in broad daylight in sharp contrast to the previous week when (thanks to Taris our Spanish travel companion and now fast friend) we seemed to be getting to our destinations in the middle of the night with no accommodation fixed! It was a bit of a relief to be in BA after a 15 hr bus journey (very comfy sleeper – got up fresh as a daisy and wished our air flight had been of the same standard – meals, night cap fizzy champagne etc. from Neuquen (Arg).

This time in BA, we opted to stay in the slightly posher part of town. I didn’t realise the unexpected benefit until we left a Thai restaurant about 1am. We ran into a stunning, vivacious, voluptuous raven-haired beauty who we initially mistook to be a typical friendly Argentine but she made proposals about providing massage and other services by gesticulation as we didn’t understand Spanish, but we got the drift all right!

One of my travel companions muttered something about going to sleep as he was dog tired whereas I tried to explain that my Redbridge Council zero-budget (Hem is a UK civil servant!) for entertainment and socio-economic research would not allow such indulgences. Only moments earlier I was reflecting on the night time economy as the Environmental Executives of BA municipality, who were furiously flushing the pavements and clearing garbage just yards away. And then to be presented with this provocative proposal – my thoughts of returning home had me thinking of gaps in the Skills Matrix, the reliability of National workforce data with excluded key sector professionals in the all important tourism and culture industry; was she entitled business start up advice and grants, etc, etc – enough of work talk.

On serious note: life is pretty tough for most people after the near-collapse of Argentina’s economy 3 yrs ago and a great many try and cope with everyday life by doing two or three jobs and even reverting to desperate means.

Not one for taking taxis for the “authentic experience”, I found myself taking the underground metro. It was amazing to find that that TV screens suspended over the platforms showing all kinds of stuff – one in particular was a Miss Brazil (previous night I am sure it was Miss Argentina) parading on a catwalk – starting with a glasses, full business suit and the mandatory army officer hat – starting to strip of each apparel at a time – Did she take everything off? No Se, I don’t know. I was on the fast and frequent train by the time she got down to her essentials! Visit Argentina – its a great place to enjoy yourself !

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The Beetle visited Papua New Guinea (PNG) last Christmas and here is an account of Port Moresby.

Getting to PNG the first time was not straightforward, although I have since learned that it is much easier to fly from London to Singapore – about 12 hours, and then take a 6 ½ hour Air Niugini flight (twice a week) from Singapore to Port Moresby. Because last year I intended to spend some time in Australia on the return leg back to London, I flew into Brisbane, transferred up to Cairns, a short hop, and then a 1 ½ hour flight from Cairns to Port Moresby. The international airport at Port Moresby is modern, has a shiny floor, a tourist office that I never saw open (on the 4 occasions I went through it) and is a great place to people watch! Whilst waiting for my diving buddies, a week into my trip, I met and chatted (in pidgin) with a charming man from the highlands who was (seriously) wearing his full traditional costume, which consisted of a lot of feathers, not much in the way of clothing and painted marks on the face, arms and torso. He looked both dignified and quite splendid. He was the type of figure you might expect to see on a postcard, only I met him for real!

Finding a budget place to stay for a weeks’ diving proved a little difficult. I would have liked to have stayed at the Loloata resort – primarily a place for divers, but it was way out of my budget. Eventually, John and Chrissie at PNG Dive recommended the Magila Motel to me. OK, it was a little basic, a concrete based room, but it was clean, safe and had a bed and a shower – perfectly adequate – and was well run by a determined Scottish lady, her two dogs, husband and local and Philippino staff. What really made the Magila motel welcoming to me, and I was there alone, was that it has an outside area with tables and benches and a telephone. I ate all my meals outside in the shade of the umbrellas, and struck up conversations with anyone else eating at the same time – I was impressed by how incredibly friendly people were.

The telephone was the focal point of the place and attracted good natured queues. (None of the international mobile telephone companies are willing to establish a network in PNG, so no cell phones work, with the result that public telephones are well used facilities – remember those times?) As people waited, they sat at the table, drank a beer or two and started conversations with anyone around, and I was no exception, being something of a curiosity, a white English female, all alone for a week and only present from late afternoons onwards. After a week, I think I must have met every single person staying in the Magila, a mix of transient one night stays by people coming to town from the highlands for business and returning the next day, to a former member of the government who had won a scholarship to study for a business degree in Australia, and was in Port Moresby for a business appointment, the leader of the opposition, very jolly, who seemed to be largely revered because he had won a huge amount of money gambling… an Australian expat and local wife staying for a month or so on a budget, “doing a deal” on a timber plantation his parents used to own and lots of people who just dropped in for a beer and a rest.

Most expats I met were Australian – makes sense at it is so close. One regular visitor to the Magila, a wiry hardy man, originally from Cornwall, but a naturalised PNG citizen (on account of having stayed there for over 30 years) popped in from where he was working across the road to have a beer and meet up with his mates, introduced to me as local gold dealers and various bigwigs discussing all manner of business ideas and opportunities. He and his various friends were great company and told me lots of stories on how life really is, about rascals – a favourite topic of conversation, coupled with the amount and latest tales of bribery and corruption – some of it really quite shocking and a lot of it chuckle type common sense. While I was there last year, the local press ran stories about a large and prominent building in the centre that was started three times. The first two times, the building contract was awarded to a construction firm which ran off and stole all of the money before the work was even started!

A lot of bad news is written about Port Moresby, but I can honestly say that I did not at any time feel threatened, at risk or in danger. I had a great time and felt as if I had had the chance to talk with a lot of people, all of whom were fascinating (to me, with their different stories) and at the same time generous, kind and sincere. It’s the kind of place where people come down from the highlands or the coastal areas, looking for work; unemployment is massive, so, there are a lot of people with nothing much to do. This type of problem is not exclusive to PNG, and of course, as a visitor, you have to be streetwise.

There are some things for a tourist to see in Port Moresby, and my favourite by far is PNG Arts. It is an enormous warehouse, just crammed full of all types of handicraft, ranging from phallic shaped salt and pepper shakers to masks, ceremonial daggers to picture boards to tables, carved 2 metre long wooden crocodiles and more. All of the items are made by local people, from the Triobriand Islands (highly prized) to the Highlands, many of them are produced by co-operatives, so at least you know you are supporting the local economy. All of it was eminently affordable, although there were some quite pricey, beautifully carved and intricate pieces. I spent over than half a day just browsing around the dusty objects for sale and could quite happily have sent much more time there.

It is quite a magnet for the expats who come to buy presents to take back when they go home. I got chatting to one of the men who worked there. He was a fascinating Canadian man who has been in PNG for over 30 years, who went there as a bet, from his native Canada, back in the 1960s. He wryly told me about the bet, how all his friends should have gone with him, but one by one, they all dropped out, so he came alone, and has stayed ever since, dabbling in gold mining, timber and coconut plantation management and ended up at PNG Art. I couldn’t resist it, but I bought a whole load of souvenirs from PNG Art and had them crated up and shipped home. My friends (Padmassana included!) were extremely sceptical and joked that I would never see them. But 5 months later, 2 large wooden crates arrived by parcel post, incredulously delivered by a man who said he’d never handled anything from PNG before! It’s a great place, and sadly, it was very difficult to find souvenirs in Rabaul or Kavieng, so I was glad that I had made the visit there and had something to show and give to my friends from PNG.

Other things to do in Port Moresby include a trip to see the Houses of Parliament, there’s some botanical gardens, although I did not visit them, some WW2 remains.

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