Colonel Younghusband led the British Military Expedition into Tibet from his base camp at Siliguri in 1904, an event which must have puzzled and perplexed the good people of the region at the time. Siliguri has little changed, I imagine, and is a low, featureless town baking on the north-Indian plain. Just beyond, a low range of jungle-covered hills is all that can be seen of the Himalayan giants that lie beyond.

The Darjeeling-Himalayan railway operates from here, and Geoff and I gazed with admiration at the splendid little train. Here indeed was a jewel of the locomotive-builders' art. Brightly painted in red and green, all its brass gleaming in the morning sun, the little engine, barely taller than myself, hissed and puffed with lusty strength. This was just as well, since it would shortly be called upon to haul half a dozen well-filled carriages up to seven thousand feet, along the narrow-gauge rails.

People tumbled about in a chaotic muddle with bed rolls and luggage; tea-sellers in grimy dhotis doled out a hot, muddy liquid into stained cups; barefoot urchins ran about shouting and offering unappetising-looking cakes for sale. Our breakfast was thus taken amid the turmoil and confusion, the stale cakes and hot sweet tea tasting surprisingly good.

Railway officials find it difficult to get used to the idea that Europeans should travel third class, so, although we assured the embarrassed ticket collector that all was as it should be, he remained convinced that a serious mistake had been made. He escorted us personally into the first-class carriage, kicking and shoving the unfortunate third- and second-class passengers out of our way and apologising continuously for the inconvenience.

"That foolish Calcutta ticket-wallah does not know his job, Sahib. Here you are, I am thinking you will be much more suitable now. Good morning to you!" He saluted with some pride and took his leave.

There was a fresh-faced girl sitting opposite and she chuckled as we sat down. "Ha," said Geoff. "Memsahib - first class!"

"He fixed you guys up too, huh?" She had a strong, good-looking face, and her eyes had a lively sparkle. "I bought a third-class ticket. And here we all are, top class and riding fine style. My name's Liz ... Liz Stein."

We introduced ourselves and feeling very self-satisfied, were soon in conversation. The little train gathered a head of steam and chuffed slowly off. The journey to Darjereling is only about fifty miles but, not surprisingly in view of the height reached, it takes six hours. This all passed too quickly, for Liz was an entertaining companion, and the views from the windows were constantly changing as we rose from the hot flat-lands up through the jungles on the hillsides to the cooler regions, where tea gardens and prayer flags appear, marking a different climate and different people. The little engine stopped from time to time, to take on water or negotiate the switchbacks, but what endeared the train to us most of all was the man who perched on the very front of the engine on the buffers, throwing sand onto the rails whenever the gradient became steep, to prevent the wheels from slipping. We asked Liz to join us when we left the train at Ghoom, the highest point on the route. There was a forester's cabin not far from the township, and we had been told it was the cheapest place we could stay near Darjeeling. All that was necessary was to find the district Forest Officer who lived nearby. Liz and I went off to find him, and Geoff looked after the luggage. While he was sitting there, a little Nepalese girl befriended him and insisted on taking him home to her house, where later we found him. She was about ten years old and her name was Tshering. She said Geoff looked like a demon - but a friendly one.

He possessed a quality which attracted children, and often they came up and stood shyly next to him, the brave ones sometimes fingering his beard. He never knew what to say but just grinned at them through his whiskers, and they would smile happily.

Tshering took us on a tour of inspection of her house on the slope, while her mother beamed and brought out the family's prized possessions for us to admire. In the prayer room there was a praying-stand and a sacred book, an old worn prayer wheel fixed to the wall and polished from use, and a number of flickering butter lamps. We greeted two old, brown-robed Tibetan monks. They grinned hugely at Geoff's beard and fingered their own chins, where only a few wispy hairs sprouted, going off into peals of laughter. Then the mother brought us to a low table where she had set out a meal of soup, hot little meat rolls and tea. She was a good-hearted woman who pushed us gently on the chest to make us sit down again whenever we showed signs of taking our leave. She wanted us to meet her husband, and before long he appeared, small like the rest of his family, and with the same broad smile. Astonishingly, he proved to be the very Forest Officer we had been looking for.

Later he took us to the cabin and made us comfortable, and that evening we sat in front of a crackling log fire and talked. Liz sparkled as she told us of life on the road. She had started as a nurse in Brigantine, New Jersey and had later become an air hostess with an international airline. This was tiring work which only allowed her to see the insides of air terminals and plush hotels. They were all the same and, since she had taken the job to see the world, she left the airline in Spain and set out to travel alone, through Europe and overland to India. Sometimes she hitchhiked, sometimes she travelled by buses and trains, but she always went the cheapest way.

"Weren't you ever afraid by yourself?" said Geoff. We were both wondering how an attractive girl had been able to avoid being attacked or molested.

"What on earth for? Oh, you mean of being raped?" and she gave a gurgling little laugh. "Oh no. Not really. You see it's like this: It's impossible to thread a moving needle." We burst out laughing. Clearly here was a girl of enviable presence. "The only time I came close was with an Arab truck-driver, in the Persian Gulf, when there were just the two of us out in the desert. And that was only because I was ill with dysentery, and he was hard to fight off. But I did," she added shortly. "Mostly I've had a great time with all the people along the way."

She had been in Nepal just recently and had spent several months there helping to train Nepalese girls as air hostesses on their newly established airline, which was to fly between Kathmandu and Delhi.

The next morning, early, we made porridge and brewed up coffee, which we drank standing outside on the edge of the forest in the thin cold light. We were watching a superb sunrise on Mt. Kanchenjunga, seemingly only a few miles away across the cloud-filled valleys. When we had arrived the previous afternoon, clouds had filled the sky, and there was no hint that one of the highest mountains in the world dominated the landscape. Geoff watched the delicately changing colours intently, sipping the scalding coffee, then, after the final change when the great slopes became purest white, he turned and went back inside without speaking. In a few minutes Liz joined him. Standing there alone, swallowing the last of my coffee, catching the wafted smell of wood smoke on the high air, I remained fascinated by the great mountain mass which had emerged purified from the turbulent clouds.

Suddenly a young woman with a serene face appeared on a path just below the crest of the ridge on which I stood. She was toiling up the track with a wicker basket of firewood on her back and just then a clear tenor voice rang out with a soaring, joyful song. A woodcutter was beginning his day's work. All at once the world came searingly, intensely alive. I was transfixed and completely aware of the small things about me. The rustle of a slight breeze in the forest trees, small birds diving and fluttering about the branches, tiny wisps of smoke trailing from the village houses away down the terraced valley, and the people whose lives moved close to the earth in these hills, with a grace and simplicity beyond measure. Such moments pass quickly but are infinitely precious and potent. Elated, yet with a sense of loss, for the moment had passed, I too went inside to pack my belongings.

"How about we see if we can line up a walk round these hills, out near that bloody great mountain," Geoff had packed his rucksack and was sitting on the table looking out of the window.

"You boys can count me out," said Liz. I've had enough walking these last six months to last me sixteen years."

"How about you, Jules?" Geoff looked at me. He had taken to calling me Jules because he said I looked like a French swaggie, whatever that was; and in any case, he preferred my name with Jules tacked on the front. Some years later, at a gathering in Melbourne, he introduced me to a group of people as Jules Verne, then turned away to talk to someone else. The name was accepted without comment, and an elderly lady at once began to talk about the film "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." All joined in the discussion without a smile, which made it a somewhat surreal experience.

"Look, I'll be in it," I said, "but I've got no proper gear. I'll have to go into town and see if I can get a rucksack, at least, before I can go anywhere."

It seemed simple enough, so we walked the several miles into Darjeeling, where we said goodbye to Liz, who was going a different way. However, we spent hours making the necessary arrangements for this simple walk. Along with such necessities as porridge, sugar and coffee, we each purchased a prayer wheel from an old Tibetan curio dealer, so as to send appropriate prayers spinning about the hills. This old fellow followed us outside after we had made our purchase and, pointing to a large helicopter circling overhead, said mysteriously, "God! On Friday!" Then smiling triumphantly, went back into his shop. It was a puzzling remark, but it had the unmistakable ring of authority.

The next morning we strode out along the road into the hills. A slight breeze fluttered the prayer flags on their long poles above us on the slope. An old man sat in the early sun outside a yellow-painted wooden house, dozing as he twirled his prayer wheel. A young woman leaned out of a window and scolded him mildly as we passed. Catching sight of us, she giggled shyly and hid behind the big wooden shutters.

Our little friend Tshering ran on ahead to where half a dozen youngsters were hopping about and pointing at us with shrieks of laughter. She told them that our beards were real and not demon-masks, and that we were going to carry those funny bundles on our backs up into the mountains for fun. Indeed, it must have been an odd sight. A small gnomelike man with a bushy beard and a contented smile striding out ahead of a tall, thin man with a short stubbly beard who looked rather like a surprised parrot. We laughed and played with them for a moment then moved off up the road in the cool sunshine.

It was a splendid time to be on the road. Away below us on one hand lay the plains of northern Bengal. The faint gleam of a river could be seen winding away through the haze. Ahead, the road turned and was lost in the green of the thickly forested hills. And behind them, serene and unearthly, soared the great white bulk of Kanchenjunga, the Mother of Snows, and her Himalayan consorts.

We had obtained permission in Darjeeling to trek out along the borders of Sikkim and Nepal and to use foresters' huts along the way, for which we were to pay a small fee. We were well equipped as we set off toward the village and the end of the road some fifteen miles away. I carried an official document issued at Darjeeling, which described us as "Mr G.P. Virtue and Party of One." It authorised us to travel in the border areas but urged us to carry two cotton bedsheets and at all times to keep our cutlery, crockery and bedding scrupulously clean. Five copies of this document had been made, and, with a high regard for beaurocratic tradition, four had been sent to Regional Forest Officers in remote parts of India, while the fifth, unaccountably, had gone to the Chief Inspector of Physical Education, Writers Building, Calcutta. From time to time, I and my party of one would chuckle quietly as we marched along the road.

Two days' sporadic bargaining with a foxy Sherpa in Darjeeling had provided me with a rucksack and fine, red, waterproof jacket. I had selected them carefully, with Geoff offering advice, and they had cost me twenty-five rupees, an excellent leather suitcase which until now had carried all my belongings, and a good deal of anxious perspiration as we haggled. I had reluctantly refused a bright yellow rucksack which had "Sherpa No. 6" stencilled on the back. I had been greatly taken with it, but, as Geoff pointed out, it had no frame and was not entirely practical. As it was, we were assured that the gear I had bought had been on Everest in a recent French expedition.

About mid-afternoon we came into the village of Manebhanjung, a few low houses and vegetable stalls astride a saddle in the hills, from where a long terraced valley swept away into the mists of Nepal. We passed a whitewashed Buddhist shrine on a grassy rise, and a swarm of half-naked children rushed to greet us, accompanied by a very small yelping dog. They danced and tumbled about happily, their little brown bodies soon grey with dust. Then a small, round man in a dilapidated military uniform puffed importantly up to us. With great pride and carefully enunciating his English, he announced;

"I am the most important man. I am here and watching the people, for it is here that is the border!" He spread his arms wide and pointed to the valleys on either side of the ridge. "Here is India, and here is Nepal. Many men are coming here from Nepla and going to Darjeeling. And I am watching everything very carefully."

Grandly he detailed two youngsters off to escort us to the forester's hut perched on a spur just below the village. We quickly got a good fire going and cooked a meal for ourselves. Later, after dark, we were sitting back contentedly and thinking of unrolling our sleeping bags, when there was a clatter and the door burst open. In rushed a grinning madman with wild eyes. This apparition apologised that he had not come earlier, that the village was not bigger, that his English was not better and what could he do to help. Stunned, we watched him ruin our carefully prepared fire and put in its place a ridiculous little brazier of burning charcoal which did no more than faintly warm its metal container. He apologised for not having done this earlier and, smiling all the while, launched into a long, rambling monologue about himself, very little of which we understood. We tolerated this for as long as politeness required, then, taking him firmly by the arm and insisting that we should not keep him up unnecessarily, Geoff propelled him to the door and out, grinning, into the night.

The next day we climbed three and a half thousand feet and covered no more than seven miles. The cabin, which was our destination, sat bleakly on a cold, windswept hilltop not far above the treeline. The caretaker and his wife were surly and unhelpful, so, collecting some damp wood outside on the mist-shrouded hillside, we struggled to build enough of a fire on which to cook. Then, exhausted, we collapsed shivering into our sleeping bags and slept fitfully through the long cold night. We paused for breakfast the following morning, after covering about six miles in thick mist. This soon dispersed with the warmth of the sun, and as the track had led us down about sixteen hundred feet, we were again walking through forest. Shortly we came out of the trees into a rolling, grassy meadow, and our spirits lifted in the bright sunshine. We could see the great mountains towering above the hills ahead, and our hearts sang. To be alive and drinking in this exhilaration was a precious gift. The track wound across mountain streams and around wooded hillsides, where birds sang continuously. We started to climb again and met a party of traders from Nepal, the older men strolling out in front flicking at stones with their staves, and the younger men and women toiling and labouring behind under great, heavy loads strapped round their foreheads in wicker baskets. All were barefoot, the women wearing gold ornaments in their noses and golden bangles around their ankles. They paid little attention to us, the men barely grunting as we passed. A little later, in a grassy expanse which looked directly across to the mountains, we came upon a small monastery, with a collection of wooden houses scattered about, in front of which was a low, stone prayer wall, with the sacred Sanscrit words chiselled along the face: "Hail to the jewel in the lotus."

A monk appeared and beckoned us inside, and before long we were drinking greasy tea with two or three others who sat opposite us grinning broadly. They grimaced as they lifted our rucksacks and tried them on. This proved to be great fun, and other monks were fetched so that they too could try these strange shoulder bags. We were later taken into the 'gompa' - or house of prayer - where a great prayer-wheel was kept constantly turning in an ingenious manner, by hot air rising from a taper on to an inclined plane surface on the inside of the metal drum. In the semi-darkness of the interior, the impassive face of the Buddha's image gleamed dully in the light of the flickering butter lamps. There were paintings depicting grotesque demons and elaborate Buddha figures inhabiting the various heavens and hells of the Tibetan pantheon. But it was not a solemn place, and everyone laughed and talked and pointed out objects of interest to us. It was peaceful there, but we were anxious to get back on to the road, so took our leave and made off at a good pace.

The track at times came out on to saddles at the head of immense valleys spreading and stretching out into the terraced vastness on each side. Then on and into the forest again. The trees at this height - about ten thousand feet - were almost all covered in alpine moss, and the great variety of birds soaring and diving near us was a constant delight. There were yellow finches with black eyes, red-breasted sparrows, and babblers and tits of many kinds which we could not identify. About midday we stopped in the pleasantly warm sunshine of a sheltered spot beside a small stream, gathered some wood together and brewed coffee.

After lunch the track started to zigzag steadily upward above the treeline, and about midafternoon, feeling the height and breathing in great gasps, we rounded a grassy knoll and came upon the settlement of Sandakphu, at about twelve thousand feet. Here there was a forest cabin, a Dak Bungalow and a wooden house and huts for the "chowkidar" - or caretaker - nestling in a slight hollow beneath the rise of the hill.

It was bitterly cold, but there were great mountains to be seen. Kangchenjunga, of course, wreathed in clouds, loomed above us on one side, and farther away behind a long intervening ridge the Everest group stood out, misty and beautiful. The chowkidar was a good fellow and helped us build a fire in the cabin. He stayed for a while to warm himself but was rather shy and left us to ourselves after a little. It wasn't long before our meal was bubbling thickly in the billy. We had beans, rice and dhal, flavoured with onions and a little chilli powder and fortified with an egg. We ate this concoction with great relish, then settled back contentedly with a steaming mug of coffee.

"What more could a man ask, Jules? Here we are, high in the Himalayas with Everest out the window and Kangchenjunga round the corner. Beans on the boil, arse up the chimney. We've got it killed!" It was indeed a rare moment, and we enjoyed the warmth of the fire as we contemplated our fortune. "Do you remember that round-faced idiot in Darjeeling who kept telling us that we had come at the wrong time of the year? Well, so much for him!" He raised his fingers toward Darjeeling with a suitable gesture.

A bucket of water the chowkidar had left had become completely frozen up in the intense cold only five feet from the fire. This prompted Geoff to break into verse and he composed an ode to Sandakphu entitled, "It's Bloody Cold, Mate!"

"There's a little frozen bucket

In a hut at Sandakphu

Where a couple o' beaten bastards

Are trying to boil their stew.

They'd give the game away, tho'

If they only bloody knew

That the temperature outside, mate,

Is minus 22."

"Do you know what day this is, Geoff?" I mused staring at the flickering fire. "It's New Year's Eve."

"New Year's Eve? Jeez! Is it?" He jumped up and began to rummage through his pack. After a moment or two he held up a small, half-empty bottle of scotch. "Here we are, Jules! This'll do the job!" And he carefully measured out half the whisky into my mug, pouring the remainder into his own. "Here's to you, old lad, Happy New Year!"

"Yes. Same to you. It's a good start to the year, Geoff. The best, I guess." We sipped slowly and in silence for a moment.

"Did I ever tell you about Danny Reardon, Jules? He was a funny bugger. Lived in a valley that had been settled by some Irish families up in the hills near Sale. That's out in the eastern part of Victoria," he said, glancing over at me. "Loved fighting ... and the booze. I stayed with him for a while once and he used to come in on Saturday afternoons and say 'C'mon Geoff, let's go down to the pub 'n get drunk 'n have a fight.' We used to put a few jars away together. Anyway, one day I'd been out in a paddock fixing a fence for old Danny when I spied him coming in at the gate down near the creek. He came across the paddock towards me but couldn't see me because there were a couple of big, old gums in the way. So I thought, 'I'll have a bit of a joke on Danny,' and ducked behind one of the gums, thinking to jump out at him and give him a fright. But when he gets to the tree, he just stops around the other side, drops his strides and squats down to have a crap. Well, I thought, here's a go, and seeing Danny didn't know I was there, I quietly slid a big old piece of bark around the tree and under his backside. Then when Danny had finished, I just as quietly removed it. Danny stood up, fixed his pants, and naturally enough turned around to see what he had produced. When he saw there was nothing there, he let out a squawk like a sick parrot, looked all around, up in the tree, then finally went off scratching his head, looking very worried. He stayed off the booze all the rest of that week."

Once started, the tales were brought out lovingly, one by one, and we sat yarning until the embers had died away, and the freezing cold drove us into the warmth of our sleeping bags.

Our next day's hike was to take us to Phalut, about twelve miles away and also at about twelve thousand feet. we rose early, in the half-light, and I spent some time with the chowkidar, hacking away at the ice on top of the water storage tank set in the ground. The ice was about eight inches thick, and we used his kukri - or Gurkha knife - to break through sufficiently to get water. My hands became so cold that it was agonising as they thawed later by the fire. The mountains were shrouded and hidden until midmorning, and the track wound gradually but steadily down along the ridge that led out to Phalut. When the sun had cleared the mist, it became just warm enough to make us sweat on the occasional uphill stretches. The scene was very varied: deep valleys, forested slopes, with Birch and Silver Fir predominating, and always the great bulk of Kangchenjunga appearing so as to spur us on as we breasted each hill and rise.

About noon, the track started to lead upward again, so we stopped and sunned ourselves, absorbing the lovely beauty of this high sanctuary. Off again and steadily upward, until finally we came to the bungalow which we could see clearly at the top of the rocky path. There was nobody about but a yak grazing peacefully beneath a fluttering, tattered prayer flag. We let ourselves into the cabin and, finding some fuel and a half-used packet of Brooke Bond tea, made a brew and sat for a while before busying ourselves with the matter of preparing a meal. There were panes of glass missing from some of the windows, which let in occasional gusts of icy wind, so we stuffed them up with pillows, floor mats and other odds and ends. Slightly warmer, we settled down to eat, when there was a sudden thumping on the door. I opened the outer door, expecting to see the chowkidar, and found instead two broadly smiling Tibetans, one little more than a youth, and the other older, perhaps his father.

I motioned for them to come inside, and in they tramped, accompanied by a large, evil-smelling goat and blasts of freezing wind.

I bundled the goat quickly outside and beckoned the two men over to our fire, where they squatted down on their haunches, grinning happily. Not knowing Tibetan or Nepali, Geoff made eating signs, inviting them to join us as we tucked into our egg and vegetable stew. They refused but appeared to enjoy watching us, and squatted there smiling and nodding encouragement.

After we had eaten, I offered them a puff of my pipe, but they indicated a preference for cigarettes, which we did not have. Geoff, however, had been admiring the ornate boots they wore and secretly coveted them. These had thick skin soles and uppers brightly patterned in red over a black felt legging which stretched to the knee. After a while he tried a little tentative bargaining but without success. Then, pressing the matter, he tried by every means to persuade one of them to part with his boots, turning out his rucksack and offering them odd things he felt they might like. All to no avail. Indeed, they could not grasp what he was driving at and, still grinning widely, managed to convey to me a feeling of compassionate understanding that I should have a companion who was obviously not right in the head. Undaunted, Geoff made one last attempt, taking off his baggy and badly stained gabardine trousers, offering them as a final bargaining point. But, mistaking his intentions, they backed away, grinning less confidently, and took their leave, bobbing their braided pigtails as they ducked outside into the cold night.