Strange things happen when you're half-way up a mountain in Nepal.

The sheer magnificence of the mountains and the smiling, resourceful people in the land they call The Abode of the Gods is something I will never forget. The crowded kingdom­ with its temple roofs and bazaars has no less than seven World Heritage landmarks, the most in such a small area anywhere in the world. From the spectacular mountain tops and the jungle wildlife of Chitwan National Park to the pine and rhododendron forests, its beauty is captivating. Standing on the lower slopes, looking out over the valleys, the land below is a patchwork quilt of subtle and delicate shades of green as if each piece has been hand-sewn into the earth and joined with delicate borders.

Back then, I was a teenager. Mum, Dad and four kids trekked to Nagarkot, thirty kilometres from Kathmandu, on the lower slopes (after all we were children). On holiday from our usual home away from home, Dacca city in Bangladesh, where my father worked for the Australian High Commission. We were hoping for a change in both scenery and tough goat meat curries. It was 1975, November, an ideal time for trekking, as the skies are clear and the days warm.

Flying Bangladesh Biman into Nepal was always an interesting experience. Back then, one could lay bets about whether the plane would or could actually land. That day, it couldn't. A stray herd of cows were chewing happily on the runway. The plane kept circling. Anxious passengers craned their necks and stared out of the windows while Nepali and Bengali nationals and expatriates, used to this kind of delay, flicked through magazines, and sighed. The plane circled and circled but couldn't land. One cow had decided to take an afternoon stroll down the tarmac. In Bangladesh, airport staff simply shooed them off. In Nepal, the cow is a sacred animal. Crimes against cows are not tolerated, and heavy punishments are metered out to those who defile them. Now, we were beginning to worry. Coughing and spluttering noises were coming from the plane. We were sure that we were running out of petrol. My father said not to worry. Planes always have an extra supply, he told us. My mother looked unconvinced. I could tell what she was thinking. Yes, in Australia, they do. Finally, the cow moved, and the plane dropped with relief onto the tarmac. The cow was still there on the other side of the field.  

As we prepared to go through customs, my sister's face turned pale. A few weeks earlier, my sister and I had flown back to Australia. When we'd reached customs in Sydney, we discovered that my sister had my mother's passport, and my mother had my sister's. This had not presented a problem with the bored betel nut chewing airport official back in Dacca. In Sydney, on checking my sister's passport, a customs official looked at my sister and said, 'It is an offence to carry someone else's passport. Which jail do you wish to go to?' My sister promptly burst into tears and answered, 'Parramatta, please, it's closest to home.'

I explained that this was the official's attempt at humour. Still, my sister remained unimpressed and forever after, while living on the Indian subcontinent, would slap down her passport and papers with a hard and stony look at anybody remotely connected with customs, contributing to the image of the rude foreigner.

And so, it came to pass that, at last, we were half-way up a mountain in Nepal, joined by other Aussie trekkers and an American couple seeking Nirvana. Being caught in the middle of a Hindu festival on the walk up was chaotic enough, and when the slaughtering of the goats began, bright red blood splashed over stone courtyards in the tiny villages. Foreigners shuddered. Nepali guides laughed and smoked endless cigarettes. And on we trekked. Through the scenery, greenery, and decorations, through flowers and paper garlands strung high on trees and through throngs of excited, chattering children.

Women with huge and heavy loads on their heads and backs, supported by material tied around the tops of their heads, overtook us. Just looking at them made me feel tired. In western Nepal, women give birth by themselves in small huts. They must deliver the baby by themselves and do their own cooking for three days before being allowed contact with anyone. This is the land of strong women and the famous Gurkha soldiers.

The guest house at Nagarkot appeared out of nowhere. We rounded a bend and there it was. Warm beds, great food, and breathtaking views. We sat on the verandah and drank tea, listening to the tinkling bells of nearby animals and the soft patter of the guides as they talked in rapid Nepalese. The sore feet were forgotten, as were the arguments we had had with my father about the driver. My mother had stopped saying, 'When we get off this mountain....' The temperature had started to drop. We didn't care. Out came the jumpers and jackets and we sat clutching tea in metal cups, surrounded by swirling mist and the eerie quiet. Cut off from the trappings of television, radio, music, telephones. The only thing to commune with was nature herself.

The argument had been over the driver. That morning a hired driver had taken us from a guest house in Kathmandu to the base of the mountain where we were to meet our guides and begin our trek. When we arrived, my father had paid the driver for the journey there and decided to pay him in advance for the trip back, telling him to meet us at the same spot the next afternoon. The driver placed his hands together in the traditional Namaste to say thank you and drove off.

'You' re crazy, Dad,' we chorused. 'He won't be back.'

'You don't know that' he replied. One more gullible foreigner. Poverty equals do what you can to rip off unthinking tourists. They're all rich. And of course, compared to him, we were.

Next morning found us descending the slopes accompanied by a group of tourists. Rounding the bend of the trail, our guides leading the way, we were stopped by a village child appearing from behind a large rocky outcrop. He wouldn't have been more than six or seven years old. A reluctant tethered goat accompanied him. His big saucer eyes looked hopeful as he approached us.

'You Australian? From Australia?' 

'Yes,' from Australia.

'Ok. Ok. I tell you now. Mr Gough Whitlam sacked just today. No more Prime Minister. One dollar, please.'

Although thirty-three per cent of Nepalese people live at altitudes over ten thousand feet, we were hardly up high enough to suffer from altitude sickness or anything else that would affect our hearing, but we had to ask him to repeat what he had told us.

'Mr Gough, Prime Minister, sacked. No more Prime Minister. One dollar, please.'

His dollar in hand, he scampered down a trail that disappeared into the bushes, oblivious of the total shock and amazement he had left in his wake. My father was shocked that the Prime Minister had been dismissed. My mother and the rest of us were shocked that a little boy who appeared from behind a rock had this vital information before we did. The other Australians didn't know quite what to make of it. On the walk down we digested the information, half expecting to see some enterprising Nepalese child with the Sydney Morning Herald pop out from behind a bush. This time it was my father who was in a hurry to get off the mountain and back to Kathmandu.

Naturally, the driver wasn't there to meet us, and I really can't remember how we got back to Kathmandu. It certainly was something to talk about later when conversations about the sacking of the Whitlam government came up. The ones that went, 'Where were you when you heard the news?'

In the birthplace of Buddha, the home of the Yeti and the land of the tallest mountain in the world, I came to believe that anything is possible.