Kathmandu - 13 December

I have been here a week now and feel as though I have been living a waking dream - wading through plasma - Nepal has that effect - you lose all concept of time and everything seems to have a crinkly, nebulous feel to it. Kathmandu is a city crammed with contradiction - fast-paced but oh-so-slow, dreamy but unbearably real, staggeringly beautiful and ugly. It's just a touch ironic that only here in the world's second most polluted city (second only to Mexico City), can the air have such a soporific effect that in my first 4 days I managed to clock a whopping 42 hours on my sleepometer - yes me, a chronic insomniac.

I'm not sure I know myself here. I notice little things about me when I'm here - the fact that I don't much feel like singing, don't much feel like socialising in the evenings and don't drink or smoke. Don't get me wrong, whenever I'm with my shrinking parents it feels like home, but the moment I step out of our house and I am walking the streets of this city, I find myself wondering if this me can ever truly be happy. I'm certainly not joyless and I get lashings and lashings of love from my Ma and Pa, but I am not me.

But then I've always had a problem knowing myself. For a start I'm gemini and they say that geminis have two personalities. I'm also english, nepali, western, asian - I feel as though I'm suffering from multiple personality disorder. And until I learn to reconcile the different me's, then I will have a serious problem.

I chose to stay out in London and lead the life I thought I wanted. By day I continue to be English, but at night when I'm lying in bed I can't stop thinking about how maybe it was time I came back here, played my part as the dutiful daughter and looked after my folks. Every time I come back here it gets harder and harder to convince myself that returning to London is the 'right' thing to do.

But what really is 'right' for me? Is it right for me to give up my way of life and come back to a country where I never really feel 100% comfortable out of some strange sense of filial duty? Or is it right for me to stay where I want to...in London?

Guess I need to do some thinking on that one.

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