Today I trekked from upper Pisang to Ngarwal via Gyaru. Its old name is Yakru and some of the signs along the trail still bear this name.

I'm not sure of the date because that doesn't seem very important here unless you have a plane or bus or something to catch! The route was fantastic. With out-of-this-world views of the villages we'd trekked through and encounters with all sorts of alpine scrub birds as well as vultures in the heavens. Like the day before, we didn't manage to see any musk deer.

Regardless, the trek though beaten with intense sun, shivering winds and dusty trails, was an experience that rejuvenates the human spirit. Coming from a world devoid of character, the villages along this trek were nostalgic of a civilisation that once existed in Singapore - the kampungs where everyone was friendly, neighbours would stroll in and out of each others homes, good things were shared, and though life was hard, people found ways to be happy.

Mukhiya told me several stories of the evolution of Buddhism in the region, the nomadic life and origins of the present settlers, and time and again he'd quiz me about the names of the summits we crossed, which I'd forget every ten seconds or so.

In Yakru, yak horns are used as holdfasts for the construction of walls, a technique hundreds of years old, yet so creative, resourceful and aesthetic!

Everytime we entered and left a new village, we'd walk through kengkhi or chothein. Their purpose is to protect the village from the bad experiences and spirits that may be accompanying trespassers or travellers from their places of origin. Travellers too are given something in this exchange. Several walls of prayer wheels, some half a century old, give travellers wishes of "good luck", "long life" and "God gives" when crossed from left to right.

Mukhiya foraged in the wild scrub and amongst trees to give me a palatable experience of the region. Things I've eaten:

• Shanggo - tastes like apricot
• Kung - good for fever, many small red seeds
• Wild Rosa/ Thangsuk - small, red, not tasty!
• Juniper berries
• Wild peach/Kalah

Ending the journey in Upper Pisang, I meet a boy named Deepak, 16, who's working as a kitchen assistant. He's originally from a lowland village between Kathmandu and Pokhara. He travelled to the mountains to work and plans to stay for the long term.

In the morning, after serving breakfast to the hungry travellers at the inn, Deepak walks up the foot of the mountain to let the cattle out from their night in the stables.

There are apple trees all along the village.

Mukhiya and I sat in the kitchen of his old friend in Ngarwal, and watched as his son fixed the muzzle strap for a fawn that's due to be tamed. His mother stirred a pot of pinesap that will eventually be made into a kind of herbal candy called Thangkuang. A certain insect coexists in the pine needles, converts the sap into a kind of sugar. The family originates from Tibet. His name is Punzok, his wife's name is Gangcho.

In the winter, most family members from each house will go down to Kathmandu while one stays behind to look after the animals.

It seems many people have friends or relatives that have worked in Singapore or Malaysia. In Pokhara, I met a man along the path around Fewa Lake that spoke to me in Bahasa Malay. Then when we arrived in Humde and were headed towards Pisang, an old man that sells trinkets along the trekking route, loves to sing and tends to cattle for a living, did the same. At the Asian Mountain Biking Championships in Kathmandu, one of the marshals too spoke to me in BM and the principals at one of the schools I visited used to work with the British police in Singapore. Not forgetting one of the cab drivers I ran into in Kathmandu who had a brother that is working in Singapore. And an inn keeper's wife who is cooking dhal for me now has three brothers that are working in Singapore and Malaysia, selling antiques, trinkets and the like. It's fascinating. She's originally from Manang.

I'm told that initially, business between Nepal and Thailand and Hong Kong was popular because of a duty free trade agreement.

Punzok makes and plays the domngen, a Tibetan string instrument that looks like a guitar and is a very good horseman. He loves to kid around.

I feel so fortunate to have run into a guide like Mukhiya who's allowed me an intimate experience of the Manang district, its people and environment. I can't imagine settling with something less.

Some European trekkers are now fast asleep in their rooms, focused on the trek ahead, while I sit here, next to an open juniper wood fire, with a young boy about to open up a pressure cooker filled with fragrant rice, and though I understood little of their conversations, the visual experience - of dried meats hanging above the stove, chrysanthemum flowers floating in copper pots of water, mud walls fashioned into shelves, steamed pizza being taken out of their aluminum steaming deck, a supremely neat arrangement of glasses, copper pots, mugs, porcelain bowls, aluminum thermos flasks and plastic plates.

Ingredients for Rakxi (ala Mukhiya): Wheat flour wine with sugar and egg, heated ideally in the sun but can also be quickly done over the fire.

Perkas, age 12

There's a spiritually touching kinship amongst the locals of the mountains and those who work here. Unlike India, where young boys employed are treated rudely and like slaves, Perkas seemed like a son to the couple in the kitchen at the inn. The porters who work so hard eat at separate tables, and different food from their clients, but share the same dinner place mat as the family and me.