I was about to undertake the challenge of a lifetime. Travelling alone to a Third World country for the first time had me in a cold sweat and my stomach in knots. Kathmandu was as foreign and mythical to me as Timbuktu and I was nervous as hell. I had no idea what to expect and no plans other than spending some time in Nepal before going to India. I was told Kathmandu would be less of a shock to the system than the bedlam of New Delhi. Nevertheless, culture shock gave me a resounding slap in the face.

I left the airport at 9pm, late by the daylight-living tradition of the Nepalese. The other foreigners on my flight had already gone and as I walked outside countless taxi drivers swamped me, all desperately touting for business. I followed a driver to his car and got in. He said he worked for a hotel and told me the room rates. It was more than I wanted to pay but I agreed because I was exhausted and anxious to find a place to stay. During the 20- minute drive to the hotel there was no-one to be seen in the streets. Kathmandu had closed for the night and I was relieved to have arrived in one piece. The next morning bright clear skies and superb mountain views awaited me as I set out to find a cheap guesthouse. At sunrise the whole city became a frenzied hive of activity and the streets, alleyways and squares were teeming with life. I found myself in the centre of Thamel, the bustling area in the northern part of Kathmandu where most tourist accommodation, shops and restaurants are located.

The maze of narrow roads was chaotic. There were bicycles, cars, taxis, auto-rickshaws, bicycle-rickshaws, mopeds and motorbikes — the latter used by families of four or five like a family saloon. To get anywhere on foot I had to negotiate the traffic, goats, dogs, chickens, cats, water buffalo and, of course, the holy cows, which roamed the streets feeding on refuse. Traffic drives on the left in Nepal, but in Kathmandu, people, vehicles and animals successfully weave in and out of each other from all directions. The cow has priority and if one decides the middle of a busy road is a good place to lie down the other road users wait amiably while the beast is gently urged out of the way.

Map in hand, I tried to find the guesthouse that a friend had recommended. Dazzled by the profusion of shops with their colourful wares on display and all the unfamiliar sights, sounds and smells I became distracted. Kathmandu is a shopper’s paradise and as I wandered round making mental shopping lists it wasn’t long before all the streets began to look the same. Time was slipping by and I had to leave my hotel by noon. Where was that guesthouse? “Excuse me, madam. You need help?”, a young man called as I was scrutinising my map. Warily I asked him if he knew of the Himalayan Guesthouse. “Come, follow me. I’ll take you”, and he turned and marched off down an alley. I followed uncertainly .

During the five-minute walk to the guesthouse he told me his life story and his circumstances. His name was Gopal, from Madras in India, and he’d come to Kathmandu to find work so he could send money to his widowed mother and three sisters. Unable to find work, he was stranded in Kathmandu without a rupee to his name and couldn’t get back to his family.

It was Gopal’s lucky day. I gave him a few rupees for getting me to the guesthouse, and his face lit up — apparently I’d given him the equivalent of a week’s wages. Not surprisingly Gopal was hot on my heels the next time I went out and wasn’t about to let me out of his sight. With my Western sensibilities still intact I couldn’t tell him to get lost. I managed to shake him by ducking into a tourist shop and made my escape when the owner chased him off.

I spent a lot of time sight-seeing, following the well-trodden tourist route, nothing off the beaten track or too adventurous. One of the magical places I explored was Durbar Square, the hub of the old city, built by the Malla kings of the 15th and 16th centuries. The complex of more than 50 temples and shrines is still in daily use and entering it was like stepping into a forgotten world. Incense hung heavily in the air and the gods were festooned with flowers and vermilion powder. Beaded and dreadlocked holy men sat at the Shiva temples awaiting alms while the devout chanted mantras and performed “puja” — their ritual offerings to God.

I wanted to people-watch from the temple steps but whenever I sat down a crowd gathered. Confronted by those staring eyes, and chants of “You want to buy? Very cheap price,” and “You want boyfriend? Hey, sexy lady”, I panicked and kept walking until I recovered my sense of space.

Unlike Western culture, men and women don’t show physical affection to each other in public. The women dress modestly, and being aware of western woman’s sexually provocative image, I did too. I wore ankle-length skirts and long-sleeved shirts. Hardly an inch of skin was showing but I felt naked when men leered at me. I never felt physically threatened as the unwritten rule seemed to be “look, but don’t touch”.

At the guesthouse I wasn’t alone. There were several couples, they were friendly and we’d eat together, but I needed to meet single people to make friends and find travelling companions. I found a tour company that arranged trekking and rafting. I was after some excitement so I put my name down for the trip with the biggest, fastest rapids. Within two days I was at Kusma, the starting point of our trip down the Kali Gandaki, one of the rivers of the Annapurna ranges. It surges through dangerous rocky gorges before opening into wide stretches of unruffled water.

We were a party of 16 tourists of various nationalities, plus five Nepalese guides. All the equipment, tents, food and personal belongings were packed into three hi-tech rubber rafts that we crewed in teams. We spent five days rafting through breath-taking country, the magnificent Himalayan snow-capped peaks above us. We stoped at white, sandy beaches to cook lunch and set up camp. We were miles from civilisation, and the peace and tranquillity melted the stresses of Kathmandu.

The guides were great and made the trip special. Nepalese people are well known for their charm and friendliness. The tour leader, Ganesh, told us he’d grown up along the river and mastered the river’s currents at an early age. By sharing stories of our lives we wondered at our cultural differences, but we also found much in common.

After the trip I felt recharged. I’d made some good friends and a few of us stayed in a guesthouse when we returned to Kathmandu. I felt I’d bridged the communication gap between myself and the Nepalese. From then on it was a challenge to communicate with people. The pointing and the staring stopped bothering me and I began to see it as harmless curiosity that I could return. The frustration of being ripped off was forgotten as I began to learn the local prices and haggling in the shops became fun and a challenge.

Once I’d abandoned my western sensitivity and self-consciousness, I found I could express myself and communicate, rather than take offence and feel intimidated. It’s all just a matter of cultural difference, and you know what they say, when in Nepal ...

It was a shock to go back into the hub of the old street after the serenity of the studio. I was jostled and pushed from side to side by the enormous crowds of sherpas carrying panniers full of everything from chickens to firewood and vegetables. It was market day and everyone was in town. Ducks and geese were shepherded down the road and children found themselves in the middle of piles of shoes or swathes of silk as their mothers set up the family stall.

The crowds continued to swell as people came from every direction, forcing me into a corner where a huge sacred cow started to lick me. Before it could mistake me for a tasty piece of refuse to chew on, I escaped through a hole in the wall and along a tiny alley out of the maze of back streets into Kathmandu’s Durbar Square.

With its mythical lions, giant drums and ornate temples guarded by club-footed Sadhus — holy men with colourful beads and dreadlocks — the infamous square looked like a theatrical set at the end of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s season in Stratford-Upon- Avon. It was a stage where the religious gurus took the leading roles and played the parts for all they’re worth. In one hand they held metal tridents, in the other an alms bowl into which people dropped rice, fruit and other goodies as they entered the temple to make their holy Puja. The holy men rolled their eyes heavenward and never seemed to acknowledge these generous gifts. But, as soon as the pilgrims were out of sight, they would tuck into the tasty morsels, using the trident to disguise their gluttony. The square was full of strange characters, tuneful flute sellers, an old man selling jars containing all sorts of potions, an astrologer and the Kumari — a living goddess until the age of puberty.

The Kumari had been specially chosen from a caste of Newar goldsmiths, along with 10 other five-year-old candidates. They were locked in a room with evil masks and scared half to death with animal rituals and strange noises — the one who shows the least fear is installed on a throne. During the Dasian festival, the spirit of the goddess enters her body during the ceremony. When she starts her first period she becomes human again and the process begins again.

I had never seen a living goddess before so I was intrigued to find out if she was any different from the other children running around. Making my way to the far corner of Durbar Square, where a three storey wooden building housed the girl, I was welcomed by a pair of guards who pointed to her window.

The big gate beside the Kumari house concealed a chariot which takes the living goddess around Kathmandu once a year for three days during the festival of the God Indra. This ritual is a penance for the King Jayaprakash Malla’s sin of having intercourse with a pre-pubescent girl who died as a result of his brutal behaviour. Entering the complex, I wandered into the middle of an 18th Century court with beautiful wooden carvings. Sadly the artistic windows were wedged firmly closed. Just as I had given up hope of seeing her, the Kumari appeared at the window like a China Doll.

Her perfect features gave her unreal airs and graces. Her eyes were cold and distant, not warm and friendly like the other Nepalese children, with exaggerated dark rings of kohl that extended as far as her ears. Her hair was piled up, almost in a Victorian beehive style. In contrast, her dress was surprisingly simple. As the devotees started bowing, I found myself also kneeling before the window and paying homage to Nepal’s most venerated child. As more people gathered I left and went for a look at the myriad of temples and shrines built by the Malla Kings in the 15th and 16th Centuries.

Durbar Square houses more than 50 holy places, keeping even the most devoted person busy. The most exciting temples are the ones with erotic carvings — the best example being Jagannath Temple, constructed by King Mahendra in the 16th Century. It is also the shrine of the monkey god, Hanuman, and a 17th Century stone inscription written in 18 languages including French and English. I tried to read each one in turn to see if, as the myth says, milk would spout forth, but my accent only brought cackles of laughter from a group of postcard hawkers. They tried to sell me a series of badly printed images of Kathmandu and I was relieved that none of the cards had special effects showing the milk pouring forth.

Another temple, equally well known for its sexually explicit carvings, is Maju Deval. I was so fascinated by some of the positions carved on the temple that I nearly fell off the nine-stage platform. It was an excellent place to sit with the view over the square and out to Swayambhunath. A devotee explained that the squares in Patan, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu are connected and sitting there enjoying the comings and goings it was easy to see how. Before leaving the square altogether and getting on with organising my trekking permit and other equally tedious paper work I decided to try the Nepalese version of the lie detector. Legend has it that liars will die immediately after touching the Black Bhairab statue’s feet.

The screech of a startled pigeon, disturbed by a trishaw moving off, just stopped me placing my hands on the statue’s feet. As the smell of incense and sweet smelling flowers, left as offerings at other temples, caught my nostrils I moved off again, this time in the direction of Freak Street. I took this as an omen that I was not ready for the truth.

FACT FILE