'A Beard In Nepal' is the story of the five months Tod and Fiona spent in a small, remote village high in the Himalayas of Nepal, attempting to teach English to the village children. It is the story of an ordinary (?) middle aged couple from Liverpool who did an extraordinary thing, and lived to tell the tale. The book is an often humorous account of the challenges they faced while, for example, trying to teach the children in a small wooden hut, high up in the middle of a forest, without the benefit of water, electricity or toilet. They faced a constant struggle with the horrendous, debilitating effects of altitude sickness; the always present threat from wild tigers; severely restricted diet; and hair raising journeys along some of the highest, most dangerous roads in the world. They were among the first white people ever to visit the village of Salle, and could not have been received more warmly by the villagers and children, who did everything they could to make Tod and Fiona's stay in the village a happy one.
We follow the couple as they teach a variety of sports and games to the children; as Tod builds them a see-saw; and as they brave the chaotic and dangerous mountain roads to visit the old Everest Base Camp of Edmund Hillary's time. The book highlights a number of interesting areas, not least the immense difference between the lives of the village children in Nepal and those of the children growing up in the West. Fiona and Tod also managed to visit Tibet, and climbed up to the awesome Potala Palace in Lhasa, having water thrown at them by a Chinese dignitary along the way. And of course the book also focuses on the time they spent in dirty, grimy, manic Kathmandu. 'A Beard In Nepal' is on Amazon as an Ebook and has downloaded approx 3,000 copies. The second part, 'A Beard In Nepal 2. Return to the Village' is now also out.