I tumble out of the plane in Kathmandu with sleep-crusted eyes and a slight hangover from the past night in Bangkok. Tribhuvan International is half-airstrip, half-busted parking lot and a place I spent 48 sleepless hours in just over a decade ago. But before I can light a cigarette or finish the first of a hundred tiny cups of chai, the subcontinent issues its greeting: a thousand angry horn blasts, an attack of touts, a peculiar smell, and a lot of physical contact.