Halesi Mahadev from Diktel

The dashed line is the mapped corridor through the valley and its villages, not a surveyed footpath. The real trail switchbacks around it — treks are verified against the corridor, not metre by metre.

From Diktel, the district headquarters of Khotang, across ridges and terraced farmland to the limestone caves of Halesi Mahadev — sacred to Hindus as a Shiva shrine and to Buddhists as a meditation cave of Padmasambhava. Middle-hill country the whole way: no altitude, a great deal of up and down, and villages rather than tea houses.