Yards from the river, tiny lanes, shops in holes in the wall, draped wires, stand pumps where people wash, wandering cows and runaway chickens. Nothing is new, a stone carving over an arch tells me it was built in 1952. The place has a feeling of madness about it. On the way here we'd passed several naked holy men and a old lady made up like a tart and topless. "Mad", confirmed my contact sagely each time.

Apart from Independence it was some special festival called Bol Bam, I was taken to see. At this special place on the banks of the river people come to do the Bol Bam. This involves swimming in the river, filling two plastic pots with sacred water, and then walking 35 kilometres bare foot, with the pots hanging on a pole across your shoulders in the stinking heat to a particular shrine where you pour the water over Shiva. Hundreds of people do it every year. Madness I pointed out to my man. Surely the gods would rather you did some good for a fellow human than this. He told me when he was young he'd done it, and it took him three weeks to recover his health. But I pondered maybe superstitions run high, when life offers little else.

The communist party ran the place in to the ground for many years - that's my assessment anyway. Recently voted out of power, maybe things will change. I hope it does, maybe our business will help in some small way. But you have a feeling that when it does an old way of life will have been lost.

More news next week.