To my credit, after departing the bank, I carefully placed my passport into Nicks rucksack for safe keeping for the rest of the day and it wasn't until the following day when I was forced to bluff my way through police checkposts, having engraved my passport number into my rather selective memory, en route to trekking in the Langtang region just north of Kathmandu that I realised it was not where I thought it was. Unperturbed and confident (unfounded or not) in my own paranoia and therefore vigilance at being able to retain my belongings, I assumed it was at our hotel with the rest of my luggage only to find upon my return that yet again it was not where I hoped it was! After a frantic turning inside and out of all my stuff, double, triple and quadruple checking the strewn contents that I eventually became resigned to the fact that yet again the curse of my carelessness had struck again - Is there nothing save my head that I cannot loose?!

Again caution and preparedness had led me to bring not one but two (just in case I lost one!) photocopies of my passport and it was with this in hand and a fistful of rupees that I despairingly trudged off to the British Embassy. With time running down towards our agreed departure date from Kathmandu for the organised and accompanied trip to Lhasa that was bound with permits, guides, trucks and the rest of the groups entry, my primary concern was that I should be able to replace all the necessary paperwork including Chinese and Nepalese visas in time. I had spent the previous nine or ten months back in England researching and attempting to negotiate the very tricky business of entry into Tibet from Nepal which was crucial to the whole integrity and success of the expedition. For example you are permitted to travel from Lhasa to Kathmandu unaccompanied but not in the reverse direction! Our permit also stipulated our individual details as well as those of our passports and for me to have enforced a change or the new documentation did not arrive in time, it meant that nobody in our group would be able to enter Tibet. I was beside myself that I was jeopardising the whole trip which was already stressful enough at this important and still precarious stage, however the embassy were refreshingly most upbeat and I received a brand, spanking new passport the following afternoon.

The next day, I visited the Chinese Embassy and was thankfully able to renew my visa which had been cited as a potential source of problem in the guideboooks, unfortunately for only 60 days as opposed to the 90 days I had originally obtained in London which would have seen me through the entire section of China without the hassle and inconvenience of having to renew it. Another of the many strangely and seemingly random bureaucratic reasons established for this discrepancy is that in this instance the authorities assume that anyone obtaining a Chinese visa in Nepal will certainly be going to Tibet which the Chinese, it appears would prefer to discourage, making the obtaining of your visa in either your home country or somewhere reasonably close to hand such as Delhi of even more importance. To include Tibet as a place to be visited on your application form ensures that it will be rejected thus forcing you to apply through a private company which can vastly inflate the price and force you to travel completely non-independently not only through Tibet but possibly also through certain sections of China. As in London, I was therefore forced to fabricate a story involving flying to Shanghai or Beijing putting a variety of unintended destinations to be visited to ensure some independence of travel which was again paramount to this whole leg of the expedition.

Thankfully having negotiated the successful deposit of my passport, but not the payment for my visa as the clerk disappeared from her till less than a minute before I was processed by the first jobsworth. I then had to insist that I received a written receipt for my new passport which he eventually did rather hurriedly and completely incomprehensible to me in Chinese on a post-it note that he handed to me whilst simultaneously dealing with a rather irate Nepali who was arguing most vociferously as to the reasons for the rejection of his application.

After this fiasco and still not 100% confident that I could collect my much prized visa in three working days, I headed back towards our hotel for a lie down only to be approached by Nick on a bike carving through the traffic at breakneck speed towards me. He then produced my original passport which had somehow fallen amongst some of the spare parts and bicycle equipment he had been arranging that morning but was taken from his rucksack on our first day of torment and disorganisation regarding the Biman bicycle debacle. Having been confident that I really could not have lost my passport within two days - even by my own pretty shambolic standards, and with Nick having taken his rucksack trekking with him when the potential loss was first discovered and it was not in his bag, not to mention him being present in my desperate search at the hotel once returned from our trek, this was the last place that I had expected it to be. At this point, I would probably have preferred to have lost it for good rather than have it reappear, making all the accompanying considerable stress and expense at its loss and replacement all completely unnecessary.

With my new passport deposited at the now closed Chinese Embassy and my old passport in my hand, with a distinct lack of humour I returned to the British Embassy. Having recently completed the most incredible and enthralling autobiography about Howard Marks entitled 'Mr. Nice' in which he assumed a whole host of different aliases for a variety of scams, it occurred to me that I could possibly somehow sell my 'spare' or old passport to someone of hopefully very minor criminal inclinations to more than financially compensate for the losses I had incurred. This seemed even more appealing upon a closer examination of my travel insurance literature which appeared only to be of any financial assistance if some form of personal liability or accident occurred. As a loss of a limb seemed a little drastic, though not completely out of the question considering my current misfortunes and perpetual clumsiness, I dutifully informed the Embassy that my original passport had been found. I was efficiently told that the relevant cancellation processes had already been started and my passport was then cut and stamped before being returned to the somewhat forlorn figure the other side of the thick perspex screen who was finding the whole situation rather draining.

The next few days, interspersed between sightseeing and a bout of illness I visited two police stations, the first local station twice because nothing had been done after my initial visit, in an attempt to get an official report as to the loss of my passport. Each time I was politely questioned and requestioned by an officer who seemed to be taking more of an interest in who I was and what I was doing rather than anything of an interrogatory nature which was engaging and of interest but did not exactly speed the whole process along! After a couple of drawn out afternoons and now with my report in hand, I could collect my passport complete with visa from the Chinese Embassy and lastly visit immigration control where I was informed it should only take twenty or thirty minutes for me to obtain a replacement tourist visa free of charge. As it was now Wednesday afternoon and our departure for Tibet was confirmed for Friday morning, 9am sharp, time was certainly of the essence.

Having eventually located the rather nondescript and tucked away Nepalese Office of Immigration - I had already cycled past it once without noticing, having been given some misdirections at the police station, I arrived with two passports, photocopies, passport size pictures and other relevant information and was keen to complete the formalities as swiftly as possible so that I could return to the other side of Kathmandu to Thamel and assist in the final preparations for our imminent departure. Alas I was told to return tomorrow as the person in question who could authorise my visa was away until then - probably!

The following day I did receive my new visa but not without having to spend an excruciating two hours being passed from office to office and back again, thus completing the necessary paperwork required for the trip with typical last minute execution with only a matter of hours to go. Having witnessed the stark contrast between the efficiency of the embassies and the relatively haphazard and unnecessarily long winded approach of the Nepalese - at least half the people in every office that I presume were supposed to be working were either chatting, drinking tea and or reading the newspapers, what I assumed should have been the relatively complicated part of obtaining new documentation turned out to be far easier than dealing with the local authorities who it appeared had far less to do!

As a seasoned loser of perspective, temper and belongings plus a lot more besides, my advice is if you are to loose your passport (heaven forbid!) then try to ensure you do it at home. Failing that, at least try to do it in a country where it does not require ten people to fill out the same form and ask you the same questions over and over again - if not for the pressures of time then at least for the sake of your sanity!