I was on official robe-wearing duty and while leaning up against the rails of the balcony which overlooks a floor of cells, watching the Prisoners undertake their daily chores, I was joined by a Jesuit Priest.

We did not know each well but we shared a comraderie awarded to us by virtue of the fact that we were `us' and they down there were `them'.

My good friend Ngakma Shardrol once said to me that she would not contemplate a retreat at Tsogyel Gé'phel Jong until after the menopause.

After discussing the merits of Prison Life we began to compare our religious training and retreats. He tried to impress me with tales of the freezing conditions at Seminary College, removing ice from the taps before shaving in the morning. I described what I was going to at Tsogyel Gé'phel Jong - a hole in the ground for a loo, a single tap to wash from - and then I took enormous pleasure describing the wide range of stomach upsets encountered in Nepal, starting from squitty diarohea and proceeding through cyclonic dysentery.

The Jesuit Priest and I were quiet for a while, and then he asked me, "Did you attend boarding school?"

I said, "Yes, Did you?"

He replied, "Yes."

We looked at each other with that knowing, comforting look that can only pass between those have who have shared similar experiences - and without articulating it, we both thought `nothing compares with the horrors of boarding school.'

When I bother to remember life at boarding school, I shudder to think of the cold, the bad food, lukewarm baths on a Friday night, and the lack of privacy so desperately sought in early teenagerhood.

This early conditioning probably explains why, as an adult, I am obsessed with flamboyant, colourful, and exotic bathrooms. I enjoy candlelit, hour-long baths. I like them bubbly, oily and fragrant. I like warm, thick, soft towels. My parents, also victims of boarding school could not understand why I should want to spend six weeks in a place without a bathroom. I never mentioned to them that there loomed a worse ordeal - Raging Oceans.

My good friend Ngakma Shardrol once said to me that she would not contemplate a retreat at Tsogyel Gé'phel Jong until after the menopause. I decided that in my case I could not wait that long, and indeed neither could the raging oceans which arrived as I arrived in Nepal.

The unpredictable ebb and flow of the tides of the oceans was surprisingly manageable even with the ten minute dash to the hole in the ground and the cold tap. The whole experience was not uncomfortable or even embarrassing, even though it appeared clear that Kyabje Künzang Dorje Rinpoche knew what was going on by my frequent washing of white lace pants that hung on the line below his room.

After a week, I congratulated myself on a successful completion of this female biological function. But there remained one last task to complete. With no flushing loo or refuse collection facility - I had a bag of used sanitary wear which needed disposing.

I asked my guide how I should dispose of my refuse, confident that he would have a solution. He said, "We take taxi to Boudha, sort out then." I left it at that.

Next morning, we took a taxi to Boudha. After a short while, the taxi stopped at the edge of the mountainside.

My guide nudged me and said, "You throw down there."

I said, "What?"

He said, "You throw rubbish down there."

I said, "I am not throwing my rubbish - particularly this sort of rubbish - down a beautiful mountainside. In the West we do not do this sort of thing."

With exasperation my guide shrugged his shoulders and said, "Okay, you burn it."

Back at Tsogyel Gé'phel Jong, I found a suitable spot in the field next to the retreat centre. I lit some matches, but there appeared no spontaneous combustion. I used up half a box of matches, but nothing happened. I began to panic because the only thing which had burnt was the plastic bag revealing its contents to anyone whose curiosity may have been aroused by my peculiar activities.

My panic increased when I saw Kyabje Künzang Dorje Rinpoche on his balcony laughing at me. This was a clear sign that I would shortly attract the attention of the rest of the retreatants.

I rushed into my room and searched the depths of my wash bag. Success, I found a small amount of nail varnish remover. Assuming this was a flammable liquid, I was confident that my predicament would soon be dissolved.

The nail varnish worked. I stood like a Prison Camp Warder guarding the entrance to the field, pretending to admire the view, and hoping that nobody would be tempted to join me. Kyabje Künzang Dorje Rinpoche sat and laughed and laughed, I think, at me.

I resolved next time that I would bury or chuck my rubbish down the mountainside, Nepalese style.

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