Autumn

When the rain finally lifts, it leaves the mountains scrubbed clean. The monsoon has washed and polished the air, and the snow peaks come back razor-sharp on the skyline — the best mountain views of the whole year, turning right around you, the reward for sitting out the rains.

The orchards give their last and best — sauo and naspati, the apples and pears, at their peak, with walnuts dropping from the trees — and the new harvest comes to the table: madua roti, fresh rice, bhatt and gahat. The mornings turn crisp enough that the light woollens find their way back out, and the nights go cold and thick with stars, the finest skies of the year.

Khatarua's September bonfires mark the turn from the wet season into the clear, and then the villages turn festive — Dussehra into Diwali, when from a ridge at night you can see the lamps of distant homes pricking out across the dark. It is wedding season, too — ours was a November wedding — the lanes filling with bands and feasting. If you come to these hills only once, this is the season: clear, crisp and generous, the finest weather the year ever gives.