There are out-of-the-way places that no one goes to and there are out-of-the-way places that everyone goes to. Gosainkunda during the monsoon is one place you may think is off everyone\'s list, but you will be mistaken if you go there this month looking for wilderness, nature, silence and solitude. For a whole week beginning a few days before 15 August, Kathmandu pilgrims will clamber up the slippery slopes from Dhunche to the holy lake of Gosainkunda. Most of them will look less like pilgrims and more like Godavari picnickers, raucous and uncouth.

But among them you will see the truly devout, many of them old and infirm, climbing to the lakes at 4,000 metres to take a holy dip. The placid and freezing waters of the lakes are considered the source of the watery plume above Lord Shiva\'s head, and a symbol of all that is holy in the Hindu way of life. Many will be sick with altitude sickness and turn back.

Gosainkunda has suddenly become less arduous because of what is optimistically called a "road" to Dhunche. At the moment of going to press, the road had been washed off by a landslide in two places, so pilgrims this year will have to trudge up from Trisuli itself- like they used to before the road to the Tibetan border was built.

After the exhausting bus ride to Trisuli (six hours from Kathmandu with the present condition of the road) you may be tempted put off the walking for the next day. But my advice would be to get as high as you can above the hot and humid valley floor. Two days later you will arrive in Dhunche-one of those Nepali mountain villages whose old world, pre-highway charm has been grotesquely obliterated by the arrival of the road. Dhunche has a wild west look about it. But instead of gold, it is the road head for the lead and zinc mines on Ganesh Himal, and the gateway to Langtang National Park.

Most of the trekkers you see will be heading up to Langtang, but you take the steep road that climbs through the pine forests towards Gosainkunda. The really fit have been known to make it in one day. But you may want to take it easy and break the journey half-way up-especially if the monsoon clouds decide to break in the late afternoon and give you a breathtaking view of the Ganesh range.

The forests are alive with birds, butterflies and the forest floor is sprinkled with monsoon flowers. (Watch out for leeches though.) If you get there before the pilgrims arrive, Gosainkunda itself will be so tranquil, and the dip so invigorating, that you feel holy even if you are not a Hindu. From here you have three options: take the same road down to Dhunche, follow the wild and exploratory route northeast towards Langtang Valley, or head down to Kathmandu through Ghopte Bhir, Tharepati, Helambu and Sundarijal in two days.

Whatever you do, the holy tingling on your skin from the dip at Gosainkunda will clear your soul and stay with you for a long time.