For better or worse, honeymoon memories rarely fade – no matter how much they’ve changed since mine

• 40 years on from my disastrous wedding night, I’ve found there is much to love about Monkey Island

As we lay in bed, we watched a rat of enormous proportions emerge from the ceiling and run down the bedroom wall. Other rats joined it. When we told the manager the following morning, he smiled broadly. “Oh, yes indeed,” he said amiably, “we have many rats. They are very tame.” From Kathmandu we took a small plane to a jungle landing strip and then, thrillingly, mounted elephants for a four-hour ride to Tiger Tops in the Chitwan National Park. Due to our lost luggage, we were still in the clothes in which we had left the wedding.

My ridiculous outfit included a pair of shiny brown patent high heels. What can have possessed me to travel in them, I know not, except that going on a long plane journey was a cause for dressing up.

In the camp, staff and guides were lined up to greet us. Later they told us – when we had explained our predicament, made friends with them and been lent shorts and T-shirts – that as our elephants approached with us atop, they gave us their secret prize, hands down, for the most ridiculous guests Tiger Tops had seen.

During our stay we saw tigers close up, as well as rhinos, herds of elephants, crocodiles, rare freshwater dolphins and exotic birds. We then left Chitwan and spent three weeks travelling around Nepal.

Those were the days. A couple of years later, before the advent of children, we took another month off and spent it in Kashmir and Ladakh.

Since then, freewheeling travels rather than organised holidays lasting a week or so have been impossible, but at least we have our honeymoon memories – just.

• The world’s 50 best honeymoons