Little Sangjay was fascinated by the birds: brightly coloured tragopans, garish impeyan monals and strutting Chinese golden pheasants. His small fingers gripped the wire netting of their cage whilst the sunshine lit their feathers. The speckled grey guinea fowl fussed in the rough grass of Col Jimmy Roberts’ Pokhara garden, and…
As the 65th year of the first ascent approaches, the mystery of a specially blended Chivas Regal is solved I know he’s an imposter.” The short wiry man with weasel eyes hissed loudly in the row behind me, his voice husky with vehemence. “That can’t possibly be the real Duke…
The Valley in the 1970s was a haven for biologists, ethnologists and anthropologists It still stands, a rather plain large brick house whose once-spacious garden has since sprouted several new residences, cheek by jowl. Located on the corner of Sanepa and Kiran Bhawan, the so-called ‘staff house’ was where I…
Through their enthusiastic lenses, nature film-makers introduced Nepal to a global audience Götz Dieter Plage (above) drove into our lives in one of those iconic early Range Rovers, a red one if I remember right, bristling with all the latest gadgets. His arrival in Nepal heralded a decade-long partnership with…
The world, and Nepal, have changed since the days of Wilfred Thesiger and Freya Stark Dame Freya Stark looked around her with some bemusement as we left the bustle of Kathmandu airport and headed into town. “I feel we must be somewhere East of the Euphrates,” she said vaguely. Excited by my task of…