Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
In 1768 Prithvi Marayan Shah, the 9th Shah king, invaded the Kathmandu Valley from his stronghold near Pokhara. To conquer the Valley was a long held dream on account of the perceived wealth and fertility of the area. On victory the king moved his administration to Kathmandu and the Shah dynasty still exists to this day. Undeterred by unsuccessful skirmishes against the Chinese, the Nepalis continued to stretch their borders, in particular through the Terai and down into what is now Sikkim in India. Such expansion led to conflict with the British who had by now started their colonisation of India, and the Nepalis suffered defeats which led to the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816. The result was that Britain took most of Sikkim and most of the Terai although some of the land was returned in 1858 as a reward for Nepali support during the Indian Mutiny.
In 1846 a palace coup engineered by a young Chhetri noble from western Nepal, Jung Bahadur, resulted in the new dynasty of Ranas emerging as the real power behind the Shah kings for more than a century. Nepal's self-enforced isolation during this period meant that only a handful of travellers crossed its borders although a British resident was always stationed in Kathmandu. Conversely Gurkha soldiers who were employed by the British and Indian armies fought in many different areas of the world.
After the Second World War, India gained its independence and a revolution in China forced many Tibetan refugees to flee into Nepal. The country became a buffer between the two Asian giants and amidst the continuing turmoil, a new political party, Nepali Congress, was formed under the leadership of the charismatic BP Koirala. In 1951 the Ranas' influence had diminished to the point that the ruling King Tribhuvan presided over a new coalition government and the country gradually reopened its doors to the outside world. In 1990 the current King Birendra accepted the introduction of multiparty democracy and his role as a constitutional monarch and in 2007 the interim government passed a bill declaring Nepal to be a Federal Democratic Republic.
The Nepalese economy is fragile with an ever increasing birth rate, but the country is blessed with fertile land watered by the streams and rivers of the great Himalayas, and a friendly people with a fascinating culture.
