VISIT NEPAL

Kathmandu  - Nepal's Tourism Year 2011 has claimed the first Indian casualties with police arresting three men for allegedly seeking commercial sex in the capital. Rafiq Hussain, 40, Shahid Ahmad, 49, and Nadim Ahmad, 40, were arrested Saturday during a raid on a spa and beauty parlour in a key area of the capital that had been under surveillance following complaints by locals, police said. 'We raided the Natural Spa and Beauty Parlour located near the Yak and Yeti hotel,' inspector Krishna Prasad Koirala told IANS. 'The three Indian men were caught in compromising positions.' Six Nepali women, including the owner of the spa, were also arrested. The other five women, in their 20s, reportedly said they had come for beauty treatment while police claimed they were commercial sex workers. The three men told police they were tourists who had arrived from Lucknow, the capital of India's Uttar Pradesh state. On Sunday, the men were taken to the Kathmandu chief dist...

To reach the best place to see Mount Everest (known locally as Sagarmatha), from Nepal s capital city of Kathmandu you first take a half-hour flight on a small plane to Lukla, then walk 31 miles to the small city of Namche. The trekking is by foot, up 12,000 feet over an unpaved path that's inaccessible to motorized vehicles. Fifteen feet wide in some places, as narrow as five in others, the alternately rocky and smooth path ascends and descends, traversing narrow steel bridges over fast-flowing rivers, and a landscape of Himalayan peaks, pine forests and valleys. A vast number of faded but still lively Buddhist prayer flags hang from passing buildings. Tourism is an important part of Nepal's economy and Sagarmatha National Park is a popular destination, with people drawn to the roof of the world. Each year, about 25,000 tourists visit. But tourism, and the people it brings with it, creates a "population effect" in the region. An average of four service people migrat...