Nepal - About the Country

Nepal is a small landlocked country in Asia, north of India, which is part of the Himalaya mountain chain and boasts eight of the world's top ten highest mountains, including Mount Everest. To the south the humid Terai, a belt of marshy grasslands, savannahs, and forests at the base of the Himalaya range, belongs partly to Nepal too. The capital is Kathmandu, which is also the largest city, located in the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal, formed by the Bagmati River.

Probably the first exploration of this country concerning caves was made in the early 1990s by the German Daniel Gebauer, who is also the registrar of the South Asian Cave Registry. He published an article in 1993 where he mentioned Mahendra Cave was the only show cave in the country. This has changed since then, there are now at least four show caves, but nevertheless development and infrastructure are still poor. Daniel Gebauers visit had a deep impact on Nepal, at Mahendra Gufa there are still rumors that "a Swiss [sic] geologist did try to find the end of the caves, but gave up after two days of searching".

We could not find any info on show mines, or at least mining in Nepal. Obviously there are quarrys and probably a few mines, but nobody so far had the idea to show any of them to tourists.

Subterranea are very common. Many temples were built into caves, which often were heavily alterated, or the caves are completely manmade. Many monasteries contain a cave temple somewhere inside. However, access is rather difficult, in general the caves are not open to tourists.