These images pre-date the devastating April 2015 earthquake which caused widespread damage and loss of life across the Kathmandu Valley. A June 2015 gallery by Piotr Zycki offers a timely collection of post-earthquake images.

In 2011 I returned to Nepal for the first time since the heady days of the great Asian overland journey (and again in 2014, arriving overland from Tibet). So much water has passed under the bridge since then... Afghanistan remains essentially impassable whilst Nepal itself was paralyzed by a murderous insurgency until a few years ago. Amidst high drama, the ancient monarchy has yielded to a turbulent democracy. Kathmandu now sprawls unrestrained across the once-bucolic valley, yet much remains of the magic kingdom: the great stupas and the implacable faiths - intertwined, in peculiarly Nepalese fashion - of Buddhist and Hindu believers; the magnificent legacies of the three historic city-states of the Kathmandu Valley. Beyond all this lies the countless villages, the terraced slopes and towering above them all, those impossibly perfect snow-capped peaks.

These images were taken with Nikon D300 using RAW format, and are available for licensing. Also included are a few scanned Kodachrome transparencies of scenes I found still to be exactly as they were in 1974. Please visit my blog.