Holiday News and Offers

The Gurkha Welfare Trust have announced that they raised an impressive £26 million in 2015 to spend on their many projects and initiatives in Nepal. This includes rebuilding the homes, schools and lives of Gurkha veterans, their families and the communities devastated by the earthquake last April. We were honoured to become a corporate partner of the Trust last year and will continue to raise funds for them in 2016.

Last week the team at Mountain Kingdoms helped raised a tasty sum of £220 for charity.

On 18th February 2016, 220 runners took part in an off-road race in the Forest of Dean, organised by Rogueruns. Mountain Kingdoms was given the task of baking enough cakes to feed all the hungry runners at the end of the race, and for every runner who took part Rogueruns donated £1 to Mountain Kingdoms for their bakes. The £220 raised will be donated by Mountain Kingdoms to Nepali Children's Trust who support the Newlife Centre orphanage in Nepal.

An impressive £1,012 was recently raised by friends and family of Alan Gallop on the very sad occasion of his funeral. Alan had previously trekked in the Annapurnas in Nepal so it seemed fitting that the money should be donated, in his memory, to help rebuild a country he so enjoyed visiting. This is one of Alan's photos from his trek to Annapurna Sanctuary.

There was no bigger challenge in 2015 then the terrible damage wrought by the earthquake in Nepal last April. Trying to provide practical help and support to the people of Nepal became the overriding focus of our Responsible Travel activities and fundraising throughout the year. By the end of 2015, our incredibly generous clients, staff and friends had raised over £40,000 which we distributed between several charities who have been doing amazing work rebuilding the homes and lives of the people of Nepal. Helping them to continue this immensely valuable work will be our driving force in 2016.

Away from the tragedy of the earthquake, we have continued to provide training courses for our Nepalese guides and trek crew and we've also raised funds to plant trees in Peru and to expand the important work of the Simien Mountains Mobile Medical Service in Ethiopia. None of which would have been possible without the overwhelming generosity of our clients. A huge thank you from everyone at Mountain Kingdoms.

Here's a look back at our Responsible Travel year.

In September 2015 Mountain Kingdoms' Operations Manager, Jim Davies, visited Nepal to carry out inspections of the trekking routes and lodges, plus visit charities and villages Mountain Kingdoms' support. Below is a report about Jim's visit to Nepal and how life is returning to normal following the major earthquake in April.

This year, two admirable families are fundraising for Interburns by doing a trip from Kathmandu to Dhaka (K2D), all whilst travelling on motorbikes! During their journey the two families will meet both burns staff and patients from Nepal, through North East India and to Bangladesh.

Interburns is a worldwide charity dedicated to providing training, education, research and support with the aim of improving burn care treatment and prevention in less developed countries.

We've recently updated our office equipment and are pleased to have donated our old computer monitors to a charity - IT Schools Africa.

The Nepali Children's Trust was set up by Mountain Kingdoms' client, Fran McGowan, in 2005 to support physically challenged children living at the Disabled Newlife Centre (DNC) in Kathmandu. Their mission is to enable children and young people with a disability in Nepal to be independent, to overcome discrimination and have value within their families and communities.

Fran McGowan, the chairperson at the Nepali Children’s Trust has just reported to us from Kathmandu. She says that “the building is working very well and the children there are thriving”.

A huge well done to Niki for her sponsored litter-picking last week. Not only did she spend the morning picking up litter in Wotton-under-Edge, where the Mountain Kingdoms office is based, she also spent the afternoon picking up litter in her home town of Chepstow.

Niki's story was featured in the Chepstow Beacon, you can read the article online. Niki is raising money for SHIVA charity, with donations going to the Ginette Harisson School near Kathmandu in Nepal.

Mountain Kingdoms is deeply saddened by the deaths of 16 Sherpa Guides in an avalanche on Mount Everest's Khumbu icefall on April 18th. Although our clients do not travel higher than Everest Base Camp, the Sherpa community is at the heart of our Himalayan business and friends and colleagues in Nepal have lost loved ones. We offer them our condolences and wish to pay tribute to the professionalism and commitment of all the Sherpa guides and porters we work with in Nepal.