Gorkha

Gorkha is a historic town in western and central Nepal. It has various historic, religious and touristic values related to it.

Within Nepal, the first thing that comes to people's minds while when talking about Gorkha is the unification of Nepal. It was from Gorkha that the unification of Nepal started back in 1800s. Before that Nepal did not exist as a nation.

There were several principalities and smaller states, some of them conglomorated to form a kind of union, while others existed independently.

The borders of the states kept changing with one king attacking here and another king losing there.

King Prithvi Narayan Shah from Gorkha started conquering neighboring states first and then the Kathmandu valley later.
That is how the unification of Nepal began and that is what people understand Gorkha as.

In the international arena, however, people know little about the unification thing, but the name Gorkha is still famous. Due to the differnce in dialect, it is rather known as gurkha

People areound the world know Nepalis as brave nd honest fighters. The beginning was when Nepal;s soldiers fought against British soldiers in the anglo-Nepal war, Our soldiers were known as Gurkha soldiers.

Then, during the 1st and the 2nd world war, Nepal fought for Britain and its allies. Nepal also supplied its in house soldiers and the concerned nation ie. britain formed separate regiment with various epithets to gurkha and recruited youths from various places of the country.

Nepali soldeirs, popularly known as the Gurkha soldiers fought in the fore-front in various battles during both the first and the second world war. the base of Gurkha soldiers were located in various places of India, Hong Kong, Brunei, among others.

When the British left India in 1947, it left back some of the gurkha regiments formed. Indian Armed Forces still has some gurkha rifles and gurkha regiments which are exclusively for Nepalis.
Likewise, Britain has also been taking Nepali youths in its armed forces based in Hong Kong Brunei and UK.

This identity of Gorkha is not much related to the place Gorkha itself, it is more related to the entire country rather.

Now, the third identiy Gorkha has is its touristic as well political value.

Apart from being a historic town, Gorkha has many other things to visit. Lets start with the historic part first. You can visit the House of Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan Shah from where he planned the unification of Nepal and things related to it. Like the houses of his aides. his palace, which in fact doesn't look even as grand as a modern house. temples of his deities and so on.

The otehr thing is the natural beauty of the place.

Gorkha is a mountanous district with tens of undulating high rise mountains to hills and hillocks. It has famous mountain peaks including Mount Manaslu, lakes and trekking region. The northern part of Gorkha is a protected zone and requires special permit to travel. There are lakes, there are jungles, there are mountains and there are rivers.

Although not as hyped as Annapurna, Langtang and Everest region, people who have travelled up north in Gorkha say, the northern part of Gorkha has as good trekking region if not better.

There is a valley called Chum valley towards the north of the Himalayan Range. There is a beautiful place called Barpak, which is compared to Ghandruk of Pokhara.

There is the Dudh Pokhari and there are wonderful rivers to raft. Budhi Gandaki, one of the tributaries of Gandaki borders Gorkha and Dhading. It is considered a good river for rafting. However, it is not very commonly used as there is no (now it is difficult) easy transport access to the threshold of the rafting.

Those who have rafted along the route have said, its a wonderful raft from Arughat to Benighat observing the residents both sides. However, the rafting is very expensive as carrying materials to the threshold is difficult. Hence it is less preferred only due to the cost factor.

Another famous place in Gorkha is the Manakamana temple.