This is story about kathmandu’s legendary hotel, Shangri~La, and the people who shaped it. They all shared something in common: a vision of what Shangri~La should be and the fortitude to make it happen. Nepalese or Resident expatriates, they all had a deep love for Nepal and a respect for its traditions and way of life.
Shyam Bahadur Pandey has visions and makes them come true. And so it was, that his aspiration for a hotel called Shangri~La, a cozy and hospitable home away from home to all who came. A Shangri~La took shape it became more ambitious than Shyam ever envisaged it to be. He was helped in his dream hotel by Desmond Doig, the Renaissance man who made Nepal his home.
Shyam wanted to break out of traditional cultural barriers, to prove that if you work hard and have a goal, anyone can be successful.
Soon there was the main building and behind it were terraced fields. It was Desmond’s vision of lush lawns and flowerbeds which emerged into reality where everyone came and reveled, which was ready even before the hotel was.
They worked hard, and enjoyed every moment of it. Plans for the hotel grew; it was turning out to be more expensive than first planned. Shyam was working against time. He was in a hurry to see his dream come true, but he also knew he had to have something ready in time for his children’s carriers to take off. When the hotel finally opened in 1979 and Shyam Bahadur Pandey turned to Desmond Doig to help him run it