Interesting that this weekend (24 Feb 07) the Maoist rebels in Nepal started to hand over the weapons as part of their move into government rather than fighting it. It could be a coincidence, or maybe they were reading our blog, and agreed that Nepal could really be a paradise for tourists if the violence would finally end. Scaling the world's highest peaks, bringing peace to wartorn lands, all in a day's work for Brian and Somchai, also known as Rainbowman (sorry for the poor grammar, but the plural just doesn't work as well). Seriously, we went to Bhutan this year ('07, this blog timetraveling is getting confusing) and it was such a fantastic experience. And I think the remote regions of Nepal would be equally fascinating and a really unique experience. They even have a ready made Bhutan within Nepal, called Mustang. It's an extremely remote ancient Buddhist kingdom that still has a king but confusingly is nominally part of Nepal. It's almost completely inaccessible but I've seen photos of the place and it's top of my list of places I'd like to go if I could figure out a way to get there.