Edward and Sophie receive warm welcome from Nepali village on last day of tour The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh received a rapturous welcome from a Nepali hillside village on the last day of their tour.
Sitting behind a decorated table flanked by guests including Lieutenant Colonel Rajesh Gurung – the most senior Nepali Gurkha officer, who is from Ghandruk – Edward and Sophie clapped along to a performance of traditional Gurung dance performed by a local youth club.
After spending Saturday trekking in the Annapurna Conservation Area, the royal couple spent the night in Ghandruk – a rural village overlooking the Himalayas, with a strong history of producing Gurkha recruits.
Locals surrounded the square to watch the performance and hear a speech by Mayor Bishnu Bahadur KC, who said the “historic bi-lateral relationship between Nepal and the United Kingdom is as strong as ever”.
The duke and duchess then visited the Ghandruk Cultural Museum before a musical parade led them out of the village to the waiting convoy of Land Rovers.
