Spaces Vol 1 Is 6
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This view is in fact one of the key features defining<br />
not just the location of Shangri-La Village Resort in<br />
Pokhara, but the way it has been designed and built.<br />
TONI HAGEN<br />
The story of how, or more precisely,<br />
where, the Shangri-La Village Resort in<br />
Pokhara came to be, began in the year<br />
1952. A Swiss traveller and geologist,<br />
Toni Hagen, was in Pokhara that year<br />
and he took a photograph there, facing<br />
north towards the Annapurna range.<br />
This photograph went on to become<br />
somewhat representative to the ‘outside<br />
world’ of the beauty of Pokhara, a classic<br />
picture if you like, and Toni Hagen,<br />
following extensive travels across the<br />
length and breadth of Nepal, went on to<br />
become something of an authority on<br />
the geography of this country.<br />
Fast-forward to the year 1990 and we<br />
have Shyam Bahadur Pandey, hotelier<br />
and patriarch of the Shangri-La hotel in<br />
Kathmandu, recognizing an opportunity<br />
for creating a deluxe hotel in Pokhara.<br />
The site? The very spot (more or less),<br />
from which Hagen took this famous<br />
panorama of the Annapurna Mountains.<br />
S<br />
SPACES SEP-OCT 2005 39
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