Nepal is heavily reliant on its tourism industry, the country’s largest source of foreign exchange. In 2014, some 800,000 foreign visitors brought much needed income to the cash strapped nation that is trying to recover from a decade long civil war, while struggling with decrepit infrastructure, social unrest, and a constitutional limbo that has been dragging on for years. Even prior to the quake, electricity supply in the capital was intermittent. Corruption is widespread, helped along by an insidious aid industry that prefers to spend rather than check where its money goes. Tourism was the country’s silver lining, accounting for some 4.5 per cent of GDP.