Nepal's Gurkhas welcome 'Ab Fab' star Lumley

Actress and campaigner Joanna Lumley arrived in Nepal on Sunday to a raucous welcome from hundreds of Gurkha veterans and their families.

A huge cheer went up when the 63-year-old star of TV show "Absolutely Fabulous", who spearheaded a campaign for the British army veterans to be allowed to settle in Britain, arrived at Kathmandu airport on a six-day visit.

Lumley was presented with flower garlands and a traditional Nepalese shawl known as a khada as she stepped through the airport gates, before being engulfed by her cheering fans and the gathered media.

Gyanendra Rai, an ex-Gurkha who was seriously wounded in the 1982 Falklands campaign, was at the front of the queue to meet the television star.

"I don't have the words to describe how happy I am that Joanna Lumley is coming to Nepal," he said. "She is like a goddess to the Gurkhas."

Lumley, who will meet the president and prime minister and travel to three towns with large Gurkha communities during her visit, said she was "delighted" to be in Nepal.

Punching the air, she shouted "Ayo Gorkhali" as she left the airport -- echoing the fighters' traditional war cry, "The Gurkhas are coming."

Crowds of supporters had waited hours for her to arrive, braving the monsoon rain and carrying banners that read "Welcome Joanna, daughter of Nepal," and "Gurkha heroes welcome our British heroes."

The actress's impassioned lobbying in Britain earned her the adoration of the Gurkhas, who have described the trip -- her first ever visit to Nepal -- as a "homecoming".

The British government announced in May that all Gurkha veterans who had served at least four years in the army could apply for residency after a climbdown in the face of Lumley's campaign.

Previously, only those who retired after 1997 had been eligible to apply.

"We are proud and honoured to have her in our country. She is truly a daughter of Nepal," said Krishna Kumar Rai, vice-president of the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen's Organisation (GAESO), ahead of Lumley's arrival.

"She has done us, the British army veterans, an unforgettable favour -- she has given us justice."

The Indian-born actress, whose best-known role was as the cocaine-snorting fashionista Patsy in the hit comedy "Absolutely Fabulous", had become a rallying voice for the men she called the "bravest of the brave".

She has said that her father, a British major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles during World War II, would have been "overwhelmed with shame and fury" at Britain's treatment of Gurkha veterans.