Above Changu Narayan temple; the Himalayas; a trekking porter
Introduction to Nepal
Hindus believe that the gods made their home in the mountains of Nepal; one look at the Himalayas, and you’ll understand why. Squeezed between India and Tibet, Nepal’s diverse scenery ranges from lowland dripping jungles, where tigers hide in the shadows, to Mount Everest’s frozen summit, where no life can survive for long. For most visitors, coming to Nepal is a chance to experience the great mountains; but once here, most people are quick to realize that Nepal’s artistic heritage, fascinating wildlife and welcoming people are all an equal draw to the mighty peaks.
Nepal’s cultural landscape is every bit as diverse as its physical one. Its peoples belong to a range of distinctive ethnic groups, and speak a host of languages. Homes are made in everything from dense, ancient cities erupting with pagoda-roofed Hindu temples to villages perched on dizzying sweeps of rice-farming terraces and dusty highland settlements clustered around tiny monasteries. Religious practices range from Indian-style Hinduism to Tibetan Buddhism and from nature worship to shamanism – the indigenous Newars, meanwhile, blend all these traditions with their own, intense tantric practices.
The cultural richness owes something to the shaping force of the landscape itself, and something else to the fact that Nepal was never colonized. This is a country with profound national or ethnic pride, an astounding flair for festivals and pageantry and a powerful attachment to traditional ways. Its people famously display a charismatic blend of independent-mindedness and friendliness, toughness and courtesy. These qualities, through the reputations of Gurkha soldiers and Sherpa climbers in particular, have made Nepalis internationally renowned as a rare pleasure to work with or travel among.
But it would be misleading to portray Nepal as a fabled Shangri-la. Long politically and economically weak it has developed at uncomfortable speed in some areas while stagnating in others. Heavily reliant on its superpower neighbours, Nepal was, until 1990, the world’s last remaining absolute Hindu monarchy, run by a regime that combined China’s repressiveness and India’s bureaucracy. Following a soul-scouring Maoist insurgency, which ended in 2006, it has ended up as a federal republic. Nepal seems always to be racing to catch up with history, and the sense of political excitement here is thrillingly palpable.
Above Puppets, Bhaktapur
The 2015 earthquake
On April 25, 2015 Nepal was devastated by a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake – the country’s worst in over eighty years – and several powerful aftershocks, killing thousands and creating a humanitarian disaster.
Much of the earthquake damage has now been repaired, and there are few visible signs that it had happened at all. However, the UNESCO-protected buildings and temples of Kathmandu, Patan and Bhaktapur’s Durbar squares are still awaiting restoration, and it’s likely to be many more years before these architectural treasures are restored. Throughout this guide, we have mentioned sites where earthquake damage remains significant.
Where to go
Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, is electrifyingly exotic, with its medieval warren of alleys, Hindu temples and Buddhist stupas, and its uniquely relaxed nightlife. The city is increasingly hectic, however, so many visitors make day-trips out to the semi-rural Kathmandu Valley, and the well-preserved medieval cities of Patan and Bhaktapur, while others escape to stay overnight at one of the mountain viewpoints on the valley rim, such as Nagarkot, in the Central Hills. Few take the time to explore the valley’s wealth of temples, towns and forested hilltops in more depth, but those who do are richly rewarded.
Most people move on from Kathmandu to Pokhara, six hours west of the capital via tourist bus. An engaging, easy-going resort town in the Western Hills, Pokhara is set beside a lake and under a towering wall of white peaks. While many visitors are happy just to gaze at the town’s impressive views, or hang out in its numerous bars, it also makes a great base for day hikes and mountain-bike rides, yoga and meditation courses, and even paragliding and microlight flights. Other towns in the Western Hills – notably Gorkha with its impressive fortress, Manakamana with its wish-fulfilling temple, and Bandipur with its old-world bazaar – offer history and culture as well as scenery.
Not many travellers head into the flat Terai, along the border with India, unless it’s to enter the deservedly popular Chitwan National Park, with its endangered Asian one-horned rhinos. The Terai is also home to Bardia National Park and two other rarely visited wildlife reserves – all worth considering for those looking to escape the Chitwan crowds. In the west, Lumbini, Buddha’s birthplace, is a pilgrimage site of worldwide importance, as is Janakpur, a Hindu holy city in the east.
Yet above and beyond all else, Nepal is most renowned for trekking – hiking from village to village, through massive hills and lush rhododendron forests and up to the peaks and glaciers of the high Himalayas. The thrillingly beautiful and culturally rich Annapurna and Everest regions are the most oriented to trekkers, but other, once-remote areas are opening up, notably Mustang and Manaslu. Meanwhile, mountain biking through Nepal’s scenic back roads and rafting down its rivers offer not only adventure but also a different perspective on the countryside and wildlife.
Fact file
• With a land area of 147,000 square kilometres, Nepal is about the size of England and Wales combined. Useable land, however, is in short supply due to the precipitous terrain and a growing population of 28 million or more, over a third of whom are less than 15 years old.
• Eight of the world’s ten highest mountains are found in Nepal, including Everest, the highest of them all.
• Prior to 1951, only a handful of Westerners had ever been allowed into Nepal. Today, the country receives as many as 600,000 tourists annually; increasingly, visitors are coming from neighbouring India and China.
• Despite the fame of its Tibetan and Sherpa Buddhist communities, Nepal was long the world’s only Hindu kingdom, and Hindus still officially make up some eighty percent of the population. In practice, many Nepalis combine worship of Hindu gods with shamanic and animist rituals.
• Thanks to solid conservation policies, Nepal’s population of Royal Bengal tigers is growing at an impressive rate. The country had aimed to double the tiger population to two hundred and fifty animals between 2010 and 2022, but at current rates it’s expected that the population will reach this target as soon as 2018.
• Nepal has an average per capita annual income of US$2400, and around 25 percent of the population is thought to live below the poverty line.
When to go
Nepal is broadly temperate, with four main seasons centred around the summer monsoon. The majority of visitors, prioritizing mountain visibility, come in the autumn peak season (late Sept to late Nov), when the weather is clear and dry, and neither too cold in the high country nor too hot in the Terai. With the pollution and dust (and many bugs) washed away by the monsoon rains, the mountains are at their most visible, making this an excellent time for trekking. Two major festivals, Dasain and Tihaar, also fall during this period. The downside is that the tourist quarters and trekking trails are heaving, prices are higher and it may be hard to find a decent room.
Winter (Dec & Jan) is mostly clear and stable. It never snows in Kathmandu, but mornings can be dank and chilly there – and in trekking areas, the fierce cold can make lodge owners shut up shop altogether. This is an excellent time to visit the Terai, and if you can face the cold, a rare time to be in the mountains too.
Spring (Feb to mid-April) is the second tourist season, with its warmer weather and longer days. Rhododendrons are in bloom in the hills towards the end of this period, and as the Terai’s long grasses have been cut, spring is the best time for viewing wildlife – despite the increasing heat. The downsides are that haze can obscure the mountains from lower elevations (though it’s usually possible to trek above it).
The pre-monsoon (mid-April to early June) brings ever more stifling heat, afternoon clouds and rain showers. Trek high, where the temperatures are more tolerable.
Nepalis welcome the monsoon, the timing of which may vary by a few weeks every year, but typically begins in mid-June and peters out in the last weeks of September. The fields come alive with rushing water and green shoots, and this can be a fascinating time to visit, when Nepal is at its most Nepali: the air is clean, flowers are in bloom, butterflies are everywhere and fresh fruit and vegetables are particularly abundant. But there are also drawbacks: mountain views are rare, leeches come out in force along the mid-elevation trekking routes, roads and paths may be blocked by landslides, and flights may be cancelled.
