Within the relentlessly steep terrain of midland Nepal, the Kathmandu Valley is something of a geographical freak: a bowl of gently undulating, richly fertile land, lifted up towards the sky like some kind of sacrifice. Only 25km across, but densely packed with sacred sites, the valley has been referred to as “Nepal mandala” well into modern times as if it was itself a gigantic spiritual diagram, or circle. “The valley consists of as many temples as there are houses”, enthused William Kirkpatrick, the first Englishman to reach Kathmandu, “and as many idols as there are men.”

Although the valley’s sacred geography remains largely unchanged, the number of houses – and people – has soared since Kirkpatrick’s day. In the 1980s, two-thirds of the valley was farmland: today it covers barely one fifth. The region is the country’s economic engine, and pulls young Nepalis in from the hills with an irresistible force. Thanks also to refugees fleeing the Maoist insurrection of the early 2000s, the valley’s population has more than doubled in the last twenty years to around 2.5 million, and continues to grow by an estimated 100,000 people per year. Once a rural paradise, Kathmandu is now one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in South Asia; quickly becoming a giant conurbation, with concrete spreading inexorably towards the valley rim on all sides, and smog obscuring the snowcapped Himalayas on all but the clearest of days.

Despite rampant development – and destruction caused by 2015’s earthquakes – the valley’s underlying traditions have proved remarkably resilient. Like other, smaller Newari towns of the valley – Kirtipur, Thimi, Sankhu, Bungmati – Bhaktapur preserves a distinctly medieval air, its wood- and brick-built houses clustered tightly around alleyways and temple plazas, and the lives of many residents still bound up with the paddy fields outside the city. On the southern and eastern sides of the valley, in lush side valleys and on the steep slopes of the rim, an undulating patchwork of paddy fields that people have relied on for centuries continues to hold out against the inexorable urban sprawl.

In the heart of the valley, the sheer density of sights is phenomenal. Just beyond the Kathmandu ring road beat the twin hearts of Nepali religion: the Shiva temple and sombre cremation ghats at Pashupatinath, the sacred centre of Nepali Hinduism; and the vast, white stupa at Boudhanath, the hub of the valley’s Tibetan Buddhist community.

Hiking and cycling are best in the valley fringe. Trails lead beyond the botanical gardens at Godavari to the shrine of Bishanku Narayan, and up through rich forests to Phulchoki, the highest point on the valley rim. For more woodland solitude and views, hike up Shivapuri, Nagarjun Ban’s Jamacho, or any high point on the valley rim.

All of the places described in this chapter are within day-tripping range of Kathmandu, although in several cases it’s best to stay overnight, perhaps before continuing on to destinations in the “Central Hills” chapter.

Pashupatinath

Highlights

1 Pashupatinath The most sacred of Nepal’s Hindu temple complexes is veiled by the smoke of funeral pyres.

2 Boudhanath At dawn and dusk, Buddhist monks, nuns and pilgrims flock to the vast white dome of the stupa.

4 Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park Hike through rich forest to the second highest of the valley’s summits for stunning Himalayan vistas.

5 Newa Lahana, Kirtipur The best traditional Newari food in Nepal is found in a community-run restaurant in one of the most atmospheric Newari towns.

3 Dakshinkali As befits a tantric goddess demanding blood sacrifices, Kali’s forest-enfolded shrine is palpably sinister.

6 Bishanku Narayan This peaceful Hindu shrine is modestly hidden in one of the valley’s most delightfully rustic folds.

7 Bhaktapur The most immaculately preserved of the valley’s ancient cities is no museum: Newari life continues here as it has for centuries.

8 Changu Narayan Exquisitely carved ancient sculptures and a rural, ridgetop setting make this the finest of the valley’s temples.

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Getting around the kathmandu valley

By bus Most destinations in the valley are served by buses running at 15min intervals or less, so you’ll rarely wait long. Around the ring road, you can jump on and off buses pretty much at will.

By taxi Taxis are the quickest way to travel, though of course traffic jams affect them as much as buses. On shorter journeys, you can try to insist on going by the meter, but may find it hard to get a driver to agree and it may be fixed anyway. On longer journeys, forget the meter: you can negotiate surprisingly reasonable rates for a return trip – just make sure you specify ample waiting time.

By bike If you’re touring rural parts of the valley, a bike or motorcycle is by far the most flexible option. However, getting out of the fug and crush of Kathmandu can be dangerous and unpleasant, so if you’re cycling, consider loading the bike on top of a bus at least to get beyond the ring road.

Maps The Kathmandu city/valley maps sold in tourist areas are good enough for general sightseeing. Nepa Maps 1:60,000 Around Kathmandu Valley (and their 1:50,000 Biking Around the Kathmandu Valley, which highlights mountain-biking routes) is largely accurate, though not all the trails or even the new roads on the edge of the valley are marked.

The 2015 earthquakes

The Kathmandu Valley suffered serious damage in the earthquakes of April and May 2015. Alongside the loss of hundreds of lives and homes, many of the historic sites featured in this chapter were damaged or destroyed. In particular, Bhaktapur and Patan’s old towns and Durbar squares, Bungmati’s Machhendranath temple, the Changu Naryan temple near Bhaktapur, and the Boudhanath stupa were badly hit. Reconstruction is under way but, with the notable exception of Boudhanath’s stupa which was restored in a little over eighteen months, it will be years before most of these sites are back to anything like their former glory.

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Pashupatinath

PASHUPATINATH (pronounced Pash-patty-nat), known to the uninitiated as “the place where they burn the bodies”, lies crammed up against the mouth of a ravine, 4km east of central Kathmandu and just outside the ring road. It is, of course, far more than just an alfresco crematorium; straddling a tirtha, or sacred crossroads, this is Nepal’s holiest Hindu pilgrimage site, and one of the most important Shiva temples in the entire Hindu world: a smoky and stirring melee of temples, statues, pilgrims and half-naked holy men.

The complex overflows with pilgrims from across the Subcontinent during the wild festival of Shiva Raatri (held on the full moon of Feb–March), which commemorates Shiva’s tandava dance of destruction, according to some, or his drinking of blue poison to save the gods, according to others. Devout locals also come for special services on full-moon days and on the eleventh lunar day (ekadashi) after each full and new moon.

Pashupati Mandir

The Pashupati Mandir is the holy of holies for Nepali Shaivas, followers of Shiva, and has become the pre-eminent national sacred spot for Hindus. As in many temples in Nepal, admission to the central shrine is for Hindus only (which in practice means anyone who looks South Asian). From the outside, though, you can glimpse the two familiar symbols of Shiva, found here in gargantuan scale: a two-storey trisul (trident), and the enormous golden backside of Nandi, Shiva’s faithful bull.

The gold-clad pagoda dates from the late seventeenth century, but the sacred origins of the site may date back to the third century BC, and probably to a pre-Hindu animistic cult. Certainly, the benign Pashupati, Lord of the Animals, is not Shiva in his ordinary guise. Nepali schoolchildren are taught that Shiva, to escape his heavenly obligations, assumed the guise of a one-horned stag and fled to the forest here. The other gods pursued him and, laying hold of him, broke off his horn, which transformed into the powerful Pashupati linga. The linga was later lost, only to be rediscovered by a cow who magically began sprinkling the spot with her milk. According to legend, she was seen doing this by a cowherd named Ne, a fabled ur-ancestor, who dug up the linga and established the shrine.

Hidden inside, the fourteenth-century Pashupati linga displays four carved faces of Shiva, plus a fifth, invisible one on the top (Buddhists claim one of the faces is that of the Buddha). Hindus associate this linga with the story of how Shiva transformed his phallus into an infinite pillar of light and challenged Brahma and Vishnu to find its ends. Brahma flew heavenward, while Vishnu plumbed the depths of hell. Both were forced to abandon the search, but Brahma falsely boasted of success, only to be caught out by Shiva. Shaivas say that’s why Brahma is seldom worshipped, Vishnu gets his fair share, and Shiva is revered above all.

Priests and pilgrims at Pashupati Mandir

Pashupati Mandir emerged as a hotbed of tantric practices in the eleventh century and remained so for four hundred years, until King Yaksha Malla imported conventional Brahman priests from South India, although the bhandaris (temple assistants) are always Newars born in the immediate area. Wearing the ceremonial orange robes of the Pashupata sect, the priests array the linga in brocade silk and bathe it with curd, ghee, honey, sugar and milk. (They also allegedly cream off vast profits from the donations of worshippers – which was one factor in a 2009 row, when the Maoist government tried to expel the Indians from the temple; popular outrage prevented them from succeeding.) Hindu pilgrims are expected to distribute offerings and make a circuit of the temple and the 365 shivalinga and other secondary shrines. Most also distribute alms to beggars lined along some of the nearby lanes. If you choose to give, arm yourself with a sufficient stockpile of small change (saano paisa), available from nearby vendors.

The riverbank ghats

Tourist entrances opposite Pashupati Mandir’s south entrance, and at the ring road directly south of the cremation ghats • Daily 6am–8pm • Rs1000, payable at the gates

The riverbank ghats are centred around twin footbridges across the Bagmati River. For Hindus, to die and be cremated here is the pinnacle of religious achievement, virtually guaranteeing release from the cycle of rebirths.

Notwithstanding the nauseating state of the water, or lack of it during the winter and spring (when most tourists visit), bathing here is considered second only to cremation in terms of accumulating blessings for the afterlife. It’s still widely believed that husbands and wives who bathe here together will be remarried in their next incarnations. Most days, you won’t see many willing to brave what water there is, except perhaps children, or during the meritorious full-moon days, on Magh Sankranti (usually Jan 14) and Bala Chaturdashi (late Nov or early Dec), and, for women, during the festival of Tij (late Aug or early Sept).

Arya Ghat

Arya Ghat, upstream of the footbridges, is reserved for higher castes. The cremation platform furthest upstream (so placed for obvious reasons) was exclusively for the royal family; next down, just above the bridge, is the ghat for “VVIPs”, including prominent politicians and anyone else who can afford it. After the palace massacre in June 2001, the army had to build a temporary ghat between the two to accommodate all the royal bodies.

Even if no cremations are in progress, you may see people lying prone on stretchers with their feet in the Bagmati River. Many of the buildings around the main temple are dharmsala (pilgrims’ rest-houses), set aside here for devout Hindus approaching death. In their final hour, they are laid by the river and given a last drink of the holy water – which probably hastens the end.

The Virupaksha statue

Housed in a small stone reliquary beside Arya Ghat (which unfortunately means you can’t get up close) is a famed seventh-century statue of Virupaksha, the “Three-Eyed Shiva”, whose Mongol features are said to betray the figure’s pre-Hindu origins. The image is also associated with Kalki, the tenth and final incarnation of Vishnu, a sort of messiah figure who will bring the present Kali Yuga (Age of Kali) to a close and usher in a new, virtuous cycle of history. The statue is half-submerged in the Bagmati River: some claim that the idol is gradually sinking, and its disappearance will mark the end of the age; others say that Virupaksha will be released from the waters when he has earned enough merit from visiting pilgrims.

Vatsala Mandir

The small, two-storey pagoda between the bridges is the Vatsala Mandir, dedicated to Shiva’s consort Parbati in one of her wilder mother-goddess roles; she is said to have demanded human sacrifice in the past, but is nowadays satisfied with an annual washing-down with beer.

Ram Ghat and around

Cremations are almost continuous at the next embankment downstream from the Vatsala Mandir, Ram Ghat, which is used by all castes. You’re usually allowed access to the terrace immediately behind. Photography is discouraged.

Towards the southern end of Ram Ghat, a small eleventh-century (some say fifth-century) Buddha statue sticks out of the paving. Just beyond is a bumper-sized, tipped-over linga ensconced in a round brick battlement; it’s believed to date from the fifth century. The southernmost building shelters two temples in its open courtyard. The oval Raj Rajeshwari is named after a powerful, nineteenth-century queen forced to commit sati after her husband’s death, while the gilded pagoda of Nawa Durga is devoted to the nine fierce manifestations of the goddess Durga.

Pancha Dewal

Behind Ram Ghat stands the Pancha Dewal, a centre for the old, sick and infirm, partly run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. You can enter to see the five Mughal-style cupolas in the courtyard, which give it its name. Better still, arrive early in the morning to volunteer for a week’s work such as washing residents, cleaning pots and sheets and so on; look for the sisters (who speak English) in their trademark white saris with blue trim.

The east bank

The east bank of the river has a palpably restful atmosphere thanks to Mrigasthali Ban, the woods in which Shiva is supposed to have cavorted as a stag. Deer are still kept here, safe behind a protective fence, ready for the god’s enjoyment. Upstream of the twin bridges, the stone terraces are studded with fifteen great shivalaya (boxy linga shelters). Erected in the mid-nineteenth century by the Ranas and the royal family, they honour women who committed sati on their husbands’ pyres opposite; the practice was outlawed early in the twentieth century. Nowadays, photo-me sadhus stake out lucrative perches around them.

Above the terraces, it’s possible to pick your way northwards along the top of the cliff heading towards the Kirateshwar Mahadev Mandir. The path teeters somewhat between the forest fence and the gorge below, but offers good views of the river. You can peer down to Surya Ghat, the site of several meditation caves hewn out of the cliffs, and still used by sadhus today.

Respecting the dead

While on the one hand Pashupatinath is a money-spinning tourist site and on many levels operates as such, it’s worth bearing in mind that the religious devotion, funeral rites and grieving taking place are all very real. Though tourists are unlikely to receive any direct admonishment for insensitive dress or behaviour, this is no reason not to give it at least some consideration. The privacy of bathers, worshippers and, indeed, the dead should be respected, and though you may see others poking long lenses into the cremation pyres, you have to question how they would feel about someone doing the same to them if the tables were turned.

The Vishnu temples

To the south of the chief stone staircase ascending the hill stands a wide, paved enclosure, which during Shiva Raatri is chock-a-block with sadhus. The three rather undistinguished, Indian-donated temples are dedicated to Ram, Vishnu’s incarnation as a mortal; Ram Janaki, referring to the family of Ram’s beloved wife Sita; and Lakshmi Narayan, Vishnu’s alter ego, and his wealth-bringing wife Lakshmi. They seem out of place in this Shaivite power place. The fenced-off forested area to the right belongs to a more indigenous tradition: it is a cemetery set aside for Nepal’s few “burying” groups, which include Rais and Limbus of the eastern hills.

Gorakhnath Mandir

The main stairway up the east bank of the Bagmati River heads up past troupes of occasionally aggressive monkeys towards the mellow Gorakhnath Mandir, a modest shikra structure dedicated to the patron deity of the Shah kings. The adjoining rest-houses are home to resident and passing sadhus. All around, scores of shivalaya lie in crumbling rows in the forest, their decay hastened by the 2015 earthquakes. It feels like a romantically overgrown cemetery, but the shivalaya are not tombs, but Shiva shrines, as their iconography proclaims: most have the trisul, statues of Nandi and Shiva (always with an erection), and the linga atop the yoni.

To the southeast is the earthquake-destroyed Bishwarup Mandir, surrounded by collapsing rest-houses. At time of writing, reconstruction of this Vishnu-dedicated temple, housing a 6m-tall statue of Shiva and Parbati in the state of yab-yum (sexual union), looked years away.

Sadhus

Sadhus, the dreadlocked holy men often found lurking around Hindu temples, are essentially an Indian phenomenon. However, Nepal, the setting for many of the amorous and ascetic exploits of Shiva – sadhus’ favourite deity – is also a favoured stomping ground. And Pashupatinath, one of the Subcontinent’s most important Shaiva pilgrimage sites, is a particular Sadhu-magnet: during the festival of Shiva Raatri, the temple even hosts a full-scale sadhu convention.

Shaiva sadhus follow Shiva in one of his best-loved and most enigmatic guises: the wild, dishevelled yogin, the master of yoga, who sits motionless atop a Himalayan peak for aeons at a time and whose hair is the source of the mighty Ganga (Ganges) River. Traditionally, sadhus live solitary lives, always on the move, subsisting on alms and owning nothing but what they carry. They bear Shiva’s emblems: the trisul (trident), damaru (two-sided drum), a necklace of furrowed rudraksha seeds, and perhaps a conch shell for blowing haunting calls across the cosmic ocean. Some smear themselves with ashes, symbolizing Shiva’s role as the destroyer, who reduces all things to ash so that creation can begin anew. The trident-shaped tika of Shiva is often painted on the sadhus’ foreheads, although they may employ scores of other tika patterns, each with its own cult affiliation and symbolism.

In lieu of alms, many of the Sadhus at Pashupatinath today rely on income from charging tourists for photographs, and it’s hard not to think that some of the garb adopted may be informed more by the selfie market than any religious symbolism.

Sadhus have a curious role model in Shiva, who is both a mountaintop ascetic and the omnipotent god of the phallus. Some, such as the members of the Gorakhnath cult (which has a strong presence at Pashupatinath), follow the tantric “left-hand” path, employing deliberately transgressive practices to free themselves of sensual passions and transcend the illusory physical world. The most notorious of these spiritual exercises is the tying of a heavy stone to the penis, thus destroying the erectile tissues and helping to tame the distractions of sexual desire. Aghoris, the most extreme of the left-hand practitioners, are famed for their cult of death, embracing the forbidden in order to destroy it. Cremation grounds like Pashupatinath are effectively their temples, and they are even rumoured to ingest human flesh – all in pursuit of the liberation of the soul.

Like Shiva, sadhus also make liberal use of intoxicants as a path to spiritual insight. It was Shiva, in fact, who supposedly discovered the transcendental powers of ganja (cannabis), which grows wild throughout Nepal. Sadhus usually consume the weed in the form of bhang (a liquid preparation) or charas (hashish, smoked in a vertical clay pipe known as a chilam). With each toke, the holy man intones “Bam Shankar”: “I am Shiva”.

Ghujeshwari Mandir

The Ghujeshwari Mandir (or Ghuyeshwari) sits at the bottom of the path downhill from Gorakhnath, overlooking a giant sacred fig tree. Here, too, non-Hindus can only peek in from outside. The story goes that Shiva’s first wife, Sati, offended by some insult, threw herself onto a fire (giving rise to the term sati, or suttee). Shiva retrieved her corpse and, blinded by grief, flew to and fro across the Subcontinent, scattering parts of the body in 51 sacred places. Ghujeshwari is where Sati’s vagina fell. As a consequence, the temple here represents the female counterpart to the Pashupati linga and is held to be every bit as sacred, its chief focus being a kalash (vessel) kept in a sunken pit and containing an “odiferous liquid”. Buddhists consider Ghujeshwari to be one of the valley’s four mystic Bajra Yoginis – powerful tantric goddesses – and the site to be the seed from which the Swayambhu lotus grew.

Across the river you can see a sewage treatment centre whose construction sparked a row between the secular authorities, who wanted to clean up the effluents upstream, and the temple priests, who objected to the unholy treated water being reintroduced above the complex. In any case, it can’t cope with the volume, so untreated water bypasses it anyway.

Kirateshwar Mahadev Mandir

From Ghujeshwari a lane follows the river downstream past the Kirateshwar Mahadev Mandir, which serves the Kirati ethnic groups of the hills – chiefly Rais and Limbus. You can often hear worshippers singing bhajan (devotional songs) here, especially on full-moon evenings. Below lies Gauri Ghat, a peaceful spot where the river enters the Pashupatinath ravine. You can cross the river here and circle back around over the grassy Kailash Hill; or exit the complex and walk on to Boudhanath. From the eastern edge of Kailash, a steep staircase leads down to Surya Ghat, or you can continue on to Pashupati Mandir’s main gate.

Arrival and departure pashupatinath

By bus In Kathmandu, tempos and microbuses (every 10–15min; 20–30min) originate next to the Nepal Airlines office (NAC, also often referred to as RNAC) on Kantipath; all are numbered #2, and will drop you at the Gaushala crossroads on the ring road before continuing on towards Boudhanath. From the crossroads, walk down the eastward, downward-sloping road, then turn almost immediately left along a lane that leads past flower and trinket stalls for 500m to the complex.

By taxi A taxi costs about Rs400 from central Kathmandu (Thamel).

By bike You could cycle from central Kathmandu (Thamel) to Pashupatinath (5km), past the Royal Palace, then via Kamal Pokhari and Gaushala, on the ring road, but the traffic is horrendous.

INFORMATION

Guides Visitors are usually approached by guides, who sometimes ease the introduction by presenting themselves as “students”. Some are knowledgeable and friendly, others out for what they can get; most ask to be paid what you think the tour was worth.

Food Within the temple grounds there are few concessions to Western visitors beyond a small snack stall beside Gorakhnath. An expensive but blessedly tranquil afternoon tea can be found a few hundred meters to the south of the temple complex in Dwarika’s Hotel (01 447 9488, dwarikas.com).

Shopping

Pilgrim stalls There are no shops as such, but many pilgrim stalls along the road up to the Gaushala crossroads. If you’re looking for an authentic Pashupatinath souvenir, check out what Nepalis buy: cheap votive icons, linga replicas, conch shells, shaligram (fossil-bearing stones), motimala (pearl necklaces, supposed to be good for the health of the mind) and the rudraksha or “tears of Shiva” necklaces, made from the seeds of the Utrasum bead tree.

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Boudhanath

The great white stupa at BOUDHANATH (also known as Boudha or Bodnath), about 5km northeast of central Kathmandu, is the heart of a thriving Tibetan Buddhist community. One of the world’s largest stupas – Tibetans call it simply Chorten Chempo, “Great Stupa” – it is also the most important Tibetan Buddhist monument outside Tibet, reflected in how quickly money was raised and work completed following extensive damage in the 2015 earthquakes. Since 1959, Boudhanath has been the focus for Tibetan exiles in Nepal, but it has been a sacred site on the Kathmandu–Tibet trade route for centuries. The 10km corridor from Pashupatinath to Sankhu was known as the auspicious zone of siddhi (supernatural beings), and Boudhanath was – and still is – its biggest, most auspicious landmark.

Early morning and dusk are the best times to visit, when an otherworldly cacophony of music drifts from the monasteries that ring the stupa, and monks, locals, and pilgrims all perform kora together, strolling, shuffling and prostrating their way around the dome. Famed throughout the Himalayas for powers of wish fulfilment and blessing, you’ll see Tibetans, Nepali Bhotiyas (people of Tibetan ethnicity) and Tamangs from the central hills all perambulating en masse.

At other times, the souvenir shops and cafés that ring the stupa can seem intrusive, and the brick-paved piazza is filled with tourists. Off the stupa plaza, the romance quickly evaporates: this is Boudhanath the boomtown, an unplanned quagmire of rubbish-strewn lanes, unlovely new buildings, schools and businesses.

Brief history

Traditions differ as to the stupa’s origins. A Tibetan text relates how a daughter of Indra stole flowers from heaven and was reassigned to earth as a lowly poultryman’s daughter, yet prospered and decided to use some of her wealth to build a stupa to honour a mythical Buddha of a previous age. She petitioned the king, who cynically granted her only as much land as could be covered by a buffalo hide. Undaunted, she cut the hide into thread-thin strips, joining them end to end to enclose a gigantic area.

The Newari legend has a firmer historical grounding, involving a drought that struck Kathmandu during the reign of the early Lichhavi king, Vrisadev. When court astrologers advised that only the sacrifice of a virtuous man would bring rain, Vrisadev commanded his son Mandev to go to the royal well on a moonless night and decapitate the shrouded body he would find there. Mandev obeyed, only to find to his horror that he had sacrificed his own father. When he asked the goddess Bajra Yogini of Sankhu how to expiate his guilt, she released a bird and told him to build a stupa on the spot where it landed.

Whatever its legendary origins, it’s possible that the core of the stupa dates as early as the fifth century AD, and it’s almost certain that it encloses holy relics, perhaps parts of the Buddha’s body (bones, hair, teeth) and objects touched or used by him, along with sacred texts and other ritual objects. The stupa has been sealed for centuries, so no one knows exactly what lies within, but the relics are held responsible for the stupa’s power, and its ability to command veneration.

Volunteering in Boudhanath

One of the simplest ways to spend some time in Boudhanath without committing to full-time study is to volunteer with one of the many charities sponsored by the Tibetan monasteries. One of the biggest is Karuna Shechen (karuna-shechen.org), run by French author and monk Mathieu Ricard and based at Shechen monastery, which operates clinics and schools in Nepal, Tibet and India. Another, Rokpa (rokpa.org), runs a winter soup kitchen and a home for street children.

The stupa

Foreigners are charged Rs250 for entry into the stupa plaza and surrounding area; pay at the main gate or at one of the checkpoints on the smaller roads into the plaza

While less embellished than Swayambhu, the stupa at Boudhanath exudes a more muscular holy presence. It is also more interactive: you can climb onto the stupa’s base at its northern end, and children sometimes fly kites from it. The dome is elevated on three twenty-cornered plinths of decreasing size, which reinforces the notion of the stupa as a mandala, or meditation tool. The primordial Buddha’s searching blue eyes are painted on the four sides of the central spire, and above them rise thirteen golden steps to nirvana. Instead of five dhyani Buddhas, however, 108 (an auspicious number) much smaller images are set in niches around the dome, describing a broad pantheon of Buddhas, lamas and protector deities. Prayer wheels are mounted around the perimeter wall – it’s said that each spin of a prayer wheel here is equivalent to reciting the mantra embossed on it eleven thousand times.

Ajima shrine

The small Ajima shrine on the northern side of the stupa shelters the ghoulish image of the goddess Ajima, demonstrating her pre-eminence as the bringer of disease by sucking the guts out of a corpse. More popularly known as Harati, she was a much-feared abductor of children until the Buddha taught her a lesson by stealing one of her own brood. Buddhist Newars take care to propitiate her suitably; in return she acts as the protectress of their children. Next door is a room-sized prayer wheel – all are welcome to spin it – and on the other side of the shrine you’ll see the tanks where whitewash is mixed during festivals. Behind lies the newly built Tamang gompa, whose balcony makes an excellent vantage point.

The gompa

Where Swayambhu is traditionally sacred to Newar Buddhists, Boudhanath has always been essentially Tibetan in culture. Since the Chinese invasion, what was once a pilgrimage site has become the second pole of Tibetan religion, alongside Dharamsala in India. Over the last four decades, Western donations and canny business ventures have laid down the foundations of considerable wealth in the Tibetan community, and much of it has piously appeared above ground in the shape of gompa, or monasteries. There are some twenty scattered around the neighbourhood (a complete map is painted on a wall near the Ajima shrine). Most are named after gompa in Tibet destroyed by the Chinese, and preserve the same lineage of teachers and reincarnate lamas. While all four of the major Tibetan Buddhist sects are represented, the majority belong to the Nyingma-pa, the oldest order of Tibetan Buddhism – and that of Nepal’s ethnic Tamangs, who still own much of the land around Boudhanath.

Boudhanath’s dharma scene

Boudhanath’s Western community is well established, though to become a part of it you need either an introduction or a lot of time, as serious Western students of dharma tend to regard tourists as spiritual interference. Buddhism is big business in Boudhanath but many Westerners still rate it as the best place in the world to study Tibetan Buddhism. All four sects are well represented, and the main alternative, Dharamsala in India, arguably has a politically rather than spiritually charged atmosphere.

A good way to start is to stay at a gompa guesthouse, check restaurant or guesthouse notice boards, or sample some of the alternative treatments – from massage to Tibetan medicine. You could also go straight to a monastery: puja ceremonies are open to all, and most Rinpoches (or “respected teachers”) give occasional open talks – with or without English translation.

Some monasteries are particularly oriented towards Westerners; the following are worth checking out. Note that some better-funded monasteries operate satellite institutes in the countryside.

teaching Gompa in Boudhanath

Jamchen Lhakhang Gompa The Sakya school is represented by this monastery, which sponsors the Boudhanath-based International Buddhist Academy (internationalbuddhistacademy.org), offering courses throughout the year.

Shechen Gompa shechen.org. The current abbot of this “Bhutanese Monastery”, Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, teaches in English and is ably filling the shoes of his grandfather who held the post before him.

Shedrub Ling Gompa (aka the “The White Monastery”) shedrub.org. Perennially popular, the Ka Nying Shedrub Ling Gompa holds regular Saturday morning talks in English. The monastery is affiliated to Kathmandu University for longer degree programmes (ryi.org).

Shelkar Chode Gompa 400m west of the stupa, facing the Hyatt Regency hotel lamawangdu.org. Lama Tsering Wangdu Rinpoche holds open sessions most mornings (around 7.30–11am); visitors can also attend the remarkable Chöd ritual, a tantric, symbolic offering of the body performed on the 10th and 25th of the Tibetan month.

Thrangu Tashi Choeling Gompa rinpoche.com. Thrangu Rinpoche attracts many Western students, though usually to his grand temple and teaching complex at Namobuddha, rather than this relatively modest monastery in Boudhanath itself.

teaching gompa around Boudhanath

Kopan Monastery 3km north of Boudhanath kopan-monastery.com. One of the most Westerner-friendly options, with a full schedule of courses and teachings, including daily teachings at 10am, seven- and ten-day residential courses aimed at beginners, and a well-regarded month-long intensive course.

Pulahari Gompa Further along the ridge from Kopan jamgonkongtrul.org. A major centre for long-term Western Buddhists, with frequent ten-day programmes.

Visiting Boudhanath’s gompa

Only a few gompa keep their doors open all day – but if the door is open you can go in. Most welcome spectators during their cacophonous morning and pre-dusk puja, or prayer ritual – just slip your shoes off outside the main door, salute with a namaste palms-pressed-together-over-the-breast gesture, and sit on the floor – avoid the monks’ benches. The interior of the main lhakang (assembly hall) is typically dominated by gilded statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas and decorated with silk brocade hangings and colourful murals depicting fearsome guardians, symbolic deities and cosmological patterns.

The Taragaon Museum

Grounds of Hyatt Regency hotel, Boudhanath Sadak • Daily 10am–5pm • Free • 01 5178 105, taragaonmuseum.com

The Taragaon Museum is an absolute gem, hidden in plain sight among the eccentric buildings of a 1970s hostel in the grounds of the Hyatt Regency hotel, a short walk east from the stupa,

Opened in 2014, the museum documents heritage and architectural conservation efforts in Nepal from the mid-twentieth century onwards, taking in paintings, photographs, architectural drawings and more.

Alongside stunning landscapes and nineteenth-century watercolours, the painstaking architectural cross-sections of entire valley towns and mountain villages are a particular highlight.

Boutique shops and a café are also among the cluster of buildings, and an organic market is held here most Saturday mornings.

Arrival and information Boudhanath

By bus Minibuses and microbuses (every 10–15min; around 30min), all numbered #2, arrive and depart from Kathmandu’s Kantipath near the NAC (the Nepal Airlines office, often referred to as RNAC).

By taxi Taxis cost around Rs500 from central Kathmandu. You’ll be dropped off on the Sankhu Road outside the main gate.

By bike Quite simply, don’t – the road here is one of the valley’s busiest and most polluted.

Services All the usual tourist facilities, including moneychangers, photo and phone shops, internet cafés and travel/ticket agents, can be found in the immediate vicinity of the stupa. There are several ATMs outside the main Boudhanath gate, including a 24hr Standard Chartered one.

activities

Alternative therapies There are many Tibetan medicine clinics in Boudhanath, but Shechen Clinic, opposite Shechen Gompa (Sun–Thurs 9am–4.30pm; 01 448 7924, karuna-shechen.org), is perhaps the most useful: as well as Tibetan treatments, it offers homeopathy, acupuncture and Western/drug-based medicine. It uses a proportion of the consultation fees to subsidize health care for local people, and the adjacent hospice. The Sound Planetarium, meanwhile, offers singing-bowl therapies.

Boudhanath festivals

If you want an extra helping of Tibetan culture, visit Boudhanath during the festival of Losar in February or March, when the community hosts the biggest Tibetan New Year celebration in Nepal. Other busy times are Buddha Jayanti (the Buddha’s birthday), held on the full moon of April–May, when an image of the Buddha is paraded around the stupa aboard an elephant, and the full moon of March–April, when ethnic Tamangs – original guardians of the stupa – converge to arrange marriages, and hundreds of eligible brides sit around the stupa for inspection. Full-moon and new-moon days, when acts of worship earn more merit, attract the most pilgrims.

Accommodation

You pay a premium to stay in Boudhanath, but it’s worth it to enjoy the place at its dusk and early-morning best. Most guesthouses are within easy walking distance of the stupa. Those attached to monasteries are perhaps the most colourful, but expect early-morning wake-up calls courtesy of horns, drums and chanting monks. It’s worth calling ahead to reserve, as popular places fill up, especially around the time of festivals, enthronements of lamas and so on.

Dragon Guest House Mahankal 01 517 8117, dragonguesth@gmail.com; map. Comfortable hotel in a quiet area, run by a family from Mustang, and which attracts lots of returnees. Decently furnished rooms (the cheaper with shared bathrooms) are stacked up in a tall tower – upper rooms are airier. A 5min or so walk from the stupa. Rs850

Kunzom Hotel Beside the stupa 01 491 6241; map. A narrow entrance on the stupa plaza leads through to this perfunctory hotel. All rooms give onto common balconies and have wood panelling, parquet floors, TVs and bathrooms (and sometimes a fair bit of dust). Tibetan murals in the common areas provide a glimmer of character. Rs2000

Shambaling Hotel Off Phulbari Rd 01 491 6868, shambaling.com; map. Located a 10min walk from the stupa, this smart, eco-aware hotel has plenty in the way of character and comforts (including kettles, minibars and slippers in the en suites). There’s a good garden restaurant, and massages (from Rs2500/hr). US$98

Shechen Guest House Shechen Gompa 01 517 8209, shechenguesthouse.com.np; map. Tucked away in a quiet area, with simple but perfectly acceptable rooms livened up by oddments of Tibetan fabrics. It’s owned by the adjacent Shechen monastery, so you pay a little extra for the networking – there are often visiting monks taking tea in the well-tended gardens and restaurant. Good breakfasts, with home-made bread. Rs1420

Tharlam Guest House Phulbari 01 491 4760; map. Newish three-storey building, with good-value, large and spotless rooms set in distinctly grand surroundings. These belong to the monastery behind, for which it acts as a kind of gatehouse – which inevitably means an early-morning puja call. Suites and rooms with kitchenettes are also available, as are monthly rates. Rs800

Hiking and biking around Boudhanath

Boudhanath makes a good springboard for several walks and bike rides in this part of the valley.

Pashupatinath The twin poles of Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism in Nepal, Boudhanath and Pashupatinath, lie 2.5km apart – an intriguing half-hour’s walk through the ordinary, domestic Kathmandu that few tourists see. From Boudhanath’s main gate, cross the road and follow the lane that slopes slightly downhill past open-fronted shops and houses. You don’t need to turn until you see the pine-clad slopes of Pashupatinath’s Kailash Hill; turn right onto the main road just short of Gauri Ghat and follow the main road from there. Route finding is just as simple in reverse.

Kopan Gompa Occupying a ridge about 3km north of the stupa, Kopan Gompa is an easy target, and something of a pilgrimage destination for its astoundingly richly decorated “thousand-Buddha stupa”, so named for the inordinate number of holy relics it contains. You can take a taxi all the way, but it’s a pleasant walk.

Pulahari Gompa Half an hour’s walk further to the east of Kopan (beyond the giant temple of the Amitabha Foundation), Pulahari Gompa sits atop the ridge like the superstructure of an enormous container ship; its huge prayer hall is perhaps the most richly and exquisitely decorated in Nepal. Both monasteries are usually open to visitors in daylight hours unless there’s a ceremony on.

Nagi Gompa From either Kopan or Pulahari, it’s a strenuous two- to three-hour hike north up a wooded ridge to the nunnery of Nagi Gompa, though you probably shouldn’t go without help finding the way. From here you can continue up into Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park.

Gokarneswar Three kilometres northeast of Boudhanath (and 2km downhill from Pulahari on a paved road) lies Gokarneswar, where an imposing Shiva temple gazes across the Bagmati River to the peaceful Gokarna Forest – which encloses the luxury Gokarna Forest Resort, golf club and spa. Frequent mini- and microbuses run from here back to Boudhanath and Kathmandu, along the main road from Sundarijal, the trailhead for Helambu treks.

Eating

Plenty of restaurants around the stupa plaza target day-trippers, with rooftop seating and tourist menus, while the more authentic Tibetan places – with trademark curtained doors and windows – are tucked away in the back lanes and on the main road. Most places shut at around 9pm, but will close earlier on quiet nights – or stay open if there’s a big group in.

3D Restaurant Off the stupa plaza; map. The newly renovated interior, with its neon-lit ceilings, won’t be to everyone’s taste but 3D has a solid reputation for Tibetan food that’s fresh, authentic and inexpensive. Veg or meat momos and thukpa cost around Rs75–125. Daily 7/8am–8pm.

Café Flavors Stupa plaza 01 449 5484; map. Sophisticated establishment set back from the plaza, with a peaceful, plant-filled courtyard. There are twenty types of coffee (Rs90–180) and a good range of beers (including Belgian options for Rs500–550), plus the usual international menu (mains Rs320–540). Daily 7.30am–9pm.

Garden Kitchen Restaurant Phulbari 01 491 5760; map. A gate in a back alley leads to a real oasis: a spacious terracotta-floored courtyard surrounded by greenery, hung with paper lanterns, and thronging with the dharma crowd working up a spiritual appetite over coffee, cakes and reasonably priced, homely food. Good breakfast options, plus Nepali, Indian and Chinese mains (Rs75–215). Daily 8am–9pm.

Nir’s Toast and Bakery Alleyway off Phulbari Rd; map. This simple, courtyard café, tucked away at the end of an underground arcade, is great for coffee, cake and tapping into the Buddhist scene – there’s a thriving notice board with courses, sessions and expats advertising for flatmates. Also does decent veg and non-veg mains (Rs135–555). Profits go to schools in eastern Nepal. Daily 7/8am–9pm.

Pho 99 Stupa plaza 980 114 3330; map. Kathmandu’s Vietnamese Pho chain took over the tiny café that was here previously, but fortunately retained its excellent coffee and cakes and still serves them alongside its usual Southeast Asian fare. The tofu curry (Rs450) comes highly recommended. Daily 8am–8pm.

Roadhouse Stupa plaza 01 491 6446; map. Boudhanath’s offshoot of this smart chain offers excellent food, notably wood-fired pizzas (from Rs475). It’s a great spot for stupa watching, or a sunset cocktail (from Rs450). Daily 9am–9.30pm.

Stupa View Stupa plaza 01 491 4962; map. Long-running vegetarian restaurant, with (as the name suggests) suitably impressive vistas of the stupa. The menu features several vegan options and is fairly imaginative: from masala potato wedges to Mustang apple gratin – a confection of cream, plums and cinnamon. Mains Rs385–595. Daily 9am–8/9pm.

Shopping

Run-of-the-mill souvenirs at Boudhanath are notoriously overpriced, but this is the place to come if you’re seeking genuinely obscure items. Keep an eye out for tea tables, jewellery, flasks, butter-tea churns, singing bowls and prayer-flag printing blocks, not to mention some genuine, high-quality thangka (Buddhist religious paintings). It’s also a good place to buy prayer flags, brocade banners, Tibetan incense, chuba (Tibetan wraparound dresses) and maroon monks’ garb, not to mention meditation CDs and DVDs. For books in English you’re better off in Kathmandu’s Thamel, though a few places sell traditional wood-block printed texts in Tibetan.

The Sound Planetarium Off Phulbari Rd, beside Shedrub Ling Gompa 984 319 3204, soundplanetarium.com; map. Tibetan singing bowls have long had mystical connotations, but this boutique, with its therapy rooms behind, takes it to an extreme by finding “planetary alignments” and personality matches to the sound frequencies. The therapies, which use the bowls’ vibrations to relax the body and heal the mind, feel amazing – but are not cheap, at Rs2200–2500 an hour. Singing bowls themselves are also on sale. Daily 9am–5/6pm.

Tsering Art School Shechen Gompa 01 449 6097, shechen.org/cultural-preservation/art-school; map. This offshoot of the adjacent Shechen gompa does most of its business with local monasteries, so it’s an excellent place to learn about what you’re buying. The shop mostly sells high-quality thangka, and would-be thangka artists can study here. Daily 8/9am–5/6pm.

Tushita Heaven Handicraft Stupa plaza 01 491 6246, thangkatushita.com; map. This cooperative of thangka artists, some of whom can be seen at work in the shop, is one of the longer-standing and more serious of Boudhanath’s outlets. You can commission your own piece, at least in terms of colour and theme – artists will only work within proper iconographical norms. Daily 8/9am–5/6pm.

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Sankhu

The road beyond Boudhanath – one of the old trade routes to Tibet – rolls eastwards as far as SANKHU. It’s one of the valley’s larger Newari towns, but, hard up against the forested hills, has a pleasant backwater feel. There’s an old bazaar area to the east of the main north–south road, but the area is worth visiting mainly for its Bajra Yogini temple, whose gilded roof glints from a grove of trees on the hillside north of town. Snack food can be found in the bazaar but there’s nothing oriented towards tourists.

Sankhu was badly hit by the earthquakes of 2015 – you’ll see damaged, cracked and crumbling houses alongside newly reconstructed concrete homes as you pass through. The temple withstood the worst of the quakes but at the time of writing was heavily propped and in need of serious renovation.

The Bajra Yogini temple

2km from Sankhu • Daily dawn–dusk • Free • Follow the main road through the arch at the town’s north end, then bear left after 400m on a cobbled path. If you have a car/bike, continue for another 1km until the road peters out. The last 30min or so is a stiff climb

Bajra Yogini is the eldest of a ferocious foursome of tantric goddesses specially venerated in the Kathmandu Valley. To Buddhist Newars – her main devotees – she is identified with Ugratara, the wrathful, corpse-trampling emanation of Tara, one of the female aspects of Buddhahood. Hindus identify her as Durga (Kali), the most terrifying of the eight mother goddesses. She’s also known as Khadga Yogini, for the sword (khadga) held in her right hand.

The current Bajra Yogini temple dates from the seventeenth century, though the smaller building next to it is more ancient: its natural stone dome may well be the original seventh-century object of worship at this site. The stone just to the right of the temple door is a nag (snake) shrine.

The pilgrim’s rest-house

Steps lead up, past scurrying troupes of monkeys, to a picturesque, Rana-era pilgrim’s rest-house, set around a courtyard. The wing nearest the temple houses a subsidiary shrine to Bajra Yogini, tucked away on the first floor. Touching the goddess herself is forbidden, so this gilt copper copy was created for the annual jatra procession down to Sankhu (held for nine days from the full to the new moon of March–April); as a mother goddess, she is flanked by her two children.

On the ground floor, a seventh-century Buddha head and an enormous overturned frying pan are displayed. These belong respectively to Vrisadev, whose decapitation led to the founding of Boudhanath and to an ancient king who offered his own body as a daily sacrificial fry-up to Bajra Yogini. According to legend, the goddess would restore him to life and endow him with supernatural powers; when a rival tried to copy the trick, the goddess accepted his flesh, with no resurrection, and then turned over the frying pan to indicate that she would require no more sacrifices. Blood sacrifices are now performed only in front of the triangular stone of Bhairab, Bajra Yogini’s consort, which guards the path some hundred-odd steps below the temple; on the average day it gleams darkly with fresh blood.

The caves

In the back wall of the compound, a small square opening indicates a meditation cave. Another cave just behind the pati west of the compound (recognizable by the faint Tibetan inscription of the Avalokitesvara mantra over the door) is known as Dharma Pap Gupha: those who can squeeze through the opening into the inner chamber demonstrate their virtue (dharma); those who can’t, their vice (pap).

ARRIVAL and departure sankhu

By bus Buses (every 10–15min; 1hr) run from Kathmandu’s City Bus Park to the bus station at Sankhu’s southern gate.

By bike It’s possible to cycle from Kathmandu to Sankhu (19km; around 1hr 30min), though there’s heavy industrial traffic until beyond Jorpati (just east of Boudhanath). With a mountain bike, you can continue on to Nagarkot: head north from the old bazaar area on the main road. Other, rougher trails ascend the ridge to Changu Narayan.

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Budhanilkantha

Following Kantipath and Lazimpath north from central Kathmandu brings you, 8km later, to Narayanthan, a village-turned-suburb centred on BUDHANILKANTHA, the site of a hugely impressive sleeping Vishnu statue. A visit can be combined with a hike or mountain-bike ride up the thickly forested peak of Shivapuri, where you’ll find some of the finest Himalayan views anywhere in the valley.

The Sleeping Vishnu

Daily dawn–dusk; puja daily 9–10am & 6–7pm • Free

The valley’s largest stone sculpture, the 5m-long Sleeping Vishnu (Jalakshayan Narayan) at Budhanilkantha, reclines in a water tank like an oversized astronaut in suspended animation. Carved from a type of basalt found miles away in the southern hills, it was apparently dragged here by forced labour during the reign of the seventh-century monarch Vishnugupta, who controlled the valley under the Licchavi king Bhimarjunadev, much as the Ranas ruled in the name of the Shah dynasty in the early twentieth century. According to legend the image was lost and buried for centuries, only to be rediscovered by a farmer tilling his fields.

Hindus may enter the sanctum area to perform puja before the Sleeping Vishnu; others may only view from between concrete railings. Priests and novices continually tend, bathe and anoint the image but the bustle of religious activity is at its height at morning and evening puja. Each year the god is said to “awaken” from his summer slumber during the Haribondhini Ekadashi festival in late October or early November, an event that draws thousands of worshippers.

Historically, one person who would never put in an appearance here was the king of Nepal. Some attribute this absence to a seventeenth-century curse; others to the fact that the monarchs were held to be reincarnations of Vishnu and should never gaze upon their own image.

“Old Blue-Throat”

Budhanilkantha’s name has been a source of endless confusion. It has nothing to do with the Buddha (budha means “old”, though that doesn’t stop Buddhist Newars from worshipping the image). The real puzzler is why Budhanilkantha (literally, “Old Blue-Throat”), a title that unquestionably refers to Shiva, has been attached here to Vishnu. The myth of Shiva’s blue throat, a favourite in Nepal, relates how the gods churned the ocean of existence and inadvertently unleashed a poison that threatened to destroy the world. They begged Shiva to save them from their blunder and he obliged by drinking the poison. His throat burning, the great god flew up to the range north of Kathmandu, struck the mountainside with his trident to create a lake, Gosainkund, and quenched his thirst – suffering no lasting ill effect except for a blue patch on his throat. The water in the Sleeping Vishnu’s tank is popularly believed to originate in Gosainkund, and Shaivas claim that a reclining image of Shiva can be seen under the waters of the lake during the annual Shiva festival there in August, which perhaps explains the association. Local legend maintains that a mirror-image statue of Shiva lies on the statue’s underside.

Nonetheless, the Budhanilkantha sculpture bears all the hallmarks of Vishnu or, as he’s often called in Nepal, Narayan. It depicts Vishnu floating in the ocean of existence upon the endless snake Shesh; from his navel will grow Brahma and the rest of creation.

ARRIVAL and Departure Budhanilkantha

By bus Microbuses (every 5–10min; 45min) leave Kathmandu from opposite the Nepal Airlines office (NAC, also often referred to as RNAC) on Kantipath, heading north past the Kaisher Mahal, just east of Thamel at Lainchaur. Approaching Budhnilkantha, most buses stop at a fork in the road near the temple’s entrance, but returning you may need to walk 200m south to the Panchakanya Marga bus stop, across from the Park Village Resort hotel. Some services head on to the Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park gate, 2km north, but you may have to walk.

Accommodation and eating

The bazaar surrounding the Sleeping Vishnu supports a lively trade in sweets, snacks and tea, as well as religious paraphernalia. If you’re looking for something more substantial to eat, head to one of the hotel restaurants.

Chandra Ban Eco-Resort Around 1km west of the Budhanilkantha Temple 01 622 5360, kathmanduecoresort.com. Lying on the lower slopes of Shivapuri, this exquisitely furnished guesthouse offers an idyllic break from the chaos of central Kathmandu. Rooms are styled as “apartments” sleeping one to four people and include kitchen and living space, as well as comfy beds and en suites. The fresh, largely vegetarian set menu (included) is delicious, and optional daily yoga sessions are also part of the package. Minimum stay is two nights. US$80

Park Village Resort Just off the main road, around 200m short of the Sleeping Vishnu 01 437 5280, ktmgh.com. This country-club-style resort has extensive, bird-filled grounds with a pool, tennis court, ping-pong tables and spa. The restaurant serves good food, and the en suites and cottages are spacious. Rooms US$60, cottages US$100

Shivapuri Heights Cottage West of Budhanilkantha 984 137 1927, shivapuricottage.com. This pair of attractive, traditionally designed cottages lies a 5–15min drive off the road (depending on your vehicle and road conditions), on the edge of the Shivapuri forest, a short way west of Budhanilkantha. The place has great valley views and is a popular weekend retreat for expats – dinner and breakfast are included in the rates, and cocktails, massages, guides and more can be arranged. Staying here also allows you to get an early start for the dawn hike to the summit of Shivapuri. US$100

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Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park

Park gate 2km north of Budhanilkantha • Daily 7am–5pm; ticket office closes around 2pm • Rs565, bicycles Rs1000; campers pay Rs100/tent at the park gate • Microbuses from Kathmandu to Budhanilkantha (every 5–10min; 45min) occasionally continue as far as the park gate, but you may have to walk

At 2732m, Shivapuri (or Sheopuri) is the second highest point on the valley rim. It lies within the forested Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park, designed to protect the valley’s water supply and offering visitors superlative Himalayan views.

By far the most rewarding route to the peak from the park gate, 2km north of Budhanilkantha, isn’t the direct but masochistic ascent up the largely unshaded stone staircase, but instead starts with a walk east along a dirt road (usually navigable on a 4WD or motorbike in decent conditions) to Nagi Gompa, a former Tamang monastery gifted to the renowned lama Urgyen Rinpoche, and now occupied by nuns – along with the occasional Western student. (If you’re interested in Buddhism, ask to stay in the simple guesthouse here.) It’s a pleasant walk of an hour or so, climbing and contouring eastward through the forest. From Nagi Gompa, it takes two to three hours up to the peak (when in doubt, bear left). Just short of the top you’ll pass Baghdwar, where the holy Bagmati River gushes forth from the mouth of a tiger’s head, and a Hindu hermitage.

The total vertical gain – nearly 1200m – shouldn’t be taken lightly: pack food and sufficient water. Clouds tend to move in by lunchtime but if you’re up early enough you should catch superb views of the Himalayas, from Jugal and Ganesh Himal out to Himalchuli, and eastwards from Langtang Lirung to Dorje Lakpa. To be sure of the views, you can camp on the flat, grassy summit.

A direct descent route leads west to a minor col a short distance from the summit, and from there down the well-made but relentless stone staircase; the trail can either return you to the main gate or to the road roughly halfway between Budhanilkantha and the park gate.

Hiking and biking in Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park

There are numerous walking and biking routes in Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park, and Nagi Gompa makes a good place to start. The rough road contours from the nunnery all the way along the southern side of the park to its easternmost point, offering various ways to drop down to the valley. One good, bikeable route descends from a fork some 500m east of the nunnery, following a lovely ridge-line south to Gokarna or Kopan; this is also an attractive (if long) route up to Shivapuri peak.

From the Tamang village of Mulkharka, 10km east of Nagi Gompa, along the road, walkers can descend to the small town of Sundarijal in less than half an hour; from here plentiful buses run back to Boudhanath and Kathmandu. Alternatively, you can trek northwards and upwards through the middle of the park from Mulkharka (where there’s basic accommodation) to the pass at Borlang Bhangjang (roughly 3hr), from where you descend to Chisapani, at the park’s northeastern side (1hr); this is traditionally the first day of the Helambu Circuit.

From Mulkharka, you can also take a classic mountain-bike route, heading east on the rough road all the way to the park gate at Jhule, and continuing south from there to Nagarkot or Sankhu; you could even turn north and carry on all the way round the fringe of the park to Chisapani. Budhanilkantha to Chisapani would be an all-day ride of 30km (count on 8hr). Between Mulkharka and Jhule, walkers can descend directly south to Sankhu, via the Bajra Yogini temple.

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Nagarjun Ban and around

The valley’s northwestern fringe is its most congested. Kathmandu sprawls to the very edge of the basin, while the main road to Trisuli heaves itself out of the valley. The wooded hillside of Nagarjun Ban provides a pleasant swathe of green, however, and just outside its boundaries – it is part of the Shivapuri Nagarjun National Park – lie the curious Sleeping Vishnu at Balaju and the rustic temple of Ichangu Narayan. It’s true that Nagarjun’s forest is no match for Shivapuri, that the Vishnu plays second fiddle to the one at Budhanilkantha, and that the temple is distinctly ordinary compared to the similarly named Changu Narayan, but they’re all handily close to the city centre.

Balaju Water Garden

2km northwest of Thamel along the Trisuli road • Daily 7am–7pm • Rs5 • From Kathmandu, frequent microbuses run from outside NAC (Nepal Airlines) on Kantipath, heading to Balaju via Jamal and Lainchaur, on Kantipath, and Lekhnath Marg, in north Thamel; Balaju is also within easy cycling distance of Thamel

The Water Garden at BALAJU is really a suburban picnic park just beyond the ring road. Its official name of Baisdhara Garden comes from the open water tank feeding 22 (baais) stone spouts (dhara). It heaves with bathing worshippers during the Lhuti Punhi festival, observed on the day of the full moon of March–April. The park’s chief attraction, however, is a Sleeping Vishnu statue once thought to be a copy of the more famous and much larger seventh-century image at Budhanilkantha, but may actually predate it. The god appears to be holding a conch and mace in his two left hands, and ashes and a rosary in his right (attributes of Vishnu and Shiva respectively), making the figure a Shankar-Narayan or half-Vishnu, half-Shiva. If so, this may reflect the balancing act of the early Gupta rulers, who introduced Vaishnavism but continued to honour the more ancient, popular worship of Shiva.

Nagarjun Ban

Park gate 2km from Balaju • Daily 7am–5pm; ticket office closes around 2pm • Rs565, bicycles Rs1000 • Frequent microbuses (every 10min or so; around 45min) run from Nepal Airlines (NAC) on Kathmandu’s Kantipath, to Balaju via Jamal and Lainchaur, on Kantipath, and Lekhnath Marg, in north Thamel. Ask to be let off at Machha Pokhari Chowk – an obvious major junction

Two kilometres up the road from Balaju stands the gate to Nagarjun Ban (also known as Rani Ban), a large and surprisingly wild forest reserve. An unpaved road winds from the park gate to the chaitya-topped summit of 2096m Jamacho, but you can hike more directly up the ridge along a 5km trail (allow at least two hours on foot). You’ll pass numerous limestone caves with Buddhist legends attached.

The gate is the only official entrance to the reserve, but various trails thread through the forest and exit at a number of points around the perimeter. There are also a number of good mountain-bike routes. If you want to walk for long in the forest, and especially if climbing Jamacho peak, it would be wise to come as part of a group, as robberies have been reported.

You can eat in pleasant surroundings at a few outdoor cafés along the main road beyond the forest entrance.

Ichangu Narayan

3km northwest of Swayambhunath • Daily dawn–dusk • Free • A roughish road leaves the ring road immediately opposite Swayambhunath’s western tip; there’s no bus, but taxis wait at this junction, or you can hike or bike up through the suburb of Halchok towards a notch in the ridge behind a big Buddhist monastery; from here an increasingly rough road descends into the Ichangu valley to reach the temple after about 3km

According to tradition, a Narayan temple occupies each of the four cardinal points of the Kathmandu Valley. The western one, Ichangu Narayan, is rustic rather than distinguished, but nestles in a surprisingly pleasant rural side valley at the southern base of Jamacho.

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Kirtipur

Once-proud KIRTIPUR (“City of Glory”) occupies a long, low battleship of a ridge 5km southwest of Kathmandu. Commanding a panoramic – not to mention strategic – view of the valley. The well-preserved old town is mostly car-free and great for a half-day’s wandering. It also conceals, deep within its miniature maze of brick and stone streets, one of the best Newari restaurants in the valley.

In modern times, Kirtipur’s hilltop position has proved more of a handicap than an asset – commerce all takes place at the foot of the hill, in Naya Bazaar, the “New Market” (with its Thai-style Theravada Buddhist temple). It’s here, too, that you’ll notice crowds of students from the adjacent Tribhuvan University – Nepal’s chief centre of higher education, and a hotbed of political activism. Prior to the 2015 earthquakes, the old, upper town had been splendidly preserved, thanks to a conservation project that furnished the streets with fine stone paving and restored many of its temples. The main sites escaped relatively unscathed but many homes, already crooked with age, were seriously damaged and at time of writing were in the process of being rebuilt. More than a handful of these new, hopefully earthquake-resistant, buildings won’t fit too well with Kirtipur’s otherwise well-preserved old-world face, but the town’s atmosphere should be retained: many residents of the old town are Jyapus, from the Newari farming subcaste, who still rely on working the fields surrounding town. In spring and autumn, the streets are full of sheaves being threshed and grain being stored. In a typically Newari arrangement, the northwestern end of town is predominantly Hindu, the southeastern Buddhist, but everyone shares the same festivals.

Brief history

Established as a western outpost of Patan in the twelfth century, Kirtipur had gained nominal independence by the time Prithvi Narayan Shah began his final conquest of the Kathmandu Valley in 1767. The Gorkha king considered the town to be the military linchpin of the valley, making its capture his first priority. After two separate attacks, a six-month siege, and with no help forthcoming from Patan, Kirtipur surrendered on the understanding it would receive a total amnesty. Instead, in an atrocity intended to demoralize remaining opposition in the valley, Prithvi Shah ordered his troops to cut off the noses and lips of every man and boy in Kirtipur. Supposedly, only men skilled in the playing of wind instruments were spared. The rest of the valley fell within a year.

Bagh Bhairab Mandir

Purano Kirtipur • Daily dawn–dusk • Free

The road from the university switchbacks to the saddle of Kirtipur’s twin-humped ridge and deposits you in a square outside the prodigious Bagh Bhairab Mandir, which serves as both a war memorial and a cathedral to Bhairab in his tiger (bagh) form. Dating from the early sixteenth century, it’s one of the oldest and best-preserved Newari pagodas in the valley. Mounted outside the upper floor of the temple is a collection of rusty weapons captured during the siege of Kirtipur; faded murals depicting scenes from the Mahabharat can be seen on the upper exterior walls of the ground floor.

The compound

Local musicians perform bhajan early in the morning and around dinnertime in the temple compound, and on Tuesdays and Saturdays people sacrifice animals in front of the main shrine. In an upper chamber is a separate image of Indrayani, one of the Kathmandu Valley’s eight mother goddesses (ashta matrika), who, according to one Cinderella-like legend, was bossed around by the other goddesses until she miraculously turned a pumpkin into gold. Kirtipur’s biggest festival, Indrayani Jatra, is in late November or early December, when Indrayani and Ganesh are paraded through town on palanquins and a pair of pigeons are ceremonially released.

From the north side of the compound there are fantastic views across Kathmandu to Swayambhu. At the opposite, southern end, on the left of the gate as you go in, a small pagoda shrine dedicated to Ganesh houses an ancient – possibly pre-Lichhavi (pre-fourth century) – statue of a standing Shiva, half-armless but equipped with a potently erect penis. Along the back wall of this shrine sit five tiny mother-goddess statues associated with five sheep that escaped the tiger; they’re thought to date from the fifth century.

The bloodthirsty tiger of Kirtipur

Local legend relates that a shepherd, to pass the time, fashioned a tiger image out of burrs. The shepherd went off in search of a poinsettia leaf for the tongue, but when he returned he found his sheep gone – and the tiger’s mouth dripping with blood. To honour the miraculously bloodthirsty Bhairab, the people enshrined in Bagh Bhairab Mandir a clay tiger, its face covered with a silver, tongueless Bhairab mask that is remade every twenty or thirty years. The mask is hidden, but a tiny porthole on the eastern side of the temple – positioned so as to catch the dawn sun – may allow you to sneak a glimpse.

Uma-Maheshwar Mandir

Purano Kirtipur • Daily dawn–dusk • Free

At the top of the northern, Hindu hump of the city stands the elephant-guarded Uma-Maheshwar Mandir, whose temple bell is a copy, cast in the unlikely setting of Croydon, England. The original bell tolled the hours in the Kathmandu clock tower for many years until the structure collapsed in the earthquake of 1934. Long unfinished, the wooden struts under the lowest pagoda roof were finally adorned with traditional carvings in 2008.

The erotic scenes on the lowest level are supposed to have less to do with Kamasutra-style sexual gymnastics and more with local tantric and fertility traditions; the artist certainly seems to have let his imagination run riot.

Chilandeo Stupa

Southeast from the Bagh Bhairab temple is the Lohan Degaa, a stone shikra shared by both Hindu and Buddhist worshippers. Beyond, the atmospheric Chilandeo Stupa crowns the southern hill, its exposed brickwork lending a hoary antiquity generally lacking in better-maintained stupas. Chilandeo (also known as Chilancho Bahal) is popularly supposed to have been erected by Ashoka. The ridge that rears up so impressively to the southwest is Champadevi, one of the high points along the valley rim.

arrival and departure kirtipur

By bus Microbuses and minibuses (every 5–10min; around 30min) leave from Kathmandu’s City Bus Park for Naya Bazaar, from where it’s a 10min walk up to the village.

By bike The ride to Kirtipur from Kathmandu is an easily manageable distance, if you are happy negotiating the traffic. The main route travels via Tribhuvan University, off the Dakshinkali road (turn right at the red-brick gate and take the left fork 1km later). Other paths lead to Kirtipur from the Prithvi (Kathmandu–Pokhara) Highway, the ring road and Chobar.

Eating

Newa Lahana Thambahal 984 133 0533; map. This community-run restaurant occupies a rooftop in an otherwise undistinguished house hidden in the little maze of old Kirtipur (follow the sign at the junction just west of the Bagh Bhairab Mandir). You sit on wicker mats and enjoy an incredible menu of tapas-like Newari duck, chicken and buffalo meat dishes – the latter running from tongue to tail via the spinal cord. All are served in brass bowls or on sal leaf plates. There is also a smorgasbord of meat-free options including pizza-like woh pancakes, aloo tama (potatoes and bamboo shoots) and daal bhaat. Raksi is distilled in the basement, and poured from traditional brass vessels. Dishes cost Rs35–300. Daily 10am–9.30pm. last orders 8.30pm.

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The Dakshinkali road

One of Nepal’s eeriest sacrificial shrines, Dakshinkali (dakshin or “southern” Kali), lies along a winding route linking the Kathmandu Valley with the Terai. As it snakes its way along a fold in the valley rim towards the shrine, the Dakshinkali road passes a fine succession of Buddhist and Hindu holy places, offering an intense snapshot of Nepal’s religious culture. The road begins at the ring road’s busy Balkhu junction, at the southwest corner of Kathmandu, just short of Kirtipur (which makes a fine side trip). From Balkhu, it’s possible to take a 4WD taxi south through the hills, descending to the Terai at Hetauda. All Kathmandu–Dakshinkali buses pass through Chobar, Shesh Narayan and Pharping.

Chobar

The village of CHOBAR, 3km south of the ring road, sits atop a deceptively tall hill – capped with an enormous new Buddhist gompa – overlooking the main road and Bagmati River below. From the bus stop, an apparently endless stone stairway leads up through the forest to the huddle of old-fashioned houses and hilltop Adinath Mandir. (Cyclists should take the paved road that breaks west from the main road a little further south.) The temple’s front is festooned with kitchen utensils, offered to Lokeshwar, the temple’s deity. Explanations for this curious custom are various: newlyweds say it ensures a happy union, others claim it’s a rite for the departed. Lokeshwar is worshipped here in the form of a red mask, bearing a close resemblance to Patan’s Rato Machhendranath.

Tearing through to the Terai

Several roads pick their way through the hills south of Kathmandu, the most useful and direct being the Dakshinkali road – though poorly paved, and often temporarily impassable during the monsoon. Traversed by large, roof-racked “Tata Sumo” jeeps, which wait at the Balkhu junction, on the ring road where it crosses the Bagmati River (cars depart as soon as they’re full), the road runs via Pharping and Dakshinkali before crossing the picturesque Kulekhani Reservoir dam and descending via the picturesque bazaar town of Bhimphedi to join the Tribhuvan Rajpath at Bhainse, 11km north of Hetauda, in the Terai. The journey costs around Rs500 per head and takes three to four hours.

Chobar Gorge

When Manjushri drained the Kathmandu Valley of its legendary lake, Chobar Gorge was one of the places he smote with his sword to release the waters. As the Bagmati River slices through a wrinkle in the valley floor, 1km south of Chobar and just beside the Dakshinkali road, it really does look like the work of a neat sword stroke. To see it, you can get off the bus either beside the sign for Manjushree Park at the top of the hill and walk down, or at the cluster of shacks at the bottom and walk back up.

The best vantage point is from a venerable suspension footbridge, custom-cast by an Aberdonian foundry and assembled here in 1907, and standing beside a new road bridge that cuts through towards Patan and the Bungmati road. Immediately upstream stands the seventeenth-century Jal Binayak temple. The tip of its rocky outcrop is worshipped as Ganesh; look out for women selling leaf-plates of the god’s favourite foods – meat, milk, soybeans, banana, ginger, pickles – to offer as puja.

Manjushree Park

Daily 7am–6.30pm • Rs100

Manjushree Park’s rockery garden spreads out over the hillside, its concrete stairways allowing a partial descent into the gorge itself. The gorge is impressively sheer but the stench from the foaming Bagmati as it vomits forth from the valley rather detracts from the experience. The park ticket office also offers guided tours of the Chobar Gupha caves.

Chobar Gupha

Guided 1hr tour (longer tours can be arranged) Rs1500; buy tickets at Manjushree Park ticket office

The Chobar Gupha cave system features more than 3km of passages – among the largest in South Asia. Even on a one-hour tour there are plenty of tight corners to squeeze through and holes to scramble down: wear old clothes. Guides have some spare torches.

Champadevi hIkes

The southwestern rim of the Kathmandu Valley rears up in a fishtail of twin peaks, the highest visible parts of the Chandragiri range. The eastern summit is known as Champadevi, after the resident goddess.

the haatiban ascent route

Perhaps the simplest route up follows the rough dirt road that skirts the Dollu valley (the one immediately north of Pharping) up to the Haatiban Resort. From the resort, a well-trodden track leads northwest up (and sometimes down) through pine forest, and then along the grassy ridgetop to the stupa-marked summit (2249m). A return trip from the resort should take around three hours. If you walk up from the Dakshinkali road it might take four to six hours, so bring food and water.

ALTERNATIVE ASCENT ROUTES

A good alternative ascent route begins just after the Dakshinkali road makes an abrupt bend beyond Taudaha, climbing westwards along dirt roads through fields towards the edge of forest; at the trees, the trail turns southwards, and the last part of the route climbs steeply up through the forest to gain the ridge above Haatiban Resort, at about 2000m.

Another route approaches from the south, following a dirt road up the northern side of the Pharping valley before turning off up the small Sundol valley; you can follow any of a number of trails up from here – all lead directly north to the summit of Champadevi. To avoid the road section of this Pharping route, however, you could also ascend the forested ridge that divides Dollu from Pharping; the trail begins at the monastery immediately west of the Bajra Yogini temple – it’s a bit tricky at the start as you have to find your way through a profusion of prayer flags and paths.

BEYOND CHAMPADEVI

From the summit of Champadevi, you can continue down and up to the unnamed western peak of the fishtail – which is actually slightly higher, at 2286m. You can then continue west along the ridge for an hour or so, following a well-made path down to a saddle and then up to a higher peak (2509m). From here, another ridge tracks south for another hour or so up to the highest peak of the range, Bhasmesur (2622m) – said to be the ashy remains of a demon tricked by Vishnu into incinerating himself. West of the Bhasmesur spur, a path turns north off the ridge (though the actual ridge-line is confused around here – and the illegal charcoal-burning pits don’t help), descending a steep and seemingly endless stone staircase down to the village of Machegaon (90min descent) from where various trails and roads lead back to Kirtipur.

CHAndragiri Hills Cable Car

The Chandragiri Hills cable car, 1km southwest of the Tribhuvan Highway at Chandragiri (chandragirihills.com; Mon–Fri 8am–12.30pm & 1.30–5pm, Sat & Sun 7am–12.30pm & 1.30–6pm; one-way Rs1300, return Rs2200), opened in 2016 and offers by far the easiest option for summiting Kathmandu’s western hills. Development at the upper station is ongoing with shops, restaurants, a temple and hotel all in various stages of completion. Hugely crowded at weekends, on clear days the views north can be phenomenal, and though some visitors won’t enjoy the commercial zone around the station itself, the project has made an extended hike through the Chandragiri range much easier. Head east downhill from the station and a six-hour hike, via the small village of Chakhel Deurali and the peak of Champadevi, will bring you to the Haatiban Resort at the east end of the range. Frequent buses and microbuses (40min) from Kathmandu’s Kalanki bus station can drop you on the main road by the cable car turn-off.

Taudaha pond

Daily 10am–5pm • Rs50; pay entrance fee at the gate

Two kilometres south of Chobar, the road passes the Taudaha pond. Despite its uninspiring appearance, the small lake here is popular with migrant birds, including many duck species and threatened birds such as the oriental darter, falcated duck and Baillon’s crake. According to legend, when Manjushri drained the Kathmandu Valley he left Taudaha as a home for the snakes, and the serpent king Karkatnag still lives at the bottom, coiled around a heap of treasure. A row of café shacks and picnic spots winds around the far side of the water.

Shesh Narayan

From Taudaha pond, the road climbs for another 6km to its highest point, a little beyond Pikhel. Two kilometres beyond, the quiet and shady pools of Shesh Narayan crouch under a wooded hillside. Hindus worship Vishnu here as the mighty creator who formed the universe out of the cosmic ocean; the snake Shesh (or Ananta), the “remainder” of the cosmic waters after Vishnu’s creation, is symbolized by the four pools. A sculpture depicting Surya riding his twelve-horse chariot stands half-submerged in the semicircular pool.

Steps lead up to Narayan’s temple at the base of a limestone overhang, whose stalactites are said by Vaishnavas to be the “milk”, or blessing, of Shesh. To the left of the temple is another hunk of eroded limestone known as Chaumunda – put your ear to it and you’re supposed to hear the sound of running water.

Yanglesho

To the right of the Narayan temple, a doorway conceals a cave that Buddhists call Yanglesho, where Padma Sambhava, the eighth-century founder of Tibetan Buddhism, is supposed to have wrestled with a horde of nag (serpents) and turned them to stone. The story probably symbolizes the saint’s struggle to introduce his brand of tantric Buddhism from India.

Pharping

A few hundred metres beyond Shesh Narayan, PHARPING is an unexpectedly large and lively community for this distant corner of the valley. The original Newari village is overshadowed by a Tibetan Buddhist boomtown, with upwards of a dozen monasteries and retreat centres capitalizing on the clean air. A wooded ridge is festooned with brightly coloured prayer flags, while above the valley extends back into rich farmland, locally famous for its cucumbers, naspati (Asian pear) and lapsi (an indigenous, sweet-sour yellow-green fruit that is usually pickled or made into sweets). The best way to see Pharping is to act like a pilgrim – of which there are many – and walk the sacred circuit.

The sacred circuit

Walking the sacred circuit can be done in a leisurely hour. Turning right uphill at the first junction in town will bring you past a 3.5m-high golden statue of Guru Rinpoche in a giant glass case.

The Green Tara

Passing a cluster of cafés and houses, and the ornate, white-and-gold, bell-like chorten of the Sakya Tharik Gompa, you come to a set of steps, just before the road rises and turns to the right. These lead up to a cluster of monastery buildings and a small shrine room where butter lamps burn in honour of a “self-arisen” image of the Buddhist deity Green Tara, who protects from danger. The miraculous image is a hand-sized figurine standing out from the rock in bas-relief. A Hindu Ganesh statue sits incongruously alongside, while other rocky pimples to the right are supposed to be further Taras in the process of emanation. A duty monk recites the Green Tara puja throughout the day and night.

The Asura Cave

From the Green Tara shrine, steps continue upwards to the Asura Cave, a fissure filled with votive offerings to the irrepressible Padma Sambhava, aka Guru Rinpoche, who is said to have achieved enlightenment here. His footprints and (less obvious) clawing hand-marks are apparently signs of the cosmic power he realized at that moment.

Pharping Bajra Yogini temple

From the Asura Cave, the trail turns back towards the main road, passing through other monastery buildings before, after about ten minutes, starting to descend towards the golden-roofed Pharping Bajra Yogini temple, one of the valley’s four tantric temples dedicated to the angry female aspect of Buddhahood. The first-floor sanctum conceals two prancing images of Bajra Yogini, each holding a skull-cup and knife.

Steps lead down from here to the main Pharping road, just above the Guru Rinpoche statue. Above, a path leads up the ridge towards the peak of Champadevi.

Accommodation and eating PHARPING

Apart from aspiring Buddhists, most people visit Pharping as part of a day-trip to Dakshinkali. That said, the village offers the best base for deeper exploration of the area, including hikes up Champadevi. Staying overnight also means you can take an early visit to the Dakshinkali shrine, when it’s at its liveliest. There’s also one appealing hilltop resort, Haatiban Resort, which is a destination in itself.

Dakchhinkali Village Inn Dakshinkali Rd, near Pharping 984 146 4010, dakchhinkali.com. Set just back from the ornamental gateway astride the main road just before it descends towards the Dakshinkali shrine, this faded resort-in-miniature has balconied brick bungalows set around grassy gardens. It’s nothing special, but well kept, and makes a useful overnight stop if you want to get to the action at the shrine early. Wi-fi is available in the restaurant. US$40

Family Guesthouse Pharping 01 471 0412 or 985 104 8768, familyguesthouse@yahoo.com. This unprepossessing brick pile in the bazaar area of Pharping has gloomy concrete rooms, but it’s one of the few inexpensive, non-monastery options around, and the management is youthful and friendly – if not actually a family. Wi-fi is limited to the lobby and restaurant areas. Rs600

Haatiban Resort Pahiro, Dakshinkali 01 691 6140, nepalluxurytreks.com. This smart, isolated resort (also known as the Himalayan Height Resort) sits astride a pine-clad ridge, roughly halfway up Champadevi. It offers great views, especially from the stunning terrace restaurant (on weekdays, lunch must be pre-booked, unless you’re staying). The rooms are in pleasant, well-appointed chalets dotted around the gardens. The signposted but very rough road up to the resort breaks off the Dakshinkali road at the lovely green valley of Dollu, 2km short (east) of Shesh Narayan. Wi-fi is available in the restaurant. US$130

Himalayan Restaurant 200m up from the Dakshinkali road junction, right opposite the path to Bajra Yogini. The best of the homely, Tibetan-oriented restaurants in the middle of the bazaar area of Pharping. Serves inexpensive Tibetan food – thukpa and momos for under Rs200 – and a few basic Western dishes. Daily 8am–7pm.

Rigdzin Phodrang Gompa Guesthouse 200m uphill from the Himalayan Restaurant, Pharping. The chief reason to stay in Pharping itself is to study at a monastery. Most have their own inexpensive guesthouses, but this non-descript modern dormitory block with basic but clean rooms is the most central. There is no sign but novice monks will be helpful in pointing the way. Rs500

Dakshinkali

The best and worst aspect of Dakshinkali is that everything happens out in the open. The sacrificial pit of “Southern Kali” – the last stop for countless chickens, goats and pigs – lies at the bottom of a steep, forested ravine, affording an intimate view of Nepali religious rituals. The spectacle makes many people feel uncomfortable – if it’s not squeamishness, it’ll be the sense of prying. That said, the public bloodbath is an undeniable sight, and attracts busloads at the holiest times: Saturday and, to a lesser extent, Tuesday mornings. Asthami, the eighth day after a new or full moon, draws the largest crowds of all.

Dakshinkali is as much a picnic area – albeit a litter-strewn fly-infested one – as a holy spot. The sacrifice done, families make for the pavilions that surround the shrine and merrily barbecue the remains of their offerings. If you didn’t sacrifice anything, you can get fried snacks from the stalls near the entrance.

Sacrificial chickens and tantric goats

If orthodox Indian Hindus are very much of the “pure veg”, non-violent persuasion, their tantrically inclined Nepali cousins have a more bloodthirsty bent. The thirst is on the part of Kali, Nepal’s fearsome – yet popular – mother goddess who demands blood sacrifice for her favours.

Nepalis are curiously gentle in their worship: they lead their offerings to the slaughter tenderly, often whispering prayers in the animal’s ear and sprinkling its head with water to encourage it to shrug in assent; they believe the death of this “unfortunate brother” will give it the chance to be reborn as a higher life form. Chickens, goats or, most expensively, buffaloes can be sacrificed, but only uncastrated males, preferably dark in colour, are offered.

At Dakshinkali, men of a special caste slit the animals’ throats and let the blood spray over the idols. Brahman priests oversee the butchering and instruct worshippers in the complex rituals that follow. However, you don’t need to speak Nepali to get the gist of the explanations.

The shrine

From the bus stop, a path leads through a line of stalls hawking food and sacrificial accessories to the shrine directly below, positioned at the auspicious confluence of two streams. Tiled like an abattoir (for easy hosing down) and crowned with a gilt canopy, the sacred area – which is off-limits to non-Hindus – consists of little more than a row of short statuettes, Kali being the most heavily decorated.

From the back of the shrine, it’s a ten-minute walk up stone steps through a pine wood to a small promontory where there’s a subsidiary shrine to Mata, Kali’s mother, and good views across to Pharping. The sacrifice here is less grisly: people bring pigeons, and set them free.

arrival and departure DAKSHINKALI

By bus Buses depart from Kathmandu’s City Bus Park as soon as they are full – roughly every 15min (1hr) – and arrive at the bus park directly outside the temple gates.

By taxi Taxis from Kathmandu to Dakshinkali cost about Rs2000 return, on a half-day basis.

By bike The leg to Dakshinkali will take at least 2hr from Kathmandu, even with a mountain bike, but poor road conditions, extreme dust and heavy traffic mean you’d be advised to put your bike on the roof of the bus instead – you’ll need to pay a small tip. The exhilarating downhill back to Kathmandu along the unpaved Pharping Hydro Electricity road, branching from the Dakshinkali road just east of Pharping, makes bringing a bike in the first place worthwhile.

On foot The walk from Pharping to Dakshinkali takes 20min; the footpath comes out in Dakshinkali at the stone steps by the road just above the shrine.

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Bungmati and around

Huddled atop a hillock 5km south of the ring road, and despite severe earthquake damage, BUNGMATI remains one of the more rewarding Newari towns to visit in the valley. It is also one of the least-touristed, so if you prefer your temples without droning electronic Om tracks and pestering guides, this is the place to come. Bungmati is also a renowned centre for woodcarving: open workshops abound, and it’s always possible to buy direct.

The central square

Plunge down any of the narrow alleys leading downhill to the west, and you’ll soon find your way to the central square. Formerly dominated by the whitewashed shikra of Machhendranath, whose more ancient Newari name is Bunga Dyo (“God of Bunga”), both this temple and another nearby, dedicated to blood-sacrifice-demanding Bhairab, were completely destroyed in the earthquakes. Reconstruction has begun but will take years; on days when restoration is in full swing watching the artisans can be fascinating.

According to legend, Bungmati marks the spot where Machhendranath, having arrived in the valley in the form of a bee to save it from drought, was “born” as the valley’s protector-rainmaker. Each summer at the end of Patan’s Raato Machhendranath festival, the god’s red mask is brought to Bungmati for a six-month residency. Every twelfth year the mask stays in Bungmati throughout the winter before being pulled by lumbering chariot all the way to Patan.

clockwise from top Dakshinkali; Bhaktapur; Sadhu, Kathmandu Valley

Khokana

One kilometre north of Bungmati, KHOKANA resembles its neighbour in many ways, though it was largely rebuilt after the 1934 earthquake and, possibly as a result, suffered less damage in 2015. It’s locally renowned for its mustard oil, and in season the presses run full tilt. Khokana’s pagoda-style Shekali Mai Mandir, a massive three-tiered job, honours a local nature goddess. Midway between Khokana and Bungmati stands Karya Binayak, another of the valley’s four Ganesh temples.

Arrival and departure Bungmati and around

By bus Buses (every 20min; around 45min) from Kathmandu’s Ratna Park run to the bus park on the eastern edge of Bungmati, and then on to Khokana.

Agriculture in the Kathmandu Valley

Even as the capital’s swelling population threatens to carpet the entire valley with commuter concrete, the Jyapus, indigenous Newari farmers, continue to live in huddled-up, brick-built towns, digging their fields by hand in the time-honoured fashion: with a distinctive two-handed spade called kodaalo (ku in Newari). The soil here repays such labour-intensive care: it is endowed with fertile, black clay called kalimati – sediment from the prehistoric lake – and is low enough in elevation to support two or even three main crops a year. Rice is seeded in irrigated beds shortly before the first monsoon rains in June, and transplanted into flooded terraces no later than the end of July. Normally women do this job, using their toes to bed each shoot in the mud. The stalks grow green and bushy during the summer, turning a golden brown and producing mature grain by October.

At harvest time sheaves are spread out on roads for cars to loosen the kernels, and then run through hand-cranked threshers or bashed against rocks. The grain is gathered in bamboo trays (nanglo) and tossed in the wind to winnow away the chaff, or, if there’s no wind, nanglo can be used to fan it away. Some sheaves are left in stacks to ferment for up to two weeks, producing edible hakuja, or “black” rice. The rice dealt with, terraces are then planted with winter wheat. Unfortunately for tourists, the period of planting, when the soil looks bare and brown, coincides with peak tourist season. The wheat is harvested in April or May, after which a third crop of pulses or maize can often be squeezed in. Vegetables are raised year-round at the edges of plots or, in the case of squashes, festooned along fences and on top of shrubs and low trees.

Most Kathmandu Valley farmers are tenants, and have to pay huge proportions of their harvests in rent. But their lot has improved in the past generation: land reform in the 1950s and 60s was relatively diligently implemented near the capital, helping to get landlords and moneylenders off the backs of small farmers. Recent Maoist governments have also forced landowners to break up and sell off larger holdings, however, this has exacerbated a further problem: under the traditional Newari system, inherited property is divided among the sons, meaning landholdings get progressively smaller with each generation. The vast majority of farms are now too small for mechanical equipment to be worthwhile, perpetuating labour-intensive methods and keeping productivity low.

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The Chapagaun road

The road due south of Patan’s Lagankhel bus park serves two traditional, brick-built Newari towns: THECHO, 8km south of Patan, and CHAPAGAUN, 1km further south. More attractive than either is the seventeenth-century Bajra Barahi Mandir, secreted in a small wood 500m east of Chapagaun, and dedicated to the goddess Kali. The main road continues south for another 4km to Tika Bhairab, an abstract mural of the god Bhairab, painted on a wall at the junction of two small streams. If you’re on a mountain bike, however, the more picturesque route from Chapagaun to Tika Bhairab takes you east then south, via the Lele Valley; it’s also possible to cut through to the Godavari road, and the hardy can even continue right through to the Terai.

Godavari and around

The greenest, most pristine part of the valley lies at its southeastern edge, around GODAVARI (pronounced Go-dao-ri). Nestling at the foot of forested Phulchoki, the highest peak of the valley rim, are the pleasant National Botanical Garden, the temple at Naudhara and the shrine of Bishanku Narayan, hidden in a gorgeously rural side valley.

En route to Godavari, the road passes through HARISIDDHI, a traditional Newari town 4km south of Patan, with a sinister legend. Its pagoda-style Bal Kumari Mandir – reached by walking straight up a stepped path where the main road jinks left – is said to have once been the centre of a child-sacrifice cult.

Naudhara

Phulchoki Road, 500m south of Godavari bus park • Daily dawn–dusk • Free • Head south from the Godavari bus park; the temple complex lies to the left of the road opposite a marble quarry, just beyond the Jesuit-run St Xavier School and the entrance to the local Community Forest

The temple complex of Naudhara lies a short walk south of Godavari’s bus park; its name means “nine spouts” and that’s exactly what you’ll find, along with worshippers and local women washing clothes. The site is especially holy to the Silwar caste, who come here in huge numbers to worship their ancestral god during the full moon of the month of Bhadau (Aug–Sept). Just left of the spouts stands a small temple, said to represent the feet of the local mother goddess Phulchoki Mai. (Pilgrims eager to ascend to Phulchoki Mai’s “head”, or principal shrine, can take the trail that starts directly behind here to the top of Phulchoki peak; see opposite.) The shrine is kept locked to protect the sacred (but withered) tree stump inside from Buddhists who, hunting for relics, were chipping away at the holy wood.

National Botanical Garden

1km from Godavari bus park • Daily: Feb–Oct 10am–5pm; Nov–Jan 10am–4pm • Rs226 • From the Godavari bus park, head east (straight across from the Patan road) down the paved road and left again just before a clump of restaurants to reach the main gate

Rudyard Kipling wrote that “the wildest dreams of Kew/Are the facts of Kathmandu”, and the National Botanical Garden might seem to be the obvious place to put his theory to the test. The garden is more a peaceful, if litter-blemished, picnic spot than anything else (as well as a popular location for Nepali pop videos), but there is a resplendent orchid house, some fine trees (including those spaded in by a motley collection of royalty, dictators and despots in the VVIP tree planting area), and a well-presented section of medicinal plants supported by Edinburgh’s Royal Botanical Gardens.

Godavari Kunda

800m east of the Godavari bus park • No fixed opening hours • Free

A little beyond the turn-off to the Botanical Garden, the otherwise inconspicuous spring-fed water tank of Godavari Kunda hosts a big mela every twelve years during the month of Bhadau (mid-Aug to mid-Sept; the next is in 2027). The adjacent Buddhist retreat centre, which must have one of the most fabulous back gardens in the world, is an offshoot of Than gompa, in Pharping, and only for serious seekers of enlightenment: the minimum stay is three years.

Phulchoki

Phulchoki (2762m) is the highest of the forested peaks that guard the Kathmandu Valley. Its name means “flower-covered”, and you’ll see orchids, morning glories, corydalis and, in spring, endless rhododendrons. The mountainside preserves the native primary forest better than any other in the valley, and as you climb from subtropical base to temperate summit you pass through mixed stands of chilaune (Schima wallichii), katus (Castanopsis indica or Nepal chestnut) and holly, with Nepali alder in the ravines; higher up are evergreen oaks, laurel and, of course, rhododendron. Its pristine state means the forest is one of the best places in Nepal for butterfly-spotting and birdwatching – a trained eye is supposed to be able to spot a hundred or more bird species in a day.

All walks in the Phulchoki forest should be undertaken in a group, as there have been numerous robberies in recent years. Be wary of making off-trail excursions through the forest, too, even if you’re chasing down a rare sighting: the Maoists laid anti-personnel mines during the conflict in this area (especially on the westward side, towards Lele), and it’s impossible to be sure that they have all been removed.

The Newars

The Newars are a special case. Their stronghold is the Kathmandu Valley, which, while geographically located within Nepal’s hill region, has its own distinct climate and history. Newars are careful to distinguish themselves from other hill peoples, and although they’re an ethnic minority nationally, their majority presence in the pivotal Kathmandu Valley has enabled them to exert a cultural influence far beyond their numbers. An outsider could be forgiven for thinking that Newari culture is Nepali culture.

Many anthropologists believe the root stock of the Newars is the Kirats, a clan who legendarily ruled the Kathmandu Valley between the seventh century BC and the second century AD. Newari culture has certainly been in the making for millennia, as waves of immigrants, overlords, traders and usurpers have mingled in the melting pot of the valley. These arrivals contributed new customs, beliefs and skills to the overall stew, but weren’t completely assimilated – rather, they found their own niches in society, maintaining internal social structures and traditions and fulfilling unique spiritual and professional roles. In time, these thars (clans) were formally organized into a Newari caste system that mirrored that of the Baahun–Chhetris and, later, became nested within it. Thus Newari society is a microcosm of Nepali society, with many shared cultural traits and a common language (Newari), but also with an enormous amount of diversity among its members.

Religion and culture

Newari religion is extremely complex; suffice to say that individual Newars may identify themselves as either Hindu or Buddhist, depending on their thar’s historical origin, but this makes little difference to their fundamental doctrines or practices. Kinship roles are extremely important, and are reinforced by elaborate life-cycle rituals and annual feasts; likewise, each thar has its role to play in festivals and public events. A uniquely Newar social invention is the guthi, a kind of kinship-based Rotary club which maintains temples and rest-houses, organizes festivals and, indirectly, ensures the transmission of Newar culture from one generation to the next. Guthi have been in serious decline since the 1960s, however, when land reform deprived them of much of their income from holdings around the valley.

cities and villages

With so great an emphasis placed on social relationships, it’s little wonder that Newars like to live close together. Unlike other hill peoples, they’re urbanites at heart. Their cities are masterpieces of density, with tall tenements pressing against narrow alleys and shopfronts opening directly onto streets. In the past couple of centuries, Newar traders have colonized lucrative crossroads and recreated their bustling bazaars throughout Nepal. Even Newari farmers build their villages in compact, urban nuclei (partly to conserve the fertile farmland of the valley).

art and architecture

Centuries of domination by foreign rulers have, if anything, only accentuated the uniqueness of Newari art and architecture. For 1500 years the Newars have sustained an almost continuous artistic flowering in stone, wood, metal and brick. They’re believed to have invented the pagoda, and it was a Newari architect, Arniko, who led a Nepali delegation in the thirteenth century to introduce the technique to the Chinese. The pagoda style of stacked, strut-supported roofs finds unique expression in Nepali (read Newari) temples, and is echoed in the overhanging eaves of Newari houses.

traditional clothing

Newars are easily recognized. Traditionally they carry heavy loads in baskets suspended at either end of a shoulder pole (nol), in contrast with other hill people who carry things on their backs supported by a tumpline from the forehead. As for clothing, you can usually tell a Newari woman by the fanned pleats at the front of her sari; men have mostly abandoned traditional dress, but some still wear the customary daura suruwal and waistcoat.

Ascending the peak

Summiting Phulchoki involves a tough walk of at least four hours, with 1200m of ascent. The trail begins behind Naudhara, which represents the feet of mother goddess Phulchoki Mai. You soon rejoin the switchbacking summit road, which continues all the way to the top. The road allows a less energetic ascent if you can find a 4WD vehicle, and driver willing to commit.

If the summit isn’t wreathed in clouds, or the city in smog, you’ll have a magnificent view of the Himalayas and practically the entire Kathmandu Valley. The effect is only slightly marred by the presence of an army base and microwave relay station, but the ragged prayer flags that festoon Phulchoki Mai’s shrine do help.

With a good map, and possibly advice from soldiers at the summit’s army base, it would be possible to make a long, tough, circular walk by breaking off the dirt road about halfway down (just below a long left-hand bend), then descending a path along the Tribeni Danda ridge-line, heading in the direction of Lakuri Bhanjhyang on the Patan to Panauti road. As the trail emerges from the forest, about a third of the way to Lakuri Bhanjhyang, take a left turn at a junction, and follow the zigzagging jeep track descending east towards the National Botanical Garden at Godavari.

The truly hardy can follow the path east from just below Phulchoki’s summit towards Kushadevi, Malpi and, eventually, Panauti – but this should not be attempted without serious preparation.

Bishanku Narayan

3km north of Godavari bus park • Taxis cost around Rs300, or it’s roughly 1hr on foot: start on the dirt road that heads north from Godavari bus park, and continue along paths across the Bishanku valley floor and up the ridge. You can also get there from the western (back) entrance of the Botanical Garden, and from Badegaun, halfway between Harisiddhi and Godavari on the Patan–Godavari road

The sheltered, southwest-facing side valley of Bishanku is one of the Kathmandu Valley’s most unspoilt corners. In a notch in the forested ridge on the far northwest side, the shrine of Bishanku Narayan overlooks the paddy and mustard fields that line the valley floor. One of the valley’s four main Narayan (Vishnu) sites, Bishanku is not a temple – it’s a small cave reached by precarious steps. A chain-mail curtain protects the god’s image inside the cave. If you’re thin enough, you can descend through another narrow fissure; according to popular belief, those who can squeeze through will be absolved of past sins.

Arrival and accommodation godavari and around

By bus Microbuses (every 10–15min; 45min–1hr) depart from Patan’s Lagankhel bus station for the Godavari bus park; most of the sights are just a short walk away.

Hotel View Bhrikuti About 1km northeast of the bus park 01 517 4071, hotelviewbhrikuti.com.np. A superficially smart hotel, this place is well equipped, even boasting a swimming pool, but the overwhelming sense is of tacky kitsch. It is, however, nicely out of the city and perfectly placed for an early start up Phulchoki. US$110

Bhaktapur

In the soft, dusty light of evening the old city of Bhaktapur, with its pagoda roofs and its harmonious blend of wood, mud-brick and copper, looked extraordinarily beautiful. It was as though a faded medieval tapestry were tacked on to the pale tea-rose sky. In the foreground a farmhouse was on fire, and orange flames licked like liquescent dragon’s tongues across the thatched roof. One thought of Chaucer’s England and Rabelais’s France; of a world of intense, violent passions and brilliant colour, where sin was plentiful but so were grace and forgiveness …

[Charlie Pye-Smith Travels in Nepal]

Kathmandu’s field of gravity weakens somewhere east of the airport; beyond, you fall into the rich atmosphere of BHAKTAPUR (also known as BHADGAUN). Rising in a tight mass of warm brick out of the fertile fields of the valley, the city looks something like Kathmandu must have done before the arrival of the modern world. During the day, tour groups and persistent guides mill about the main squares, but in among the maze of backstreets it would be hard not to feel the pulse of this quintessential Newari city. In among Bhaktapur’s herringbone-paved streets and narrow alleys, women wash at public taps, men in traditional dress lounge in the many sattal, or covered loggias, peasants squat selling vegetables, and worshippers attend neighbourhood shrines. And everywhere the burnt-peach hue of bricks is offset by the deep brown of intensely carved wood – the essential materials of the Newari architects.

Physically, the city drapes across an east–west fold in the valley, with a single pedestrianized road as its spine, and its southern fringe sliding down towards the sluggish waters of the Hanumante Khola. Owing to a gradual westward drift, the city has two centres (residents of the two halves stage a riotous, regularly fatal, tug-of-war during the city’s annual Bisket festival) and three main squares. In the west, Durbar Square and Taumadhi Tol dominate the post-fifteenth-century city, while Tachapal Tol (Dattatreya Square) presides over the older east end.

Brief history

The “City of Devotees” was probably founded in the ninth century, and by 1200 was ruling Nepal. In that year Bhaktapur witnessed the launch of the Malla era when, according to the Nepali chronicles, King Aridev, upon being called out of a wrestling bout to hear of the birth of a son, bestowed on the prince the hereditary title Malla (“wrestler”). To this day, beefy carved wrestlers are the city’s trademark temple guardians. Bhaktapur ruled the valley until 1482, when Yaksha Malla divided the kingdom among his three sons, setting in train three centuries of continuous squabbling.

It was a Bhaktapur king who helped to bring the Malla era to a close in 1766 by inviting Prithvi Narayan Shah, the Gorkha leader, to aid him in a quarrel against Kathmandu. Seizing on this pretext, Prithvi Narayan conquered the valley within three years, Bhaktapur being the last of the three capitals to surrender.

Well over half of Bhaktapur’s population is from the agricultural Jyapu caste of the Newars, and it may well be the city’s tightly knit, inward-looking nature that has saved it from the worst of the free-for-all expansion that overwhelms Kathmandu. Thanks to a long-term restoration and sanitation programme, and the policies of its independent-minded municipal council, much of the city is pedestrianized. Prior to the 2015 earthquakes, temples and public shelters had been restored with the money raised from the city’s entrance fee, and new buildings were required to follow traditional architectural styles; a policy which will be severely tested during reconstruction of the many homes and temples destroyed in the recent earthquakes. Hopes for a recovery that safeguards the city’s cultural and architectural heritage are high, however: Bhaktapur wears its UNESCO World Heritage Site status proudly and prior to 2015 had already shown itself to be one Nepali city that, heritage-wise at least, has its act together.

Durbar Square

Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square has always been a showpiece for regal monuments rather than a living, holy site. But what it lacks in atmosphere, it more than makes up for in virtuoso craftsmanship – which you may well see in action while artisans seek to recreate the ornate wood and stone structures that collapsed in 2015.

Among those buildings still standing, the square boasts one of Nepal’s proudest artistic achievements – the Golden Gate – as well as the splendid Palace of 55 Windows and the National Art Museum.

Near the main gate at the west end you can admire a pair of multiple-armed statues of Bhairab and Ugrachandi, whose sculptor reportedly had his hands cut off by order of the Bhaktapur king to ensure he wouldn’t reproduce the images in Kathmandu or Patan.

The Royal Palace

Durbar Square • Daily dawn–dusk • Free

Bhaktapur’s Royal Palace, open but earthquake-damaged and undergoing restoration, originally stood further east, near Tachapal Tol, but was shifted westwards (like the city) in the fifteenth century, and may have lost various wings along the way. It is said to have once had 99 chowks (courtyards), and while this number is almost certainly fanciful, there would have been many more than the five that remain today.The palace’s superbly carved eastern wing, known as the Palace of 55 Windows (Panchapanna Jhyale Durbar), was raised in around 1700 by Bupalendra Malla, Bhaktapur’s great builder-king, whose namaste-ing figure kneels on a stone pillar opposite. Note the serpent coiled around the lotus base – and the tiny bird atop its head.

The Golden Gate

While the Golden Gate (Sun Dhoka) probably wouldn’t be so famous if it were made of wood or stone – it is, in fact, gilt copper repoussé – its detail and sheer exuberance have ensured its renown. The torana above the door features a squat, winged Garud and a ten-armed, four-headed Taleju, the Mallas’ guardian deity, but to locals the most powerful figures are those of Bhairab and Kali, situated chest-high on either side of the gate. These alone among the statues are covered in red abhir and yellow keshori powder, showing that they are still worshipped today.

Naga Pokhari

Entering the palace through the Golden Gate, you follow an outdoor passage around the building. A doorway to the right leads through to Naga Pokhari (“Snake Pond”), a regal bathing tank dating from the early sixteenth century. The extraordinary waterspout writhes with images of thirsty animals in gilt copper, overlooked by two sinister gilt nag figures standing clear of the water.

Mul Chowk

To the left of the palace’s outdoor passage stands an impressive doorway depicting the goddess Taleju and her heavenly host in wood. Beyond it lies the ornate, colourful Mul Chowk, which is probably the oldest surviving part of the complex, and regarded by art historians as one of the most exquisite palace courtyards in the valley. You can peek through the door to catch tantalizing glimpses of the riotously elaborate metalwork, carvings and wall paintings, but photographs are forbidden, and only Hindus may enter to see the metal kalash (vessel) representing the goddess. The actual Taleju idol, hidden in the sanctum in the south wing – said to be a yantra, or mystical diagram – may be seen by initiates only. South Indian in origin, Taleju was brought here by the fourteenth-century king Harisinghadev, and was also adopted by the royal houses of Kathmandu and Patan. She was never much worshipped by commoners, however, and the dynasties that patronized her are long gone. Those who worship her today equate her with Durga, and she receives a sacrifice of 108 animals on the ninth day of Durga’s festival, Dasain.

Kumari Chowk

As you peer into Mul Chowk, the door facing you across the courtyard closes off the fabled Kumari Chowk, said by the few who have seen it to be as old and as beautiful as Mul Chowk, though smaller. It is only opened on the four key days of Dasain, and even then remains shut to tourists.

The National Art Museum

Durbar Square • Mon 10.30am–2.30pm, Tues–Sun 10.30am–4.30pm (mid-Oct to mid-Jan till 3.30pm) • Rs150, includes admission to Woodcarving Museum and Brass and Bronze Museum; camera Rs100

Stone friezes at the entrance to the Royal Palace’s western wing portray Vishnu Varahi and Narasimha, Vishnu’s boar and man-lion avatar. They guard the excellent National Art Museum, which is chiefly devoted to tantric poubha (Newari-style painting) and thangka paintings of the fierce local gods Bhairab and Kali. The former is seen in many of his 64 bloodcurdling forms, including White Bhairab, Lion-faced and Fire-breathing. The collection also includes illuminated pages of religious texts going back as far as the eleventh century, a few erotic miniatures, some historic stone images and inscriptions from the Malla dynasty and, by the main entrance, examples of the Nawa Durga masks.

Upstairs, a series of royal portraits above the staircase ends, pointedly, with Dipendra – and an empty nail where, presumably, Gyanendra briefly hung. In the adjacent gallery, an eighteenth-century poubha labelled “Gorkha Palace” acts as a botanical-zoological-topographical map of Nepal, stretching from the Terai to cranes soaring over the Himalayas. The high-ceilinged main hall, at the end of the first-floor galleries, houses a fine, seventeenth-century depiction of Nritaswor, the dancing, copulating tantric union of Shiva and Shakti (coyly labelled “Dancing Shiva”), and the curious Sata Chakra Darsan (labelled “Yogapurush”), showing the location of the seven power points (chakra) of the human body.

Pashupati Mandir and around

In the entire square, only the fifteenth-century Yaksheswar or Pashupati Mandir at the eastern end receives much in the way of reverence. The oldest structure in Bhaktapur, it houses a copy of the exalted Pashupatinath linga, and its roof struts sport some wildly deviant erotic carvings. In front of it stands the mid-eighteenth-century Batsala Durga temple whose shikra design is distinctively North Indian, but whose stone guardian creatures, flanking the stairs to the shrine, are probably a sign of Chinese influence. In front of the shikra, facing the palace, hangs the improbably huge Taleju Bell, plus a smaller replica known generally as the “Bell of Barking Dogs”, so called because its toll evidently inflicts ultrasonic agony on local canines.

Chyasin Mandap

The Chyasin Mandap, the Pavilion of the Eight Corners, immediately opposite the Palace of 55 Windows, was probably used by Bhaktapur’s kings to watch festivals and processions. It’s actually an exact, 1990 replica of an eighteenth-century structure destroyed in the 1934 earthquake, lacking only the original carved roof struts, which have adorned the entrance archway leading into Kathmandu’s New Road since 1934.

Siddhi Lakshmi Mandir and around

Marking the eastern edge of Durbar Square proper, the earthquake-damaged pale stone shikra of the Siddhi Lakshmi Mandir thrusts upwards from the wide, stepped plinth, where pairs of warriors and fierce animals guard access to the holy of holies above.

Beyond, in the offshoot square to the east, a pair of steadfast stone lions still stand guard, though the three-tiered pagoda temple that once stood here has vanished. The Silu Mahadev temple, overlooking them, only has its plinth and guardian animals – a little white domed sanctuary that previously sat on top crumbled in 2015.

Chatur Brahma Mahabihar

Rare for predominantly Hindu Bhaktapur, the well-preserved Chatur Brahma Mahabihar, a few steps east of Durbar Square, attracts Buddhist as well as Hindu worshippers, and is a gathering place for neighbourhood metalsmiths in the evening. You might hear bhajan hymn singing, with its languorous accompaniment on harmonium and tabla.

Taumadhi Tol

All the life and energy of the western part of Bhaktapur seems to flow away from Durbar Square and down the alleys that lead to Taumadhi Tol, 100m to the southeast. This is the true nerve centre of Bhaktapur’s Newari culture, especially at night when men sing bhajan hymns and street vendors sell momos and other snacks from their mobile stalls; full-moon nights are particularly vibrant. In mid-April this square serves as the assembly point for Bisket, Nepal’s foremost New Year celebration (see box below).

Nyatapola

Dominating Taumadhi and all of Bhaktapur, the graceful, five-tiered Nyatapola is Nepal’s tallest and most classically proportioned pagoda. So obscure is its deity, a tantric goddess named Siddhi Lakshmi, that she apparently has no devotees, and the sanctuary has been barred to all but priests ever since its completion in 1702. Perhaps that’s why the temple is named not for a deity but, uniquely, for its architectural dimensions: in Newari, nyata means “five-stepped” and pola means “roof”. The Nyatapola’s five pairs of temple guardians – the Malla-era wrestlers Jaimala and Patta, elephants, lions, griffins and two minor goddesses, Baghini (Tigress) and Singhini (Lioness) – are as famous as the temple itself. Each pair is supposed to be ten times as strong as the pair below.

Bhairabnath Mandir

The thickset Bhairabnath Mandir is as different from the slender Nyatapola as one pagoda could possibly be from another. The most peculiar thing about this building, in fact, is the tiny Bhairab idol mounted on a sort of mantel on the front of the temple (several other figures are kept inside, including the larger mask that leads the Bisket parade). A story is told that Bhairab, travelling incognito, once came to Bhaktapur to watch the Bisket festivities. Divining the god’s presence and hoping to extract a boon, the priests bound him with tantric spells, and when he tried to escape by sinking into the ground they chopped off his head. Now Bhairab, or at least his head, gets to ride in the Bisket parade every year – inside a locked box on board the chariot. The kinkinimali, or golden metal fringe at the very top of the temple, is held to be particularly fine.

Bisket: New Year, Bhaktapur style

While many Nepali festivals have their origins in religious myth, Bhaktapur’s high-spirited Bisket festival is based on a fairy tale. Similar fables appear in Zoroastrian myth and in the biblical Apocrypha’s Book of Tobit. According to the local version, a Bhaktapur king wanted to marry off his daughter, but each time a match was made, the groom would turn up dead in the marital bed the next morning. One day a stranger came to town and learned of the situation from his host, whose son was due to be the next groom. The stranger offered to take the son’s place and, forcing himself to stay awake after consummating the marriage, watched as two deadly serpents slithered out of the princess’s nostrils. The hero slew the snakes and broke the spell, winning the undying gratitude of the people, who still celebrate his deed with an annual festival. The festival’s Newari name, Biska, is a contraction of two words meaning “snake” and “death”.

Bisket also differs from most Nepali festivals in that its date is reckoned by the solar calendar, not the lunar one, which means it always starts on April 9 or 10. It kicks off with a raucous tug-of-war in Taumadhi Tol, in which residents of the upper and lower halves of the city try to pull a creaky, three-storeyed chariot containing the image of Bhairab to their respective sides; you can usually see the chariot’s wheels lying beside the Bhairab temple. On the fourth day – the day before Nawa Barsa (Nepali New Year) – Bhairab and another smaller chariot are pulled to the sloping open area above Chuping Ghat. When the chariots are in place, men of the city struggle to raise a 25m-high ceremonial pole with a crossbeam to which are attached two banners representing the two slain snakes – an exciting and dangerous operation.

The pole stays up until the next afternoon, when residents again take up a tug-of-war, this time trying to pull the mighty pole down to their side. (This is an even more dangerous performance: people have been killed by the falling pole.) The pole’s plunge marks the official beginning of the new year. Bisket continues for another four days, with a wild parade of khats, or gorgeous palanquins for deities, in the eastern part of the city, a candlelight procession to Dattatreya Square, a city-wide display of temple deities, and a final tug-of-war over Bhairab’s chariot.

Til Mahadev Narayan Mandir

Hidden away on the southeast side of Taumadhi Tol, the seventeenth-century Til Mahadev Narayan Mandir displays all the iconography of a Vishnu (Narayan) temple: a gilded sankha (conch), chakra (wheel) and Garud are all hoisted on pillars out in front. The temple’s name, it’s said, derives from an incident involving a trader from Thimi who, upon unfolding his wares here, magically discovered the image of Narayan in a consignment of sesame seeds (til).

Kumari Ghar

A block east of the Bhairabnath Mandir stands Bhaktapur’s Kumari Ghar. An image of the goddess is kept upstairs and is only displayed publicly during Bisket. The living goddess herself, who is regarded as a manifestation of Durga, normally lives in another building north of Tachapal Tol, but resides here in October for the ten days of Dasain – her own festival, celebrating her victory over the buffalo demon.

West from Taumadhi Tol

Like a brick canyon, Bhaktapur’s main commercial thoroughfare runs from Taumadhi Tol west to the city gate. Roughly 150m along, you’ll reach a kind of playground of sculptures and shrines, and a shikra that rejoices in the name of Jyotirlingeshwar Mahadev Mandir, freely translatable as “Great God of the Resplendent Phallus” – a reference to a myth in which Shiva challenges Brahma and Vishnu to find the end of his organ (they never do). Further west, the broad Jaya Barahi Mandir – one of many whose face-lift was paid for by the city’s tourist entrance fee – commemorates the shakti (consort) of Vishnu the boar; you have to stand well back to see its pagoda roofs.

Potters’ Square

Dark, damp alleys beckon on either side of the main road by Jaya Barahi Mandir – north towards Durbar Square and south to the river. An obligatory destination in this area is Kumale Tol, the Potters’ Square, a sloping open space just southwest of Taumadhi Tol. Until recent years, Bhaktapur’s potters (kumal) used to crank out simple water vessels, stovepipes, disposable yogurt pots and so on, but as imported plastic has undercut local pottery, and tourist numbers have swollen, artisans have shifted to piggy banks, miniature elephants and the like. Workaday pottery is produced elsewhere, such as in neighbouring Thimi, but the tourist trade keeps the craft alive. You’ll see potters kneading their clay by hand, and a few still use hand-spun wheels. The finished creations are set out to dry in the sun for a few days before firing, which turns them from grey to brick red.

Tachapal Tol (Dattatreya Square) and around

From Taumadhi, the eastern segment of Bhaktapur’s main artery snakes its way to the original and still-beating heart of the city, Tachapal Tol (Dattatreya Square). Here again a pair of temples loom over the square, older than those of Taumadhi if not as eye-catching. More notably, though, Tachapal conceals Nepal’s most celebrated masterpiece of woodcarving, the Pujari Math’s Peacock Window, and a superb woodcarving museum. You’ll also find the finest woodwork studios in Nepal here, which are well worth a browse, even if you haven’t got room in your rucksack for a 2.5m-high, Rs100,000 peacock-window reproduction.

Just north of Tachapal, a second open space around Ganesh Pokhari is equally busy with pasal (shops) and street vendors. South of the square is also good for exploring, as Bhaktapur’s backstreets spill, like tributaries, down the steep slope to the river.

Dattatreya Mandir

The Dattatreya Mandir is one of Bhaktapur’s oldest structures, rearing up behind an angelic pillar-statue of Garud, and the same pair of wrestlers that guard the Nyatapola temple. It was raised in 1427 during the reign of Yaksha Malla, the last king to rule the valley from Bhaktapur. Like the Kasthamandap of Kathmandu, which it resembles, it was once a sattal, a three-storey loggia and public meeting place, and is similarly reputed to have been built from the wood of a single tree. Dattatreya, a sort of one-size-fits-all deity imported from South India, epitomizes the religious syncretism that Nepal is famous for: to Vaishnavas, Dattatreya is an incarnation of Vishnu, while Shaivas hail him as Shiva’s guru and Buddhists even fit him into their pantheon as a bodhisattva.

Bhimsen Mandir

Bhimsen Mandir, the oblong temple across Tachapal Tol from Dattatreya Mandir, belongs to the patron saint of Newari merchants, whose territory Tachapal is. As usual for a Bhimsen temple, the ground floor is open – making a popular meeting place – and the shrine is hidden upstairs.

The Pujari Math

Behind and to the right of the Dattatreya temple stands the sumptuous eighteenth-century Pujari Math, one of a dozen priests’ quarters (math) that once ringed Tachapal Tol. Similar to Buddhist bahal, these math typically sheltered communities of Hindu devotees loyal to a single leader or sect. Like bahal, most have now also been converted to other, secular uses. Given the nature of the caste system, it’s not surprising that the grandest houses in the city traditionally belonged to priests. The Pujari Math’s awesome windows can be seen on two sides; the often-imitated Peacock Window, overlooking a narrow lane on the building’s far (east) side, has for two centuries been acclaimed as the zenith of Nepali window-lattice carving.

The Woodcarving Museum

Pujari Math, Tachapal Tol • Mon 10.30am–2.30pm, Tues–Sun 10.30am–4.30pm (mid-Oct to mid-Jan till 3.30pm) • Rs150, includes admission to the National Art Museum and the Brass and Bronze Museum

The small Woodcarving Museum, on the upper floors of the Pujari Math, offers an exquisite taste of a fine Newari house’s interior, and gets you closer to intricate temple carvings than is otherwise possible. On the third floor, protected by a glass case, a highlight of the collection is the alluring fifteenth-century Nartaki Devi (labelled “dancing goddess”), with her classically exaggerated hourglass figure and smile. A large, waist-up Bhairava (Bhairab) dates from the seventeenth century, and there are several magnificent steles and torana, and various abstractly weathered temple struts. The tiny courtyard is a lavish concentration of woodcarving virtuosity – arguably the finest in the country.

The Brass and Bronze Museum

Tachapal Tol, directly opposite the Pujari Math • Mon 10.30am–2.30pm, Tues–Sun 10.30am–4.30pm (mid-Oct to mid-Jan till 3.30pm) • Rs150, includes admission to National Art Museum and Woodcarving Museum

The Brass and Bronze Museum gathers together a cornucopia of domestic and ritual vessels and implements. The craftsmanship is superb, and their esoteric uses give an insight into just how complex traditional Nepali culture can be – every last dish and ladle and lamp has its own very specific purpose.

Wakupati Narayan Mandir

East of Tachapal is the Wakupati Narayan Mandir, where local Jyapus (members of the Newari farming subcaste) worship Vishnu as a harvest god. The temple displays no fewer than five Garuds mounted on pillars in a line.

Nawa Durga Dyochhen

North of Tachapal, the Nawa Durga Dyochhen honours the nine Durgas, or manifestations of Parvati, Shiva’s consort. According to legend, they used to eat solitary travellers, turning the area east of Bhaktapur into a Bermuda triangle until a priest cast a tantric spell on them. The Nawa Durga occupy a special place in Bhaktapur’s spiritual landscape: the city is said to be delimited by symbolic Nawa Durga stones (pith), and most tol (neighbourhoods) have adopted one of the nine as their protector goddess.

The temple here is the point of origin for one of Nepal’s darker festivals. Over a period of a month, in the lead up to Dasain (held in September or October), a buffalo is housed and fed in a dark room, ready to play its role as the demon Mashishasura – over whom Durga was victorious at Bijaya Dasami, the tenth day of Dasain. On the evening of the ninth day of the festival, the buffalo is force-fed beer then chased drunkenly through the streets to Brahmayani Pith, beside the waters of the Hanumante Khola. Here it is sacrificed, and its blood used to bring the Nawa Durga masks to life as deities, ready for their dance on the morning of the Bijaya Dasami (see box below).

West of the Nawa Durga Dyochhen, the Prashannashil Mahabihar, distinguished by its pagoda-style cupola, is another of Bhaktapur’s few Buddhist institutions.

The Nawa Durga dancers

The Nawa Durga dancers are drawn from the flower seller caste. Each dancer wears a painted clay mask which, empowered by tantric incantations, enables the wearer to become the very embodiment of the deity. Every September a new set of masks is moulded from local clay and the ashes of last year’s masks, then painted according to strict iconographical rules. There are thirteen masks in all – the Nawa Durga plus four attendant deities – but only seven are carried by dancers. On the morning of Bijaya Dasami, the “victorious tenth day” of Dasain (usually in early Oct), the dancers and accompanying musicians re-enact Durga’s victory over the buffalo demon, beginning at Brahmayani Pith, beside the Hanumante Khola, and processing to Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square through the day. The troupe continues to perform throughout the winter and spring wedding and festival seasons, but only at designated places and on days determined by the lunar calendar. In the month of Bhadau (Aug–Sept) their masks are privately retired and burned, along with accompanying sacrifices. You can buy miniature reproductions all over town.

Along the Hanumante Khola

The Hanumante Khola is Bhaktapur’s humble tributary of the River Ganga, its name derived from the monkey god Hanuman who, locals say, stopped here for a drink on his way back from the Himalayas after gathering medicinal herbs to heal Ram’s brother. Like all rivers in the valley, it’s pretty disgusting, but Hanuman Ghat, located straight downhill from Tachapal Tol where two tributaries join, manages to transcend the stink. Morning puja and ablutions are routine for many, while old-timers come here just to hang out. The area is reached by passing between two jumbo shivalinga hoisted on octagonal plinths. Behind the left-hand one is the Ram temple that gives the ghat its Hanuman association: a statue of the monkey god outside pays tribute to his master sheltered within. Another Hanuman, painted orange, keeps watch over a clutter of small Shiva linga scattered around the confluence area.

Chuping Ghat temple complex

Downhill from Taumadhi Tol, Chuping Ghat’s temple complex has been partially restored and taken over by Kathmandu University’s Department of Music, sometimes offering short courses in Nepali music. The long, sloping area above the ghat is the focal point on New Year’s Day (Nawa Barsa) in April, when a 25m-high linga pole is ceremonially toppled. This area is inhabited mainly by members of the sweeper caste, so much of Bhaktapur’s rubbish ends up nearby.

Ram Ghat and Mangal Ghat

Ram Ghat, below Potters’ Square, has little to offer beyond a run-of-the-mill Ram temple. Mangal Ghat, further downstream, boasts a more atmospheric selection of neglected artefacts, and by following the trail of linga across the river you’ll end up at a forbidding Kali temple in one of Bhaktapur’s satellite villages.

From Top Changu Narayan; A Newari trader

Arrival and departure bhaktapur

By bus “Express” minibuses (every 30min; 30min) run from Kathmandu’s Bhaktapur Bus Park (on Bagh Bazaar, 20m east of the junction with Durbar Marg, at the northeast corner of Ratna Park). The bus arrives in Bhaktapur at the minibus park close to Siddha Pokhari, a 5min walk west of Durbar Square. You could also take one of the frequent Banepa-, Dhulikhel- or Barhabise-bound buses from the City Bus Park, which drop you on the Arniko Highway about 10min walk south of town – you can also pick these up at Surya Binayak, the main junction 300m south of Ram Ghat. Local buses from Nagarkot terminate at Kamal Binayak, 5min northeast of Tachapal.

By private tour bus If you come on a private tour bus you’ll be deposited at the Tourist Bus Park, just north of Durbar Square.

By taxi Taxis (Rs1000 or more from Kathmandu) will take you to the Siddha Pokhari minibus park.

By bike Only a desperado would cycle to Bhaktapur on the main road from Kathmandu. It is possible to cut through north of the airport and join up with the old road which leads past Thimi to Bhaktapur.

information

Entrance fee Westerners are charged US$15 (Rs1500) to enter Bhaktapur, and you may be asked to show your ticket as you walk around town. Note that you only need to pay once, however long your stay: make your intentions clear when you buy your ticket at the entry gate. If you intend to visit the city more than once, the ticket can be extended to become a pass covering the length of your stay in Nepal. For this you’ll need to bring two passport photos and a photocopy of the main pages of your passport (including the page with your Nepali visa).

Banks and exchange ATMs can be found on the main road between Durbar Square and Tachapal Tol, and at Surya Binayak, on the junction with the main road to Kathmandu.

Accommodation

Most guesthouses in Bhaktapur are small and well located in the area around Taumadhi Tol and Durbar Square (though this means that early morning puja bells may prevent a lie-in). As a rule, prices are significantly higher than for comparable lodgings in Kathmandu, but it’s worth it. The city doesn’t have that many beds, so book ahead at busy times, or arrive as early as possible in the day. Most guesthouses can book tourist buses and even domestic flights, saving you a trip to Kathmandu, and may be able to find you a rental bike if you want to explore the area.

Bhadgaon Guest House Taumadhi Tol 01 661 0488, bhadgaon.com.np; map. A little pricey, but the friendly staff give this place a professional feel. There’s a range of rooms: those on the higher floors (one with its own terrace) are attractive, comfortably appointed and boast great views. A calm central terrace area, good rooftop restaurant and Himalayan Java coffee house round off this superior guesthouse. US$50

Golden Gate Guest House Off Taumadhi Tol 01 661 0534, goldengateguesthouse.com; map. The justifiably popular Golden Gate Guest House is a relatively large brick-and-concrete block with simple, somewhat faded rooms. It’s clean, friendly, pleasantly secluded and has good views from the roof and upper (more expensive) rooms. Rs1200

Khwopa Guest House Bolachhen 01 661 4661, khwopa-guesthouse.com.np; map. Homely place with cosy (if rather dark), low-ceilinged rooms piled up over three floors. Furnishings are simple but the communal areas are attractive, with wooden fittings and terracotta tiles. It suffers a little from road noise, so bring earplugs. US$15

Pagoda Guest House Taumadhi Tol 01 661 3248, pagodaguesthouse.com; map. Friendly, family-run place with creeper-festooned balconies overlooking a small front court and the Nyatapola. Only the more expensive rooms have private bathrooms and (in some cases) views, but they’re all clean and well furnished, and the place attracts lots of return visitors. There’s newer, smarter accommodation (think terracotta floor tiles, bamboo furniture, carved wood windows and lots of cream linen fabrics; US$44) in the neighbouring “Newa” annexe. US$13

Peacock Guest House Tachapal Tol 01 661 1829, peacockguesthousenepal.com; map. This is one of the few guesthouses on the eastern side of the city, and thus removed from the city’s more touristy side. You enter through the Himalayan Bakery on the historic square, then go through to a traditional low-ceilinged house on an inner courtyard. Inside, the traditional feel continues with simply furnished, tile-floored rooms which are spotlessly clean. US$45

Shiva Guest House Durbar Square 01 661 3912, shivaguesthouse.com; map. This was the first guesthouse in Bhaktapur, and it has a classic location overlooking the Pashupati Mandir. It’s unexceptional but reasonably cheerful inside, with helpful management and decent food, too. There’s a range of rooms, from simple ones with shared bathrooms to en suites ($35) with views of the square. If you’re booking in advance, make sure you stay here, and not in the less well-situated annexe (Shiva Guest House 2) to the east. US$12.50

Eating

Most guesthouses have their own restaurants with fairly unimaginative tourist menus. Meanwhile, several cafés overlooking the various squares cater mainly to day-trippers: they’re pricey but great places to soak up the atmosphere, and some offer a few Newari dishes.

Beans Just off Durbar Square; map. Appealing, low-key café with just four tables: the coffee (Rs80–200) is the star of the show, but there are also good smoothies, milkshakes and cakes. Daily 8am–7/8pm.

Café Nyatapola Taumadhi Tol 01 661 0346; map. The prices are inflated, but the location, in a former temple in Taumadhi Tol, is irresistible. Apart from the luxurious three-course daal bhaat (Rs1045), the food is mostly snacky, with omelettes, chips and Newari side dishes, and drinks (from Rs120) from lassis to cappuccinos. Daily 8am–7pm.

Himalayan Bakery Tachapal Tol 01 661 1829; map. This charming bakery-café is a little pricey, but the Illy coffee (Rs150–220) and cakes (Rs70–120) are undeniably good. Muffins are a speciality: try the walnut and apple flavour. Daily 7am–9pm.

Palace Restaurant Durbar Square; map. The long and atmospheric dining room is the main attraction, hidden behind ancient windows. The menu is very small and on the pricey side (the Nepali set lunches, for example, cost Rs645–710) but it’s ok for coffee and drinks – but it’s the view you’re paying for. Daily 10am–8/9pm.

Shiva’s Café Corner Durbar Square 01 661 3912; map. One of the better guesthouse restaurants, with the interior made cosy by a big wooden bar and beams above, and views through the window onto Durbar Square. The food is surprisingly good for a menu that runs the gamut from steak to spaghetti, with, of course, Nepali, Chinese and Indian dishes too. Prices are fairly reasonable, with mains Rs240–800. Daily 7am–8.30pm.

King curd

Bhaktapur’s culinary speciality, famed throughout Nepal, is juju dhau, or “king of curds”. Made from naturally sweet buffalo milk, it is boiled in an iron pot along with cloves, cardamom, coconut and cashew – sugar, properly, isn’t added at all – and then cooled slowly, with the addition of an older batch to introduce the lactobacillus that makes it curdle. Most tourist restaurants serve it, but you can find it anywhere you see the sign of a full bowl. A number of inexpensive shops serve it in the traditional clay bhingat bowls. There’s no added water, and it shouldn’t pose any health risk. Whether or not you’re getting the real, natural product, or a fake made using powdered milk, can’t be guaranteed, however. One test is said to be to upend the bowl: real king curd won’t fall out.

Shopping

Bhaktapur offers a relatively modest selection of most of the tourist-oriented goods you can buy in Kathmandu, usually at similar prices. The best buys are perhaps woodcarving and the renowned Nawa Durga puppets and papier-mâché masks. And of course you can pick up cheap pottery at Potters’ Square: animal figures, planters, candlestick holders, ashtrays, piggy banks (onomatopoeically called kutrukke) and so on. Nepalis recognize Bhaktapur for its traditional textiles, such as black-and-red pataasi material and the formal Bhadgaonle topi headgear. There are plentiful woollens and pashmina shawls for sale, along with quality thangka and watercolours of local scenes, painted locally. Metal pieces such as incense holders and traditional ritual objects are also produced here.

Changu Narayan

Perched at the abrupt end of the ridge north of Bhaktapur, the temple complex of CHANGU NARAYAN commands a fine view of the valley in three directions. “One remembers all the wealth of carving of the rest of the valley,” wrote Percival Landon in 1928, “but when all is recalled it is probably to the shrine of Changu Narayan that one offers the palm.” Landon wasn’t wrong, and despite the extensive earthquake damage, you’ll find a site that retains its palpably holy, ancient atmosphere – not to mention the finest collection of statues outside the National Museum.

A single, stone-paved pedestrian street stretches west from the entrance booth, where you pay a fee, along the souvenir-stall-lined ridgetop, towards the temple at its apex.

Changu Museum

Halfway to the temple, 200m west of the bus park • Daily 8am–6pm • Rs300

The small and eccentric Changu Museum, set in an old-fashioned Newari townhouse, offers a beguiling display of traditional utensils, swords and musical instruments. The owner leads you up and down narrow wooden staircases, from the family kitchen and prayer room on the top floor to the rice storage cupboard and raksi still at ground level. Also on show are a collection of Nepali coins – including a medieval one claimed to be the world’s smallest – a bowl of 220-year-old rice, a holy, hairy cow’s gallstone and other curiosities.

The temple complex

A few steps up the hill from the museum stands the temple complex, a hushed cluster of rest-houses and pilgrims’ shelters with a grand quadrangle at its heart. It is the valley’s oldest Vaishnava site, with a documented history running back to the fifth century AD – the same date as the original stone image of Vishnu, covered in a seventh-century gilt sheath, which is kept hidden from profane view inside the sanctuary. From time to time, the statue is said to sweat miraculously, indicating that Vishnu is battling with the nag spirits, and the cloth used to wipe the god’s brow is considered a charm against snakebites. On the north and west side, 108 stone steps – a sacred number – descend through the forest towards the scattered series of hamlets.

Changu Narayan temple

The main temple building, comprehensively propped and scaffolded at the time of writing, was reconstructed around 1700. The repoussé work on the front of the building is as intricate as any you’ll find in Nepal, as are the carved, painted struts supporting the roofs. A measure of the temple’s ritual importance, meanwhile, is the exaggerated size of the four traditional emblems of Vishnu – the wheel (chakra), conch (sankha), lotus (padma) and mace (gada) – mounted on two pillars at its western corners. The base of the chakra pillar bears the oldest inscription in the valley: dated 454 AD and attributed to the Lichhavi king Mandev, it relates how Mandev, upon the death of his father, dissuaded his mother from committing sati, saying “what use are the joys and pleasures of this world without you?”

The face of the celebrated statue of Garud is thought to be a portrait of Mandev. Probably dating from the sixth century, it kneels before the main doorway, looking human but for a pair of wings. He used to be mounted on a pillar, the broken base of which is lying just to his right. The statues inside a screened cage next to Garud commemorate King Bupalendra Malla of Bhaktapur and his queen Bubana Lakshmi, who ruled during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The king’s gold-plated image was stolen in September 2001, only to be discovered by a cowherd the next day, half-buried in a nearby field.

The temple courtyard

If the main temple is dedicated to Vishnu, then the surrounding courtyard is a veritable artistic hymn to the god, as almost all the statues show him, or his faithful carrier, Garud, in one of their myriad incarnations.

Lakshmi Narayan temple

Two notable statues rest on the platform of the Lakshmi Narayan temple, itself destroyed in 2015, in the southwest corner of the compound. The eighth-century Vishnu Trivikranta Murti, Vishnu of the Three Strides (on the lowest step, facing west, beside a waterspout), illustrates a much-loved story in which the god reclaimed the universe from the demon king Bali. Disguised as a dwarf (another of his ten incarnations), Vishnu petitioned Bali for a patch of ground where he could meditate, which need only be as far as the dwarf could cover in three strides; when Bali agreed, Vishnu grew to his full divine height and bounded over the earth, sky and heavens. (An even older version of this statue is held in the National Museum.)

The adjacent eleventh- or twelfth-century image – also covered in red abhir powder, an indication that worship is very much alive – depicts Vishnu in yet another of his incarnations, that of the furious man-lion Narasimha; he carries across his lap the demon Hiranyakasyapu. The story here is that the demon’s pious son had acknowledged Vishnu as supreme, omnipresent deity over his own father. In scorn and fury, Hiranyakasyapu asked his son, “Where is this Vishnu of yours? Here in this pillar?”, and broke a column open – whereupon Vishnu promptly appeared. It was said that the demon could be killed by neither man nor animal, by night nor day, in earth nor in space, indoors nor out, and by neither living weapons nor inanimate ones. Vishnu therefore appeared at twilight, as the man-lion, taking the demon across his lap and tearing him apart with his fingernails – as is vividly depicted.

Garud and the serpents

In Nepali art, Vishnu’s angelic servant, Garud, often sports a scarf made of cobras. It stems from a peculiar legend, which tells how his mother was kidnapped by his stepmother, Kadru, the mother of all snakes. Garud appealed to his stepbrothers, the nag serpent-spirits, to free her. They did this on condition that Garud brought them ambrosia from Indra’s heaven. Although Indra later flew down and reclaimed his pot of nectar (leaving the snakes to split their tongues as they licked up the few drops spilt on the grass), Vishnu was so impressed that Garud hadn’t been tempted to consume the ambrosia himself that he immediately hired him as his mount.

Vishnu Vishwarup

The eighth-century image of Vishnu Vishwarup (“Vishnu of the Universal Form”), immediately to the east of the Lakshmi Narayan temple, is an awesome composition, even if it has lost its top-right corner. In its lower portion, it shows Vishnu reclining on the snake of infinity in the ocean of existence; above, he rises from the waters before a heavenly host, his thousand heads and arms symbolizing sheer omnipotence. The latter image is borrowed from an episode in the Mahabharata in which the warrior Arjuna loses his nerve and Krishna (an incarnation of Vishnu) appears in this universal form to dictate the entire Bhagavad Gita by way of encouragement.

Vishnu Vaikunthanata

At the northwest corner of the compound, the twelfth- or thirteenth-century Vishnu Vaikunthanata shows a purposeful Vishnu riding Garud like a true cosmic traveller. Nearby, underneath a jasmine bush, stands a Sridhara Vishnu of the ninth or tenth century, an early example of what has since become the standard Nepali representation of Vishnu.

Chinna Masta (Kali) temple

One of the smaller temples in the compound is dedicated to Chinna Masta, a local version of the bloodthirsty Kali – note the nearby post used for tethering sacrificial animals. Some scholars speculate that she is the mother goddess who was worshipped at this site in prehistoric times, though she has been transformed into a tantric goddess of destructively sexual power – she is usually depicted holding aloft her own severed head. Her cult endures: the gold on the roofs and doors is in good condition, and a Chinna Masta Mai chariot procession is held here for five days after aunshi – the new moon night of the Nepali month of Baisaakh (April–May).

Walks from Changu Narayan

You can hike the 10km from Nagarkot to Bhaktapur via Changu Narayan. It’s also possible to walk or mountain bike from Changu Narayan to Sankhu, 5km to the northeast, or Boudhanath 6km west. The Sankhu trail begins along the dirt road heading northeast from the Changu bus park (take the first fork on the left), though without a guide you may need to ask local help finding the way. A short cut leads down directly from the steps descending from the west side of the temple, then heads 1km north across the fields (make for the mobile phone mast) to the road, via a footbridge over the river. When you reach the road, Sankhu lies to the right (east) and Boudhanath to the left (west); frequent buses run along here between Kathmandu and Sankhu.

Arrival and information changu narayan

By bus From Bhaktapur, minibuses (every 30min or so; 30min) depart from the Mahakali bus park – little more than a widening at the junction of the Changu road with the main tarmac road that passes the north side of the city. The bus park at Changu Naryan is directly outside the ticket entrance into the town, 300m east of the temple.

By taxi Taxis from Bhaktapur cost upwards of Rs500.

By bike If you’re cycling you’ll need a mountain bike; coming from Bhaktapur the last 2km or so are very steep.

On foot From Bhaktapur, take one of the two roads that set off from the north side of town, immediately west of the main motor road to Changu Narayan (a sign for Hotel Planet on the main road shows the way); these soon converge and become a pleasant trail that passes through rural villages (you’re a third of the way there at Jhaukhel) before a steep ascent to reach the west side of the temple after 5km. It’ll take up to 1hr 30min on foot, and it’s easy to find your way – keep heading north towards the Changu ridge. There are plenty of people to ask if you get stuck. If you’re walking back to Bhaktapur, descend the stone steps on the west side of the temple compound, and turn left at the bottom, past a stone waterspout.

Entrance fee A fee of Rs300 is charged at the gate by the bus park (6am–6pm). The money goes to the Village Development Committee.

Accommodation

Star View Guest House 984 993 0812, starviewnepal.com; map. Situated to the west of the temple, down the steps at the back of the compound, this new guesthouse in a modern but traditional style building has clean rooms, hot water and a rooftop terrace with (on clear days) views across the Kathmandu Valley and (on really, really clear days) the Himalayas to the north. US$12

Thimi and around

THIMI, the valley’s fourth-largest town, spreads across a minor eminence 4km west of Bhaktapur. The name is said to be a corruption of chhemi, meaning “capable people”, a bit of flattery offered by Bhaktapur to make up for the fact that the town used to get mauled every time Bhaktapur picked a fight with Kathmandu or Patan. Little has changed: caught between Kathmandu’s rampant development and Bhaktapur’s careful spirit of conservation, Thimi has rather lost out. Recently the town has revived its ancient name of MADHYAPUR (“Middle Place”) – which says it all.

The town suffered significant damage in 2015, though its main north–south lane remains dotted with chortens and modest temples for its full 1km length. But it is Thimi’s pottery (see box opposite) – which many residents still rely on for income – that makes the town worth visiting. The only religious sight of note, the sixteenth-century pagoda temple of Balkumari, comes just short of its southern end. Childless couples come here to pray to the “Child Kumari” – represented by an unmistakeable, vulva-like gilt slit – presenting her with coconuts as a symbol of fertility. The temple is bespattered with pigeon droppings and has been protected by a steel cage since its precious peacock statue was stolen in 2001; the current figure, atop its tall pillar, is a reproduction. The temple is the focus of the Sindoor Jatra festival for Nepali New Year (in April), when dozens of deities are ferried around on palanquins, and red powder (red being the colour of rejoicing) is thrown like confetti.

Thimi pottery and papier-mâché

Thimi’s main attraction is its tradition of open-air pottery production; in the maze of the town’s back alleys and courtyards you’ll still see barrow-loads of raw clay and potters spinning their wheels by hand. Most extraordinary are the open-air kilns: huge heaps of sand and charcoal belching smoke from carefully tended vents. The main pottery quarter lies in the smoky heart of town: turn west at Chapacho, the cluster of small temples halfway down the high street, opposite the Community Health Clinic.

Most of this street-fired pottery is flower-pot quality, but keep following the alleys west and you’ll come to Thimi Ceramics (01 663 2421, thimiceramics.com), which has built on traditional skills to produce export-quality stoneware. Staff will give a quick tour and demonstration – virtually all the ceramics found in Kathmandu’s fairtrade shops originate here. Ask nicely and they can also point you in the direction of a nearby bronze foundry which opens its doors to visitors.

Thimi is also known for papier-mâché masks, which originated with the local Chitrakar family, famed for generations as purveyors of fine festival masks. They still produce them in a range of sizes and styles, notably snarling Bhairab, kindly Kumari and elephant-headed Ganesh.

Bode

A small, tight-knit Newari community, BODE is built on a bluff overlooking the Manohara River, 1km north of Thimi. The village’s main shrine, the Mahalakshmi Mandir, stands at the northwest corner of the village, a modest and not particularly well-maintained two-tiered pagoda. The goddess of wealth, Maha (Great) Lakshmi is feted during a three-day festival beginning on New Year’s Day (here called Baisaakh Sankranti, meaning the first day of Baisaakh – April 13 or 14). The highlight of the proceedings comes on the second day, when a volunteer has his tongue bored with a thin steel spike and, thus impaled and bearing a disc-shaped object with flaming torches mounted on it, accompanies the goddess as she’s paraded around the village. Volunteers believe that they won’t bleed if they’ve followed a prescribed three-day fast and have sufficient faith, and that by performing this act they’ll go directly to heaven when they die.

Arrival and departure thimi and around

By bus Any bus between Kathmandu and Bhaktapur will drop you off at the southern end of Thimi. Sporadic minibuses (every 30min–1hr; 20min) between Bhaktapur and Kathmandu ply the old road, which runs parallel to the main Arniko Highway, passing the northern sides of both Thimi and Bhaktapur; at the Kathmandu end, they stop at Koteswor, on the ring road.

By bike Once you’re clear of the ring road at Koteswor, you can cycle in along the old road to Bhaktapur, which skirts the town to the north – Thimi’s main street runs due south from a small temple with two yellow roofs.