Day by Day
Days 1 to 3 Kathmandu Valley UNESCO Heritage and Sacred Wonders
Arrive at Tribhuvan International Airport and transfer to the boutique hotel with a warm welcome and full orientation briefing. The nine UNESCO World Heritage Sites of the Kathmandu Valley make it one of the most densely significant cultural landscapes in Asia, and three days here is the minimum that allows a proper encounter with them. The briefing covers the full fifteen-day itinerary, the sequence of destinations, the activities and their physical requirements, the accommodation at each point, and the practical arrangements for the journey.
Swayambhunath on the morning of Day 1 is reached by the 365 steps of the eastern staircase, the approach lined with prayer wheels and stone carvings worn smooth from centuries of contact. The stupa at the summit, the hilltop position, and the view across the valley in all directions have made this the image of Kathmandu that most visitors carry home. Pashupatinath in the afternoon is a different order of experience: the most sacred Hindu site in Nepal, where the cremation ghats on the Bagmati river are in continuous use, the sadhus in their ochre robes receive visitors in the outer courtyards, and the activity of a living temple is visible without the mediation of a museum. The site is not staged: the cremations, the rituals, and the pilgrims are there because this is a functioning place of worship.
Patan Durbar Square on Day 2 is the finest of the three medieval royal courts for the quality and concentration of its temple architecture. The stone courtyards, the gilt rooftops, the Krishna Mandir built entirely in stone in the seventeenth century, and the Patan Museum within the palace complex make this the most rewarding single morning available in the valley for a visitor with an interest in religious art and architecture. Kathmandu Durbar Square in the afternoon holds the Kumari Ghar, the residence of the living goddess, and the Hanuman Dhoka palace complex whose courtyards and museum contain the most detailed account of Kathmandu’s royal history available in the city. The optional Everest Mountain Flight, if taken on the morning of Day 2, departs at sunrise and follows the Himalayan chain east from Kathmandu, the peaks visible through the aircraft windows from a proximity that no ground viewpoint in the valley can replicate.
Bhaktapur on Day 3 is the most intact of the three medieval cities and the one that most rewards slow walking. The lanes within the old town are car-free, the Newari architecture is preserved in a concentration found nowhere else in the valley, and the two most celebrated individual artworks in Nepal are both here: the Golden Gate at the entrance to the Palace of Fifty-Five Windows, a gilt repousse doorway of exceptional metalwork detail, and the Peacock Window on the outer wall of the same palace, a carved stone and timber lattice of peacock feathers that represents the woodcarving tradition at its height.
Stay: Luxury Boutique Hotel in Kathmandu
Days 4 to 5 Chitwan National Park Into the Wild
The drive south from Kathmandu to Chitwan drops through the Siwalik foothills to the Terai, the subtropical lowland at the base of the Himalayan range. Chitwan National Park, established in 1973 and designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, protects 932 square kilometres of sal forest, grassland, and riverine habitat that is the primary stronghold of the greater one-horned rhinoceros in Nepal. The population has recovered from fewer than 100 individuals in the 1960s to over 700 today, one of the most successful large-mammal conservation programmes in Asia.
The elephant-back safari on Day 4 enters the tall grass and forest terrain in the morning, when the wildlife is most active and the light is best. The height of the elephant allows approach to rhinos at close range that is not possible on foot and minimises the disturbance that a vehicle would cause. Professional naturalists from the park identify and explain everything encountered: the birds, the deer, the signs of tiger activity, and the rhinos in the grass. The canoe journey on the Rapti River on Day 5 is quieter: the dugout moves in silence past mugger crocodiles on the sandbars and gharials in the deeper channels, the river birding excellent at this hour, the forest on both banks reflected in the still water. The evenings at the jungle resort include naturalist presentations on the ecology and conservation history of the park.
Stay: Premium Jungle Resort in Chitwan
Days 6 to 7 Lumbini and Tansen Hallowed Ground and Hill Town
The drive west from Chitwan to Lumbini crosses the Terai through flat agricultural land where the Himalayan foothills are visible to the north. Lumbini, just inside the Indian border in the western Terai, is the site where Siddhartha Gautama was born in approximately the fifth century BCE, a date established by the Ashoka Pillar that the Maurya emperor erected here in 249 BCE: the oldest surviving physical evidence of the site’s significance and one of the oldest historical inscriptions in Nepal. The Mayadevi Temple marks the exact birth spot, its excavated foundations revealing the layers of construction that have accumulated here over two and a half millennia. The Pushkarni Pool, where Queen Mayadevi is said to have bathed before the birth, is immediately east of the temple.
The monastic zone around the central garden is a UNESCO World Heritage Site designed by the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, its layout separating the Theravada monasteries of the eastern zone from the Mahayana and Vajrayana monasteries of the western zone. The monasteries within the zone have been built by Buddhist communities from Thailand, Japan, Sri Lanka, China, Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Germany, France, and Tibet, each in the architectural tradition of its home country. Walking through this zone on a quiet morning, the diversity of Buddhist architectural expression visible in a single garden, is an experience that the central pilgrimage site alone does not prepare you for.
Tansen at 1,350 metres is reached the same afternoon or the following morning, a drive that climbs from the Terai through the Palpa hills to a Newari hill town whose position on the ridge gives it views of Dhaulagiri and the western Himalayan chain that are available from very few other accessible points in Nepal. The town’s craftsmen are known for their dhaka woven fabric and the metalwork tradition that has produced the distinctive Dhaka pattern cloth and the dokha bell-metal vessels associated with Tansen throughout Nepal. The old quarter is largely free of motor traffic and the Newari stone architecture gives it a character of preservation that rewards unhurried walking.
Stay: Heritage Hotel in Tansen
Days 8 to 9 Pokhara and Sarangkot Lakeside Serenity
The drive from Tansen to Pokhara descends from the Palpa ridge to the valley of the Kali Gandaki and then west along the foothills to the lake city. Pokhara at 800 metres sits closer to a major Himalayan massif than almost any other city of comparable size in Nepal: the Annapurna range rises directly above the northern shore of Phewa Lake and Machhapuchhre, the sacred unclimbed peak, stands in the centre of the view in a position of dramatic proximity. The afternoon arrival allows time for a first walk along the lakeside before the evening, and the reflection of the peaks on the water in the late light is a suitable introduction to what the early morning will offer.
The predawn drive to Sarangkot on the morning of Day 9 starts before 5am, the road climbing the hillside above Pokhara in darkness to arrive at the viewpoint at 1,592 metres before the first light. The sunrise from Sarangkot delivers the full Annapurna massif from Dhaulagiri in the west to Lamjung Himal in the east, lit from below while the surrounding hills are still dark, the colour moving across the faces of the peaks as the sun clears the eastern ridge. After breakfast the boat ride on Phewa Lake provides a lower and different perspective on the same peaks, the reflection of Machhapuchhre visible on the still water before the afternoon wind arrives. David’s Fall, the waterfall that disappears underground at the edge of the city, and the Barahi Temple on its island in the lake complete the Pokhara days.
Stay: Luxury Lakeside Hotel in Pokhara
Days 10 to 15 Nagarkot, Changu Narayan, and Pharping Himalayan Horizons and Spiritual Farewell
The return drive from Pokhara to Kathmandu follows the Prithvi Highway east through the middle hills, the mountains visible above the valley rim for much of the journey. Rather than returning directly to Kathmandu, the route ascends to Nagarkot at 2,175 metres on the eastern rim of the valley, a hill resort whose position above the forested ridge gives it the widest mountain panorama available from any road-accessible point near the capital. On a clear morning, the view from Nagarkot extends from the Annapurna range in the west to Kanchenjunga in the east, with Everest at 8,849 metres visible in the distance above the closer ridges. The sunrise from Nagarkot is a different order of mountain spectacle from Sarangkot: where Sarangkot is close and dramatic, Nagarkot is wide and panoramic, and the two views complement each other.
Changu Narayan on its hilltop above the Bhaktapur valley is the oldest surviving temple complex in Nepal, its stone carvings dating to the fifth and sixth centuries CE and representing the earliest examples of what became the Newari sculptural tradition. The Vishnu images in the courtyard include a Vaishnava sculpture from the Licchavi period that is among the finest pieces of early South Asian religious sculpture in Nepal. The temple’s hilltop position, accessible by a walk through forest from the road below, and the views of the valley and the mountains from the platform above the courtyard make the site worth the approach regardless of its historical significance.
The Pharping caves below the village of Pharping, south of Kathmandu in the Dakshinkali valley, are the meditation caves associated with Padmasambhava, the Indian master who is credited with introducing Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century CE. The Asura Cave lower down the hillside and the Yanglesho Cave above it are sites where Padmasambhava is said to have practised and attained the realisation that he subsequently carried north across the Himalaya. Both caves are active places of Buddhist practice: monks and practitioners visit daily to meditate in the site’s tradition, and the caves have a quality of continuous spiritual use that is distinct from a heritage site. The surrounding valley, with its Newar agricultural settlements and the Dakshinkali temple at the valley floor, provides context for the final day before the farewell dinner.
The farewell dinner on the final evening in Kathmandu, with traditional Newari cuisine and the folk dance programme that accompanies the set menu at the dedicated cultural restaurants of the old city, closes a fifteen-day journey that has moved from the medieval streets of the capital to the jungle lowlands, the birthplace of the Buddha, the Himalayan lake city, the mountain rim above the valley, and the caves where a tradition that shaped the religious culture of an entire civilisation was given its form. Nepal is a small country with an extraordinary range of what it offers. This itinerary is built around the ambition to cover the full range.
Stay: Scenic Hill Resort at Nagarkot then Luxury Boutique Hotel in Kathmandu
