Eight days in Nepal: the two halves of the country, and the road between them

Two nights in Kathmandu, three by the lake at Pokhara under the Annapurnas, then back to the valley for Patan and the river temples before you fly.

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Length
8 days, 7 nights
Where you stay
Kathmandu, Pokhara, Kathmandu
Places
18 across 8 days
123
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Nepal in a week is two places. Kathmandu is dense, dusty and about a thousand years old, with more carved temples in a square kilometre than most countries manage in total. Pokhara is a lake with the Annapurna range standing behind it, and it exists so that people can rest before and after walking into those mountains.

Between them is two hundred kilometres of road that takes seven or eight hours, or a twenty five minute flight that half the time does not go. Doing one leg each way is the sensible compromise, and it is what this route does.

Seven nights is enough to see the valley's two royal cities properly, watch the sun hit the Annapurnas from a ridge, and still have an afternoon spare. It is not enough to trek, and pretending otherwise is how people end up doing neither thing well.

Highlights

  • A living goddess who appears, when she chooses, at a carved upper window
  • Sunrise on a wall of snow peaks thirty kilometres away and four thousand metres up
  • Cremations in the open on a river bank, watched from the terraces opposite
  • The gilded courtyard of a Buddhist monastery with tortoises walking about in it

Where to stay

Kathmandu, two nights

The old trading city between India and Tibet, run by the Malla kings until a Gorkha army took the valley in 1768 and made it the capital of a new country. It stayed closed to outsiders until the 1950s, which is part of why so much survived.

Two nights at the start covers the old city and the hill stupa, and leaves the sites on the eastern edge for the end of the trip, when they are on the way to the airport.

Pokhara, three nights

About 142 km from Kathmandu.

A lake at eight hundred metres with nothing between it and the Annapurnas, which is why the mountains look impossible from here: no foothills in the way, so a seven thousand metre peak appears to stand directly behind the town.

Three nights buys one dawn on the ridge, one day among the caves and the museum, and one day doing nothing at all, which after Kathmandu is the point.

Kathmandu again, two nights

By fly from Pokhara, about 142 km.

Home again to the valley for the things the first two days left out: Patan across the river, which is the second of the three royal cities and the quieter one, and the great Hindu and Buddhist sites on the eastern side.

Staying two nights rather than one means the last morning is not a scramble, and it puts you twenty minutes from the airport.

Day by day

Day 1 in Kathmandu

Landing, a walled garden and the eyes on the hill

Most long-haul flights arrive in the middle of the day. Get through the visa queue, get to the hotel, and then do one gentle thing rather than three ambitious ones.

The walled garden at the edge of Thamel is where the noise stops, and it is five minutes from most beds in the district. Then a taxi west and up to the stupa on its hill for the last of the light over the valley.

Come down before dark; the steps are steep and unlit.

  1. 15:30

    Garden of Dreams

    Other

    A neoclassical garden built in the 1920s by a Rana general with a taste for Edwardian Europe, left to fall apart for decades and restored with Austrian help. Pavilions named for the six seasons, a pond, and a lawn full of people asleep over books. The entry fee is what keeps it quiet.

  2. 17:00

    Swayambhunath

    Religious

    Swayambhu, the hill stupa that guidebooks call the monkey temple, up three hundred and sixty five steps from the eastern side or by road round the back. Painted eyes look out in four directions from the tower, with the Nepali figure for one where the nose should be. Prayer wheels all the way round, pilgrims walking clockwise, and the whole valley underneath.

  3. 19:30

    Dinner in Thamel

    Eat

    Momos first, then dal bhat if you want to eat the way the country does: rice, lentil soup, a curry and pickles, refilled until you stop them. Thamel also does very good Tibetan food and unexpectedly good pizza.

With more time: Book tomorrow night's bus to Pokhara this evening, or ask the hotel to. The tourist coaches leave from the western side of the ring road at about seven in the morning and the good ones sell out in season.

Day 2 in Kathmandu

The old city, the living goddess and the bazaar streets

Walk down to the durbar square from Thamel rather than taking a taxi. It takes twenty minutes through the bazaar and the shift from trekking shops to brass, beads and vegetables is the best introduction the city gives.

The square is really three linked spaces packed with temples, several of them on stepped plinths that the whole neighbourhood sits on. Buy the ticket, and have it stamped at the site office if you want to come back another day.

The goddess appears at her window when she feels like it, most often late morning or late afternoon. Wait ten minutes in the courtyard and see what happens.

  1. 10:00

    Kumari Palace

    Visit

    The house of the Kumari, a girl chosen from a particular Newar caste and worshipped as a living goddess until puberty. The courtyard has the finest carved windows in the city, and entry to it is free. Photographs of the courtyard are fine; photographs of her are absolutely not.

  2. 11:00

    Kasthamandap

    Religious

    The wooden pavilion that gave the city its name, from kastha, wood, and mandap, pavilion. It came down completely in 2015, and the dig underneath found the structure to be far older than anyone had believed. It has been rebuilt to the old plan in timber, and the pale new joinery stands out against the salvaged beams.

  3. 12:30

    Newari lunch off the square

    Eat

    The lanes east of the square do choila, bara and samay baji, which are nothing like the dal bhat in Thamel and much more interesting. Point at whatever the next table has.

  4. 14:00

    Maju Deval

    Visit

    The tall temple on a nine-stepped plinth that used to be everyone's meeting point, and which fell in 2015. It has been rebuilt, and the steps are once again the best seat in Kathmandu for an hour of watching a square work.

With more time: North of the square, the lanes run through Asan and Indra Chowk, the old market crossroads, where spices, brass and bridal beads are sold within a block of each other. No ticket, no route, and the best hour of the day here.

Day 3 in Pokhara

West to Pokhara, and a boat on the lake

An early start and a long day on the road. The bus follows the Trishuli through gorges and terraced hillsides, stops for lunch at a roadside place chosen by the driver, and gets in during the afternoon.

Once the bags are down, get on the water. Rowing boats are hired by the hour along the shore, with or without an oarsman, and the lake is at its calmest in the late afternoon.

Do not judge the mountains on this evening; the range is usually hazy by then and out again at dawn.

  1. 16:00

    Phewa/Fewa Lake (Phewa/Fewa Tal)

    Visit

    The second largest lake in Nepal, with forest on the far shore, monkeys in it, and a small two-tiered temple on an island that people row out to with offerings. Row over to the western side, where there is nothing but trees and water, and come back for the sunset.

  2. 19:30

    Dinner on Lakeside

    Eat

    The strip runs a couple of kilometres and the good places are spread along all of it. Ask for Thakali, the food of the mountain trading people, which arrives as a platter and is the best version of dal bhat there is.

With more time: Arrange tomorrow's taxi to the ridge tonight, for about half past four. Every hotel does it and the drivers are used to the hour.

Day 4 in Pokhara

Sarangkot at dawn, and off the ridge in a parachute

Up before five. The ridge above the town is a forty minute drive, and the point of being there is the twenty minutes when the sun reaches the snow before it reaches the valley. Machhapuchhre, the fish tail, is the one nobody is allowed to climb.

The same ridge is one of the world's great paragliding launches, and the flights start once the thermals build in mid morning. Twenty minutes or so in the air, landing beside the lake.

In the afternoon, the white pagoda on the ridge across the water: boat over and walk up through the forest, and stay for the sunset.

  1. 05:00

    Sarangkot

    Visit

    A ridge village at about sixteen hundred metres, half an hour above the town, with a viewing tower and tea stalls that open in the dark. Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Machhapuchhre and Lamjung Himal come out of the night one by one. Dress for cold; it is a different climate up there before the sun.

  2. 10:30

    Parahawking/Vulture Restaurant

    Visit

    Tandem paragliding goes from the same ridge through the middle of the day, and this is where parahawking started: flights alongside trained birds of prey, run to raise money for Nepal's vultures after a veterinary drug wiped out most of the population. Book the day before and take an early slot for smoother air.

  3. 13:30

    Late lunch by the water

    Eat

    Whatever is nearest to where you land. There are cafes the length of the shore and none of them are in a hurry.

  4. 15:00

    World Peace Pagoda (Shanti Stupa)

    Other

    A white stupa on the ridge across the lake, built by Japanese Buddhist monks and opened in 1999, with the Annapurnas on one side and the whole of Pokhara on the other. Forty minutes up through the forest from the boat landing. Take a torch for the way down.

With more time: If the morning is cloudy and the ridge is pointless, the Gurkha memorial museum in town covers how a hill people from these districts came to serve two hundred years in the British and Indian armies.

Day 5 in Pokhara

A waterfall into a hole, the cave under it, and the mountain museum

A day on the south side of town, which has nothing to do with trekking and can be done on foot with a couple of short taxi hops.

The waterfall and the cave face each other across the road and are the same water: it drops into a sinkhole on one side and can be seen from underneath on the other, which is more dramatic than it sounds and much wetter after rain.

Then the mountain museum, which is a serious one, and the right preparation if you ever intend to walk up anything here.

  1. 09:30

    Devi's Falls (Patale Chhango)

    Nature

    A waterfall that drops into a sinkhole and vanishes into the rock, named after a foreigner said to have drowned here in the 1960s. Thunderous during and after the monsoon, modest in spring, and busy with Nepali families at weekends.

  2. 10:30

    Gupteshwor Mahadev Cave

    Nature

    Straight across the road and down a long flight of steps: a limestone cave with a stalagmite venerated as Shiva, and a second chamber further in where you can look at the underside of the falls. Shoes off at the shrine, and expect to get damp.

  3. 12:00

    Lunch on the way back

    Eat

    The road into town has local canteens doing dal bhat for a few hundred rupees, which is a quarter of the Lakeside price and no worse for it.

  4. 14:00

    International Mountain Museum

    Culture

    A proper museum about the Himalaya: the fourteen peaks above eight thousand metres and the expeditions that climbed them, the geology that pushed them up, and the Sherpa, Thakali, Gurung and Magar people who live underneath. Two hours, and a model peak outside for children to climb.

With more time: For a last quiet morning instead of a flight, Begnas is a bigger, emptier lake twenty five minutes east, with a ridge path between it and a smaller one and fried lake fish at the shore restaurants.

Day 6 in Kathmandu

Back to the valley, and an afternoon in Patan

The flight east takes under half an hour, with the range out of the right hand window. If the weather has closed in, the bus is a long but reliable alternative, and you lose the afternoon rather than the day.

Straight across the river to the second of the valley's royal cities, which has the same density of temples as Kathmandu with half the traffic and a metalworking tradition that is still working in the lanes.

Patan came through 2015 better than its neighbour, and the museum in the old palace is the best thing of its kind in the country.

  1. 13:30

    Patan Museum

    Culture

    In the restored royal palace on the square: a small, beautifully lit collection of bronze and gilt copper, with labels that explain what a Bodhisattva is, how lost wax casting works and what each hand position means. Two hours, and a courtyard cafe at the back for afterwards.

  2. 15:45

    Krishna Mandir

    Religious

    A stone temple of 1637 in the northern Indian style, with three tiers of pillared galleries carved with scenes from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, standing among the pagodas as a deliberate outsider. It came through the earthquake almost untouched.

  3. 17:00

    Golden Temple

    Religious

    Hiranya Varna Mahavihar, a Buddhist monastery courtyard a few minutes north of the square, gilded from the roof down: repousse metalwork, silver doors, prayer wheels and tortoises wandering about as temple guardians. Shoes and anything leather off at the door.

With more time: The lanes southeast of the square, towards the Mahabuddha temple, are where the bronze casters and silversmiths work, and most of them will let you stand in the doorway and watch.

Day 7 in Kathmandu

The burning ghats and the Tibetan quarter

The two great religious sites of the valley are both on the eastern side and half an hour apart, so this is a day with only two things in it and both of them are large.

Pashupatinath first, and early, when the terraces are busy with pilgrims and sadhus and the day's cremations are getting under way. It is a Hindu site of the first rank; non-Hindus watch from the far bank, which is the better vantage point in any case.

Then Boudha, for a slow lap of the stupa and a coffee on a rooftop above the dome. Stay into the evening if you can: the butter lamps and the crowd at dusk are the best hour of the trip.

  1. 08:30

    Pashupatinath Temple

    Religious

    Nepal's holiest Hindu temple, dedicated to Shiva as lord of the animals, spread along the Bagmati river. The main courtyard is for Hindus only; everyone else walks the terraces opposite, where the cremation ghats are and where sadhus in ochre and ash will pose for a fee. Sober rather than a spectacle, and not a place to photograph freely.

  2. 12:30

    Lunch at Boudha

    Eat

    The upper floors around the stupa are all restaurants with terraces facing it. Tibetan food here is the real thing: thukpa, momos and butter tea if you are brave.

  3. 14:00

    Boudha Stupa

    Other

    One of the largest stupas anywhere, at the middle of the Tibetan quarter and ringed by monasteries. Join the kora, the clockwise circuit, and you will be one of several hundred people on it at any hour. The spire cracked in 2015 and was rebuilt within eighteen months, paid for by the Buddhist community rather than the state.

With more time: The monasteries around the stupa open their courtyards to visitors, and sitting in on an afternoon chanting session at one of the larger ones is free, welcome, and unlike anything else in the valley.

Day 8 in Kathmandu

A palace, a massacre, and the flight home

One last hour, and the strangest building in Kathmandu: the royal palace, opened to the public after the monarchy ended, with the rooms left more or less as they were.

Then the airport, which is twenty minutes away and slow once you are inside it.

  1. 11:00

    Narayanhiti Palace Museum

    Culture

    The Narayanhiti palace, home of the kings until 2008 and now a museum you walk through in stockinged feet: throne room, banqueting hall, faded 1970s furnishings, and the garden wing where most of the royal family was shot dead in 2001 by the crown prince. The site of it has been left as bare foundations with the events marked out.

  2. 13:00

    To Tribhuvan airport

    Travel

    Twenty minutes from the centre when the ring road behaves. Departure formalities are slow and the terminal is small, so three hours for an international flight is not excessive.

With more time: With more time before the flight, the national museum at the foot of the Swayambhu hill holds the country's archaeology and an eccentric collection of royal weaponry, and it is rarely busy.

Before you go

Getting between Kathmandu and Pokhara

Tourist buses leave both cities at first light and take seven to eight hours, sometimes more, along a road that follows the Trishuli river for much of the way. The better operators have reclining seats, air conditioning and a lunch stop, and they cost a few times what the local bus does, which is still very little.

Flying takes twenty five minutes and gives you the whole range out of the left window on the way west. It also gets cancelled in bad weather with no notice, so do not put a flight on the day of an international connection.

The compromise that works: bus one way while you are fresh and interested, fly the other.

Money, permits and the clock

Cash for almost everything outside hotels. Bring dollars or euros to change, or use the ATMs, which dispense modest amounts and charge per withdrawal. Each of the valley's royal squares charges foreigners an entrance fee of around a thousand rupees.

Visas are issued on arrival at Kathmandu airport for most nationalities, paid in cash, with the form filled in at a machine in the hall. And the country runs forty five minutes ahead of India on its own time zone, which catches out every arriving flight.

When to go

October and November are the best weeks of the year: clear air after the monsoon, mountains out most mornings, and festivals through both months. March and April are warmer, hazier and full of rhododendron on the hills.

The monsoon, June to September, hides the mountains for days at a time and turns the road west into a lottery. Winter is cold at dawn, bright by mid morning, very clear and much quieter.

Temple manners

Shoes off before entering any temple building, leather belts and bags left outside some Hindu shrines, and walk clockwise around every stupa and chorten. Do not touch offerings or step over food.

Non-Hindus are not admitted to the inner courtyard at Pashupatinath, which is normal rather than a slight. Cremations take place there in the open, on the river bank, in full view: watch quietly from the far side and leave the camera in the bag.

The 2015 earthquake

The earthquake of April 2015 killed about nine thousand people and brought down a large part of what stood in the valley's palace squares. Photographs and guidebooks from before it show buildings that were missing for years afterwards.

Most of the important ones have now been rebuilt, with traditional joinery and salvaged timber where it survived, which is why some of the woodwork is noticeably paler than the rest. Several reopened only in the last few years.

Nepal repays walking rather than taxis, early mornings rather than late ones, and asking questions of the people who take you around, most of whom are better company than the guidebook.

What this week leaves out is the whole reason many people come: the mountains themselves, from a trail rather than a ridge above a lake. That is a fortnight, and it starts from the same two towns.

Go deeper on one city

Each of these covers a single stop on this route in its own right.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is eight days enough for Nepal?
For the valley and Pokhara, comfortably. For trekking, no: even the short Poon Hill loop needs four or five days on top of the travel, and the Annapurna Base Camp walk closer to two weeks. Treat this as the trip you take when you want the country rather than the mountains.
Should I add Chitwan?
It fits between Kathmandu and Pokhara with two extra nights, and it is a genuine change of scene: subtropical jungle, rhinos, and elephants. Skip the elephant rides, take the jeep or the canoe, and check what any lodge does with its animals before you book.
Bus or fly to Pokhara?
Bus once, for the river gorges and the roadside life, and fly the other way if the weather allows. The road is slow and occasionally alarming; the flight is short, more expensive and frequently cancelled in cloud.
What about Bhaktapur?
It is the third royal city, the best preserved of them, and it deserves a full day rather than the afternoon this route can spare. If you can add a night, sleep there rather than day tripping; the square at seven in the morning is worth the change of hotel.
Can I change this plan?
Yes. Copy it into the planner and move, cut or add anything; the days, times and places all stay editable.