Kathmandu
Kathmandu's Craft & Contemplation: Thangka Painting, Singing Bowls, Newari Pagodas & Ten Days of Meditation at Kopan
Encounter Kathmandu's creative and contemplative traditions—months-long thangka paintings following 1,500-year-old iconographic rules, singing bowls in seven-metal alloy producing overtones from the pre-Buddhist Bön tradition, the Newar pagoda form that spread from Nepal to China and Japan via Kublai Khan's court in 1260, ten days of Tibetan Buddhist meditation at Kopan Monastery on a hill above Boudhanath, and Nepal's first Everest-summiting woman whose face now appears on the national currency.
Nepal's Himalayan Adventures: Everest Base Camp, Annapurna Circuit & the Forbidden Kingdom of Mustang
Plan Nepal's great adventures from Kathmandu—the 18-day Everest Base Camp trek through Sherpa villages to the foot of the world's highest mountain, the Annapurna Circuit crossing a 5,416-metre pass through 12 ethnic communities (the world's finest multi-day trek), Chitwan's 700 one-horned rhinos by dugout canoe, the Buddha's exact birth spot at Lumbini marked by Ashoka's 249 BC pillar, and the 600-year-old walled city of Lo Manthang in the restricted Forbidden Kingdom of Upper Mustang.
Kathmandu Depth: Everest's Death Zone, the Living Goddess Kumari & Nepal's Journey from Kingdom to Republic
Go deeper into Kathmandu's layers—the 310 dead who remain on Everest's slopes beside 800 annual summit attempts, Sherpa Kami Rita's 29-summit world record, Nepal's turbulent 2008 abolition of its 240-year monarchy after a Maoist insurgency killed 17,000, a pre-pubescent girl selected as living goddess through fearlessness tests in a dark room full of animal heads, the world's most widespread animal sacrifice festival during Dashain, and the Himalayan climate crisis threatening glacial water supplies for 1.3 billion people.
Kathmandu Essentials: Hindu Cremations on the Bagmati, Asia's Largest Stupa & the Monkey Temple
Encounter the world's most spiritually dense city—open-air Hindu cremations beside Pashupatinath's sacred Bagmati river, the 40-metre Boudhanath stupa surrounded by Tibetan monks spinning prayer wheels at dawn, the Monkey Temple's 2,000-year-old hilltop with all-seeing stupa eyes overlooking the valley, the living goddess Kumari appearing at her palace window, and Thamel's trekking-permit chaos that launches every Himalayan adventure.
Kathmandu Secrets: Hidden Bahals, the Kumari Chariot Festival & the City's Emerging Coffee and Art Scene
Slip through unmarked passages into 5th-century Buddhist courtyards invisible from the tourist street, witness the President of Nepal receiving the tika blessing of a pre-pubescent living goddess pulled through old Kathmandu on a towering chariot, explore the hilltop city of Kirtipur whose inhabitants had their noses cut off by Nepal's unifier, drink specialty coffee from Nepali hill farms in Jhamsikhel's third-wave cafés, and navigate the 2023 mandatory guide rule that changed how Nepal's trails work.
Kathmandu's Three Cities: Bhaktapur's Medieval Streets, Patan's Bronze Casting & Dal Bhat Power
Explore the Kathmandu Valley's three medieval cities—Bhaktapur's living Newar community in an unchanged 17th-century fabric (the finest medieval streetscape in Asia), Patan's Krishna Mandir in pure stone shikhara style and the finest Himalayan Buddhist metalwork, unlimited dal bhat refuels on every trekking route, 20,000 Tibetan refugees maintaining 50 monasteries around Boudhanath stupa, and Nepal on $25/day with an on-arrival visa at the world's most dramatic airport approach.