Kathmandu Day Tour

After my Nebelhorn (2224 m) hike with Pavlo I went to the SIGMOD/PODS 2026 conference in Bengaluru, India. There, I presented my DaMoN paper "Evaluating Apple Silicon for Data Processing" and visited the rest of the workshops and talks. After an exhausting week of work, I decided to make a detour to Nepal before heading home.

Since I focused on my research and didn't have much time to plan the trip, I contacted Outfitter Himalaya to help me arrange a trip to the mountains and to some iconic tourist attractions in the region.

Check out other hikes from this trip:

• Kathmandu Day Tour (you're here)
• Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) Day 1
• Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) Day 2
• Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) Day 3
• Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) Day 4
• Annapurna Base Camp (ABC) Day 5
• Pokhara World Peace Stupa 71

After negotiating some of the trip details, prices, and dates, we've settled on the following schedule: 5 days for the hike, 2 days for commuting, 1 day for Kathmandu, all depending on the weather and flights. Since I would be staying a layover day in Kathmandu anyway, the tour operator offered me a day tour of the most popular spots in the Nepal capital.

The trip starts off at the hotel, where you are picked up by a dedicated driver by the tour guide, or you walk out on foot by yourself. My tour guide booked a hotel room for me in the tourist district, so the route on this page starts there.

Swayambhu Mahachaitya

You then get to Swayambhu Mahachaitya, an ancient religious complex atop a hill in the Kathmandu Valley, west of Kathmandu city. It's surprisingly close-by, just a few kilometers away from my starting point. That being said, the weather and humidity don't make the trip easy.

Once you reach the complex, you have to walk up some steps, as the temple is located on a hill. I was told the exact step count, but at the end of the day, it's not that high.

I suggest you start this visit off by going to the Statue of Peace fountain on the complex premises. It's a nice area with a drinking water fountain nearby, plus the place is brimming with monkeys.

You can then take a look at the Maitreya Buddha Reincarnate shrine or at one of the nearby stupas (Buddhist temple structures). There's plenty of them to come on this trip, but each one feels unique and potentially worships a different deity.

From there you can go up to the Swayambhu Mahachaitya stupa and the adjacent Shantipur Shrine or Harati Ajima Temple. Each one has a different purpose: people walk clock-wise along the stupa ringing the cyllindric bells for good fortune, pray at the temple and give offerings at the shrine. There are some golden circles on the ground that people shouldn't step on if they don't want to make an act of severe spiritual disrespect.

Durbar Square

Next up is the Kathmandu Durbar Square, the national heritage site with a local palace, tons of temples and shrines, and the temple of the Living Goddess. There's also the Basantapur Dabu merchant square selling trinkets and souvenirs to passer-bys. In general, I found it interesting that despite the large quantities of international tourists from Europe and America, the biggest tourist group on average throughout the year is Indian. Kathmandu is a great pilgrimage site in Hinduism, and India has a no-visa agreement with Nepal making border crossings accessible to people from different wealth groups, more on that in the Annapurna hike posts.

Although I wasn't interested in the merchant square, there's also a normal tourist street with shops, cafes, ATMs, and tourism agencies right next to it. I had to withdraw some cash for the eventual tourist guide and waiter tips, so I visited an ATM and paid a 5% local ATM fee on top of the 2% German bank fee.

The tour of the square in general began with the Kasthamandap landmark, a multi-story wooden temple that was reconstructed multiple times after numerous earthquakes and fires. I can't say too much about this temple though. The Kathmandu city took its name from the temple, but apparently it's not interesting enough to warrant talking about for local guides and tourism pages, even the official Nepal government page.

Following the crowd along the street, one walks past the Tago Gan Bell and the King Pratap Malla Column towards the Shree Kaal Bhairav Temple, a detailed stone sculpture from a single stone of the Hindu deity Kaal Bhairav, dating from the 6th century. While I was there, I noticed that the statue was splashed in all sorts of bright colors, just like the people praying to it. Usually people walk barefoot with their dogs out inside Hindu temples, but this one is open-air, so the visitors had mixed opinions on the attire rules. The only thing I can assure you of is the pavement everyone was walking on was not clean by any standards.

A bit further and to the right is the main Taleju Bhawani Temple, built by King Mahendra Malla in 1549 AD. Normally the temple is closed (except for one day during the yearly Dashain festival), and the temple is used to worship the private deity of the royal family. I found it crazy that the royal family can just have an exclusive deity just for them that only they are allowed/supposed to pray to. I wonder if it's stronger and gives them better blessings compared to common peoples' deities and gods.

Afterwards, I turned around and walk to the Kumari temple, the temple of the Living Goddess. I'm not sure if I was given a "stupid tourist" explanation of what she is and what she does, but the basic practical idea is the following. Any religious family from the Shakya Buddhist clan (yes, clans and casts are still a thing in India, Nepal, and probably some surrounding countries) can submit their infant to become the vessel for the Kumari Goddess to possess. More on the deity later. After some selection process, one candidate is chosen and taken into the temple in Kathmandu. There, the child prays most of the day and receives a normal-ish common education. Her other duties include showing up on a balcony in the temple and blessing all the visitors and taking part in Indra Jatra and other local festivals, where she's taken out and paraded across the city in her golden palanquin (a covered seat carried on poles on shoulders). Once the girl hits puberty, she's released back to her family, loses the divine status, and the selection process starts over. I've been told that it's hard for these girls to find husbands afterwards, as locals are afraid of receiving the wrath of Kumari if they mistreat their girlfriend/wife.

From the spiritual side, Kumari represents Taleju Bhawani, and is the living incarnation of the goddess herself. According to legend, the goddess incarnation would frequent the palace and entertain the king until she had a conflict with King Jayaprakash Malla, after which she disappeared. Later on after tons of prayers she gave the king a vision to choose a young Kumari for her to possess so that others can continue to worship her. In short, the goddess Taleju Bhawani (the spiritual abstract goddess at the eternal plane) incarnates here on mortal Earth as Kumari, and after she possesses a girl, that girl also becomes a/the Kumari. The purpose, I assume, is that collecting prayers in-person using an incarnation is more effective than people praying to the original deity directly?

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble, now comes the quick part. My next stop was the nearby Nasal Chowk, a lovely courtyard inside the historic royal residence (which I also partially visited). Not too much interesting about it, the yard was used for coronations until 2001, and the nearby tower is accessible all the way to the top. There's a nearby Jagannath temple famous for its erotic wooden carved figures, although there were some in the towers and throughout the courtyard too.

Skipping other temples and statues I don't have "exciting" facts about, I entered the Gaddhi Baithak hall that straight-up hit me with a European neoclassical interior. It also has non-typical crystal chandeliers, ornate pillars, a high decorated ceiling and some local paintings. It was commissioned in 1908 by the Rana Prime Minister after he toured Europe (the Rana lineage had powerful ties to the British Empire). They thought this building would legitimize his family's authority domestically and to visiting Brits. Apparently, this plan actually worked, after the hall was used for assemblies and meetings, coronations and national proclamations, and even state festivals.

This concluded my tour of the world heritage square, and I moved on to the Boudha Stupa in a different part of the city.

Boudha Stupa

Around 8 km east of downtown Kathmandu is the Boudha stupa, the largest stupa in the Kathmandu Valley. Although by law most local temples are shared between Buddhists and Hinduists, this stupa is the center of Jimalayan Buddhism in particular. As usual, this is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with people walking there barefoot.

The temple with the surrounding area is laid out as a massive mandala, which is a circular structure (usually a painting of a circle) meant for Annuttarayoga Tantra meditation practices. In practice, it's a circle visually representing the core essence of the religious teaching of Pure Land, Enlightened Mind. The elements of the buildings/statues/pictures of mandala represent the local deities, and the colors represent different forces of nature and human qualities.

Why is the mandala shape important? There's tons of art schools/centers that sell mandala paintings for insane amounts of money. I was coerced into buying the cheapest one for 40$, but I've seen people buy the medium-quality 120$ paintings too.

To experience the local spirituality I also took my shoes off and did a clockwise walk inside the temple around the stupa to collect all the goodwill and blessings, then headed to a local restaurant to finally eat something for the day.

To be honest, I don't remember which specific place I went to, but it was one of the restaurants on the stupa square, with a rooftop terrace overlooking the temple. As most local establishments, the meal I ordered had a small rice serving in the shape of the stupa. I didn't think of it back then, but probably circling the dish with your fork gives you some goodwill too.

Pashupatinath Temple

Last but not least, I went to the Pashupatinath Temple, one of the most famous Nepal Hindu temples. This one is dedicated to Pashupati, a manifestation of Shiva. Again, a world heritage site together with the nearby temples, ashrams, inscriptions, the Bagmati River banks, etc.

There are many legends associated with this temple and with Pashupati in general, but the spiritual impact of praying there seems to come down to fulfilling all desires and giving good luck and successful wishes. The entrance to non-Hindu pilgrims is forbidden, so I only took images from the outside.

What I found interesting is that there was a public-funded homeless shelter right next to the temple, followed by the burial site on the Bagmati River. An efficient pipeline in case a person dies there if you ask me.

Visiting the Aarya Ghat burial stairs was a weird experience for me. You just walk past the Mangala Gauri Temple onto the bridge across the river, and you see locals dipping dead bodies into the river to purify them, surrounding the now-dipped body with leaves and sticks on the stairs near the river, then burning it for 5-6 hours. At the end the remains and leftover bones/ash are thrown back into the river (in which the new dead bodies are purified).

The river is sacred and presumably pure, but somewhere upstream people may throw trash into it, and downstream people may drink from it, so it's a bit of a weird situation. I tried not to think about it and not to breather the dead body fumes for too long, although the local guide was surprised I didn't want to stay longer and film the funeral process (why would I?) as some do.

After such a diverce experience I was sweaty, thirsty, and tired, so I skipped the Narayanhiti Palace Museum (the exterior of it, the entrance was closed) and went straight to the hotel. In the colder seasons, I encourage Kathmandu visitors to also do a day tour of the city. I'm not sure booking a guide makes sense though, as they tell you roughly the same number of factoids as I did. Make sure to plan a route in advance though! Both getting a taxi or booking a full-day driver are reasonably cheap, so if you don't want to walk, get a car!