Story
Kullu Dussehra: the week two hundred gods come down the mountain
Everywhere else in India, Dussehra ends on Vijayadashami. In Kullu that's the day it begins — and the valley's village deities are carried down from their temples to attend.
Notes from the road
The Journal
Notes, guides and the practical stuff nobody tells you — written after the trip, not before it.
Story
Pang Lhabsol: the day Sikkim thanks its mountain
To most visitors Kanchenjunga is a view you photograph at sunrise. To Sikkim it's a guardian — and once a year, masked warriors dance in its honour.
Story
Losar in Spiti: new year where the road is closed
Spiti's new year happens in deep winter, when the passes are shut and the valley belongs to the few hundred people who stay. Almost no traveller has seen it.
Story
Indra Jatra: eight days when Kathmandu belongs to the gods
A living child goddess is pulled through the old city on a wooden chariot while masked demons clear the way. It happens every September, a few streets from where most visitors are eating dinner.
Story
Bhutan's rarest audience: the black-necked cranes of Phobjikha
Every autumn a few hundred endangered cranes fly over the Himalaya into one Bhutanese valley. The village celebrates their arrival with a festival in a monastery courtyard.
Story
A hundred drums in the Garo Hills
Meghalaya means Cherrapunji and living root bridges to most visitors. Four hundred kilometres west, the Garo Hills hold a harvest festival that a hundred drummers open.