Indra Jatra: eight days when Kathmandu belongs to the gods
Most people spend one day in Kathmandu. They see Pashupatinath, they see Boudhanath, they walk around Thamel, and they fly to Pokhara.
For eight days in September, they are walking past something considerably stranger than anything on that list.
The living goddess
Nepal has a Kumari — a young girl, selected as a child from the Shakya community, who is believed to be the living embodiment of the goddess Taleju. She lives in the Kumari Ghar on Durbar Square. Her feet are not supposed to touch the ground outside it.
During Indra Jatra she is brought out and pulled through the old city on a tall wooden chariot, with two boys representing Ganesh and Bhairav on chariots of their own. Enormous crowds fill the square. This is not a re-enactment or a show. It is a functioning religious institution doing what it does.
What else is going on
Indra Jatra runs eight days and holds several things at once.
A tall wooden pole, the linga, is raised in Durbar Square to open the festival. Masked Lakhey dancers — demons, in red hair and fierce painted masks — dance through the streets to drums. Enormous fearsome masks of Bhairav are unveiled on the square, and on certain nights rice beer is dispensed through the mouth of one of them to the crowd.
Families who have lost someone that year walk a route through the city carrying lamps. So a festival that looks like pure spectacle from outside is also, quietly, a period of mourning.
Why visitors miss it
Almost entirely a timing problem. September is the end of the monsoon, which the guidebooks list as low season, so people book October instead. The festival is not obscure — it's the biggest street festival in Kathmandu — but the travellers who'd love it have booked around it without knowing.
Going, honestly
When — September, on a lunar date; usually the days around the full moon. Confirm each year.
Where — Kathmandu Durbar Square and the old city around it.
Crowds — Very large, very tight. Bags in front of you. This is not a place to be casual with a phone.
Where to stand — Get to the square early on chariot days and take a position along the route rather than in the middle. You'll see more and be pushed less.
Weather — Tail of the monsoon. Warm, humid, sudden rain.
If you want to be there
Our Nepal Highlights journey opens with two days in Kathmandu before Chitwan and Pokhara. A September departure timed to Indra Jatra costs no more and gives you a city most visitors never see awake.
Ask us for the year's dates.