Events calendar Nepal

If you're in Kathmandu on a full moon night, be sure to visit a free concert of Indian classical music at the Kirateshwar Mahadev Temple near the Pashupatinath Temple. This takes place once a month, when the moon forms a perfect circle. The music is different every month, but it includes tabla, sitar, flute and harmonium, as well as fiery songs. A mesmerizing moment from about 7 to 11 p.m.!

The end of the winter solstice heralds the beginning of the ritual baths at the confluence of the rivers. Braving the cold and fog, ghostly silhouettes draped in saris spray themselves with purifying water in front of the first rays of the winter sun. This is one of the few Nepalese festivals that are not fixed by the lunar calendar. Once is not customary, the date of the ceremonies is determined by the northward movement of the winter sun. For the Tharu, a community living in southern Nepal, this festival marks the beginning of a new year.

For a week, Indra, the god of rain who granted the monsoon, source of prosperity, is celebrated. Masked dancers gush out from the alleys in Durbar Square, mimicking the heroic struggle of demons and goddesses by torchlight. Others, wearing elephant heads, charge the onlookers, while in the pagodas children play scenes from the Mahabharata. On the ^third day of the festival, draped in red and made up with a third eye, the Kumari, the little living goddess, makes one of her very rare appearances.

In the middle of summer, during the full moon, men of the upper castes, Chhetri and Brahmin, go to the Khumbeswar temple in Patan to change the sacred thread (janai) they wear across their torso. In Pashupatinath, they come to have a small cord blessed and tied to their wrist as a good luck charm. Tourists can also do it. This night also sees the pilgrimage to the lakes of Gosaikunda, in the mountains north of Kathmandu, where thousands of devotees gather.

Located at an altitude of 3,867 metres, the monastery of Tengboche, in eastern Nepal, hosts a great Sherpa festival every year. It lasts three days, punctuated by masked dances that celebrate the victory of Buddhism over the Bön religion. For long hours of spectacle, masked monks play the charge of Padmasambhava, the great missionary of Tibetan Buddhism converting demons. This festival gives the opportunity to immerse oneself in the Sherpa culture, typical of Tibet, and to admire spectacular views of the Himalayan range.