Events & Festivals

Nepal has more public festivals than almost any country of its size, and they are not decorative - the two biggest, Dashain and Tihar, effectively close the country for several weeks each autumn. Offices stay open on paper while the person who signs is in their home village. Any plan involving government, business or travel between September and November needs to account for this before anything else.

Dates move each year. Most festivals follow lunar calendars, so they shift against the Gregorian one - always check the current year's dates rather than assuming last year's.

The calendar

Festival	Roughly when	What it is
Maghe Sankranti	January	Winter solstice festival, seasonal foods
Losar	January – February	New year for Tamang, Sherpa and Tibetan communities
Maha Shivaratri	February – March	Night of Shiva, enormous gathering at Pashupatinath
Holi	March	Festival of colour, Terai celebrates a day after the hills
Nepali New Year	Mid-April	Baisakh 1, start of the Bikram Sambat year
Bisket Jatra	Mid-April	Bhaktapur’s chariot festival and new year
Buddha Jayanti	April – May	Buddha’s birth, marked at Lumbini and the stupas
Teej	August – September	Women’s festival - fasting, red saris, dancing
Indra Jatra	September	Kathmandu’s chariot festival, the living goddess appears
Dashain	September – October	The largest, fifteen days, family and travel
Tihar	October – November	Five days of lights, animals honoured, Bhai Tika
Chhath	November	Sun worship, principally in the Terai

Dashain

Fifteen days, and the single most important period in the Nepali year. Families travel to their ancestral homes, animals are sacrificed, and the festival builds to Vijaya Dashami, when elders place a red tika on the foreheads of younger relatives and give blessings.

What it means practically: buses and flights book out weeks ahead and prices rise, government offices are functionally unavailable, businesses close for days at a stretch, and cities empty as people return to their districts. Employers commonly pay a festival bonus.

If you need anything official done, do it before Ghatasthapana, the first day - or wait until well after.

Tihar

Five days, and the more visually beautiful of the two. Houses are lit with oil lamps and strings of lights, doorways are decorated with coloured powder patterns, and each day honours something different: crows, dogs, cows, the self, and finally brothers and sisters at Bhai Tika.

Groups go house to house singing Deusi and Bhailo in exchange for small gifts. It is a genuinely warm few days and a good time to be in the country as a visitor - unlike Dashain, which is largely private and family-bound.

The rest of the year

Teej fills the streets with women in red, fasting and dancing, and is far livelier than its description suggests. Holi is a straightforward pleasure and a straightforward mess - wear clothes you will throw away, and be aware that enthusiasm for throwing colour at strangers is not universal. Indra Jatra brings masked dances and the chariot procession of the Kumari through Kathmandu's old city, and is the best single day of the year to be in the valley.

Losar matters in the mountain communities and the Tibetan-influenced neighbourhoods, and is entirely distinct from the Nepali new year in April.

The same country, different festivals

Nepal's diversity shows most clearly here. The hills and the Kathmandu valley follow one emphasis, the Terai another, and the mountain communities a third.

Chhath is the major festival of the Terai and barely registers in Kathmandu. Losar is central for Tamang, Sherpa and Tibetan-origin communities and passes unnoticed elsewhere. Indra Jatra and Bisket Jatra belong to the Newar towns of the valley specifically. Even Holi splits - the hills celebrate a day before the Terai.

The practical point for anyone planning: a national holiday list tells you when offices close, not what is happening around you. Ask locally, because the festival that empties your neighbourhood may not appear on any list you have.

Planning around it

• Government and legal matters: avoid Dashain and Tihar entirely. See government and administration.
• Travel: book weeks ahead for the festival period, and expect full vehicles - transportation.
• Business: build the autumn shutdown into deadlines and cash flow. Business covers the fiscal calendar, which does not align with the festival one.
• Shopping: the weeks before Dashain are the retail peak of the year, with crowds and higher prices - shopping.

Attending respectfully

Most festivals welcome onlookers and many welcome participants. A few sensible habits: dress modestly at temples, ask before photographing people and ceremonies, remove shoes where others do, and accept food or tika when offered - refusing is a bigger deal than accepting.

Some rituals are restricted to particular communities or castes, and some temple interiors are closed to non-Hindus. Signs are not always in English; watching what everyone else does is reliable.

Where this goes wrong

• Scheduling a deadline in October. The office is open. The signature is in Palpa.
• Buying bus tickets a day before Dashain. There are none.
• Assuming last year's dates. Lunar dating moves everything.
• Expecting Holi to be optional. If you are outdoors in a city on the day, you will be coloured.

Where to go next

Life in Nepal explains the Bikram Sambat calendar the festivals sit in, and restaurants and food covers the festival dishes that only appear at these times of year - which is some of the best food in the country.

Planning the year around it

The practical version, because the festival calendar governs the working year more than the Gregorian one does.

Expect offices, banks and many businesses to close for days at a time through the autumn, and expect transport to be full and roads jammed. Build slack into anything that depends on an office being open between roughly September and November.

Book travel as soon as tickets release for any festival period, in either direction.

The dates move, because they follow the lunar calendar, so check each year rather than assuming last year's dates.

Accept the invitations. A festival invitation to a home is the single best thing that will happen to you here, and it tends to come once rather than repeatedly. Culture and society covers the conventions.