Festivals, rituals, architecture and the people keeping them alive. Nepal's cultural life is not a museum exhibit.
culture
The Kathmandu Valley's seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites are well documented but poorly explained. What each site actually is, what the listing criteria miss, and what a proper visit to each looks like.
culture
Patan Durbar Square was among the most damaged heritage sites in the 2015 earthquake. What has been restored, what is still scaffolded, what was lost permanently, and what the square looks like ten years on.
culture
Swayambhunath has been called the Monkey Temple since Western visitors noticed the primates, erasing 2,000 years of Buddhist significance. What the stupa actually is and what it means to the Newari Buddhist community.
culture
Most monasteries in Nepal have become heritage sites. A handful are still functioning communities of monks and practitioners. What distinguishes a working monastery and which ones in Nepal still qualify.
culture
At 11am the wind comes. It arrives from the south, funnelled up through the Kali Gandaki gorge, and within an hour it can reach 60 to 80 kilometres per hour. Trekkers describe it as someone opening a giant hairdryer pointed directly at your face. The people who built Marpha knew
culture
Nepal's living goddess is not a metaphor. There is a girl in Kathmandu right now who is carried rather than walks, who sits in silence on a throne while a queue of devotees files past her, who receives one hour of tutoring a day and cannot speak to
culture
At 6:32 in the morning, a woman is sweeping. Her broom makes a dry scratching sound against the stone of the outer circuit, and the movement is unhurried. Around her, in one continuous stream, people move clockwise. Some carry malas. Some have their lips moving. A monk in ochre
Kathmandu
The contemporary art scene in Kathmandu is not large. What it is, is serious - galleries in converted courtyards, artists working with earthquake rubble, a conversation not aimed at tourists.
Chitwan
The Tharu were here before the tigers, before the park, before the buffer zones. A culture that survived malaria, displacement, and the tourism economy built on top of it.
The Nepal-India border is technically invisible. People cross it daily without documents, goods move without declaration, and the towns on either side have more in common with each other than with their respective capitals.
culture
For eight days every September, Indra Jatra restructures Kathmandu. Chariot processions, masked dances, and a living goddess carried through streets that have not changed their route in 900 years.
culture
Nyatapola Temple in Bhaktapur has five storeys and has never fallen - not in 1934, not in 2015. Built in 1702, engineers still study its construction logic.