Historical Places in Nepal

At about 3,760 metres in Mustang, and one of the few places held sacred by Hindus and Buddhists alike, which is the reason to make the journey rather than the building itself. Pilgrims bathe under 108 water spouts and walk the circuit around the pagoda, and the Jwala Mai shrine beside it keeps a flame fed by natural gas seeping from the rock, burning above running water. It sits below the Thorong La pass and is usually reached from Jomsom by jeep. Ascend slowly, because altitude is the real constraint here.

Thousands of caves cut by hand high into the cliffs of the Kali Gandaki valley, many of them dozens of metres above the ground with no visible way up, which makes them one of the real puzzles of Himalayan archaeology. Excavation has found burials several thousand years old, along with later use for meditation, storage and shelter. The multi storey cave at Chhoser near Lo Manthang is the one visitors can climb through. Upper Mustang is a restricted area and needs a permit arranged in advance.

The largest temple in Nepal, built in 1910 in a Mughal and Koiri style that looks nothing like the pagoda temples of the valley, and painted a distinctive pale pink. It marks the spot where Sita is held to have been born, which makes Janakpur one of the most important Ramayana sites anywhere and a major pilgrimage destination from India. The Vivah Mandap alongside it stages the wedding of Sita and Rama. Come at Vivah Panchami in November or December if you want the festival.

A cluster of temples on the bank of the Kali Gandaki in Gulmi district, well off any tourist route, and a site the government has put forward for future UNESCO consideration rather than one already listed. The main Rishikesh temple draws pilgrims at Baisakh Purnima and at Ridi Mela, when the confluence fills with people bathing. The setting is the appeal: a working pilgrimage site with almost no outside visitors, reached on a long road from Tansen or Butwal.

The ancestral seat of the Shah dynasty and the place the unification of Nepal was launched from, which makes it arguably the most historically consequential town in the country. Gorkha Durbar sits on a ridge above the town, part palace and part fort, with the Gorakhnath cave shrine and the Kalika temple inside the same compound. It was badly damaged in the 2015 earthquake, which had its epicentre in this district, and has been restored since. The ridge walk gives Manaslu on a clear day.

The fort Prithvi Narayan Shah ran his campaign from, taken in 1744 and used as the base for the twenty-odd years it took to reach Kathmandu. The seven-storey Saat Tale Durbar is the building to see, along with the Ranga Mahal and the Taleju temple beside it. It sits about 70 km northwest of Kathmandu on the old trade road to Tibet, which is why it mattered. The 2015 earthquake damaged the tower and restoration work has continued since.

A Newar town on a hill on the southwestern edge of Kathmandu that held out longest against the Gorkha conquest and paid for it, and the memory of that is still local. The Bagh Bhairab temple carries weapons captured in the fighting on its walls. Chilancho Stupa and the Uma Maheshwar temple sit at the two high points, with brick lanes and courtyards between them. It is close enough to the city for a half day and gets a fraction of the valley's visitors.

A small Newar town at the confluence of two rivers southeast of Bhaktapur, and the site of the Indreshwar Mahadev temple, which is among the oldest surviving pagoda temples in Nepal. The wood carving on its struts is the reason art historians come. The town escaped the worst of 2015 and kept its layout, so the walk between the temple, the ghats and the Brahmayani shrine reads as a whole. It is an easy day trip and has a small community homestay programme.

A hilltop bazaar town on the old India to Tibet trade route, settled by Newar traders from Bhaktapur in the nineteenth century and left behind when the Prithvi Highway took the traffic down into the valley. That is why it survives: the main street is closed to vehicles and the shopfronts and balconies are essentially intact. It sits between Kathmandu and Pokhara, about halfway, which makes it the obvious overnight stop on that drive rather than a detour.

The archaeological site widely identified as Kapilvastu, the Shakya capital where Siddhartha Gautama grew up before leaving at twenty-nine. What survives is foundations rather than buildings: the eastern and western gateways, a palace complex and a moat, laid out across open ground with a small museum at the entrance. It is about 25 km west of Lumbini and almost nobody on the Buddhist circuit goes, which is odd given what it is. Nepal has nominated it for UNESCO consideration.