Chitlang and Markhu — 2 Days

Start early. Take a local bus from Kathmandu towards Thankot and get off at Godam, on the road above Thankot. Shared pickups and jeeps leave Godam for Chitlang over the Chandragiri pass in the morning, and seats are not guaranteed, so a late start can leave you without a ride. No timetable is published for either vehicle.

Chitlang is a Newar farming valley on the far side of the Chandragiri ridge, at roughly 1,740 metres. Before the Tribhuvan Rajpath opened in 1956, one of the two porter roads into the Kathmandu Valley ran through here, and the valley still has Licchavi-era inscriptions and a scatter of old rest-houses along the former trade road. There is no single monument to see. The draw is a working village: terraced paddy and mustard, pear and apple orchards, old brick-and-tile houses, and a modest Bhairav temple.

Visit the goat-cheese dairy that put Chitlang into Kathmandu food conversation, and buy some. Then sleep in a family homestay, and use the evening to ask your hosts two things: when tomorrow's bus leaves Taukhel, and whether they can arrange a ride to Markhu.

Markhu is eight kilometres south, on the shore of Indra Sarobar, the reservoir behind the Kulekhani dam. We have not verified any public transport between Chitlang and Markhu, so go with the ride your homestay arranges.

The lake is not natural: the Kulekhani dam flooded the valley between 1977 and 1982, and the drowned terraces at the waterline are part of the view. Come for the boats, long wooden ones hired by the hour, and on a weekday morning you may have the water to yourself. Fried fish from the shore restaurants is the other reason people come. The water level moves with the dam: it is fullest from September to December and lowest in April and May, when the shore turns to mud and stumps.

Plan the morning around the bus, not the other way round. Jeeps back over the pass leave Chitlang in the morning, so they are gone by the time you finish at the lake. The way home is the Taukhel bus, which leaves in the afternoon and takes about three hours by way of Kulekhani and Pharping. Taukhel is an easy hour's walk from Chitlang, or have your ride drop you there.