Kathmandu to Kalinchok Tour

A long day on the road, east out of the Kathmandu Valley on the Araniko Highway and then north on the BP Highway through Dolakha district, following the Sun Koshi for much of the way. The drive takes seven to eight hours with stops, and it is worth taking slowly - the road climbs out of the valley through terraced hillsides and river gorges, and the landscape changes character several times. Charikot sits at about 1,550m and is the district headquarters, a working hill town rather than a tourist one. On a clear afternoon Gaurishankar, sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists, fills the northern skyline directly above the town. We overnight here, which breaks the journey and puts us within easy reach of Kuri in the morning.

A rough two-hour drive climbs from Charikot to Kuri village at 3,500m, and the road is genuinely rough - four-wheel drive, and slow. From Kuri it is either the cable car or a steep half-hour climb on foot to the Kalinchok Bhagwati shrine at 3,842m, which sits on a bare rock outcrop hung with tridents, bells and prayer flags and is reached by a short set of steps cut into the rock. This is a working pilgrimage site, and a good share of the people around you will be Nepali families rather than visitors. The view from the top takes in Gaurishankar, Dorje Lakpa, Langtang and the Rolwaling peaks, and from December through February there is normally snow on the ground - which for many Nepali visitors is the first they have ever seen. We stay the night at Kuri, where the lodges are simple and it gets genuinely cold after dark, so warm clothing matters here in a way it does not on the valley-rim hikes.

There is time for a second look at the shrine in the morning light before we start down, and the early view is usually the clearest of the trip. We drop back to Charikot by jeep and rejoin the highway for the long drive west to Kathmandu, stopping for lunch along the way. The return follows the same river valleys and arrives in the city in the evening. Anyone wanting to break the journey again can stop at Dhulikhel on the valley rim, which has its own Himalayan view and is an hour short of Kathmandu.