Traditions of Bhaktapur
A medieval Newar town of brick and carved wood, home of the Bisket Jatra new year festival.
Bhaktapur lies east of Kathmandu and is one of the best preserved old towns in Nepal. Its streets are made of brick and carved wood, and potters still throw clay in an open square. The Newar community here keeps a calendar of chariot pulls, masked dances and shared feasts.
Bisket Jatra
In April, around the Nepali new year, two huge chariots are dragged by rival halves of the town to a sloping field, and a tall wooden pole is raised and brought down with ropes. Eight days of procession, music and masked dance follow. Residents say the event renews the town for the year ahead.
At the table
Bhaktapur is famous for juju dhau, the king of curds, set in clay pots and eaten sweet. Festival meals include beaten rice, called baji, with spiced meat and pickles, along with the clear rice spirit aila. Potters at Pottery Square set their pots out to dry in the open sun.
Signature traditions of Bhaktapur
Also part of it, and being written: Newar cuisine (The cooking of the Kathmandu Valley people.), Yomari (The steamed rice-flour sweet of the Newar festival of Yomari Punhi.).
A trail idea for Bhaktapur
- Pottery Square Watch potters at the wheel in the open air.
- Taumadhi Tole See the five-storey Nyatapola temple.
- Dattatreya Square Look up at the peacock window.
Written by the EveryParampara desk with AI assistance. Opening hours, markets and festival dates change; check locally before travelling. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
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A patterned cotton cap worn across Nepal as part of the national dressDress
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Vikram Samvat: Westindischer Maler um 1400, Public domain, source
- Gai Jatra: Krish Dulal, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Indra Jatra: Kamal Ratna Tuladhar, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Biska Jatra: Davide Mauro, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Kumari: Nirmal Dulal, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Dhaka topi: Sophie Graubert, CC BY-SA 3.0, source