Holi in Kathmandu – The Beginning of a Journey to Everest Base Camp

The Everest Diaries: Part 1 (March, 2025)

Bad Omens

“Due to increased air traffic, our arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu will be delayed by 45 minutes” were the words bellowed out through the gravelly tannoy, much to the displeasure of the man to my right who winced as though his torso had been pierced by the sharp blade of unpunctuality.

Now, that’s not necessarily an awful thing to hear in the departure lounge of the airport or even, to some extent, on the tarmac in Delhi. Delays happen – it’s par for the course when travelling with budget airlines in South Asia.

I’d spent enough time hanging around in poorly-conditioned airports with dry sandwiches, bitter coffee and those weird metal chairs that could only be designed to fit Quasimodo to spare myself the frustration of a minor delay. However, there was a bigger issue here. The delay had not been announced in the discomfort of an Indian airport, nor on the uneven tarmac of the runway, but rather as we circled the Kathmandu Valley in preparation for landing.

I was instantly reminded of my previous flight experience with this unnamed South Asian budget airline just a week earlier. A misjudged landing above Bagdogra had us re-accelerating just a few hundred metres above the airport’s barbed wire to escape a spiky reunion with the West Bengali countryside. At least this time the landing had been aborted before it began.

A break in the clouds revealed the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas that dwarfed the sprawling metropolis of Kathmandu below. Only a moment’s glance into the vastness of the mountains was enough to have me fidgeting in my seat and enthusiastically peering over the lady next to me.

As she lifted her head from her phone, I caught a natural glint of amusement at the fascinated white boy gazing at the land she so passively calls home. She then resumed the mandatory scrolling of her photo library that seems to be the adorable yet slightly predictable pastime of middle-aged South Asian women on planes.

Though, I’m pretty sure you don’t need the window seat for that.

Initially, everything was calm. The discomfort caused by the extra time crammed into this titanium sardine tin had been offset with some stunning views that even the punctuality merchant to my right couldn’t help but appreciate. However, suddenly engulfed by thick black clouds, the mountains went into hibernation and the darkness of the aircraft began to remind us exactly why Nepali airspace is one of the most dangerous in the world.

The plane rattled in all directions, rising and falling through the air at a drastic rate, and removed any sense of direction and orientation from this airborne deathtrap. There’s nothing quite like hurtling into darkness at 250 miles-an-hour with the fear of colliding with some of the highest mountains in the world, a fear that was clearly shared by Aunty to my left, who had taken the precautionary step of placing her phone between her legs and praying to whichever deity she had placed her faith in navigating us through this ungodly storm.

All I could think about were the stories I so blasély dismissed before the trip, most notably those from my parents who unsurprisingly feared the shockingly poor Nepali aviation standards. My mind even wandered to a place where I was genuinely fearing for my life. The plane had clearly not heard my internal monologue, and it certainly hadn’t heard the screams and cries of those around me either, as we continued to tumble through the darkness in whatever direction it might have been.

This turbulence continued for what felt like a lifetime until eventually the plane steadied and the light returned. We had pierced through the surface of the clouds and were once again greeted by the crooked smiles of the snow-capped Himalayas. The sigh of relief was communal and the atmosphere in the plane shifted almost instantaneously. I glanced around to see some laughs and smiles, people adjusting their air-conditioning unit and some stretching out their legs as if they had all the legroom in the world.

Even Aunty was back to browsing her photo library. Nature was healing.

I rubbed my sweaty palms against the seat, un-tensed every muscle in my body and looked up to see, without any slight hint of irony whatsoever, the seatbelt sign illuminate. A bit late for that one, lads.

Eventually, still shaken from our mid-air earthquake, the plane through the haze of the Kathmandu valley and landed smoothly at Tribhuvan International Airport. Passengers immediately leapt up, clawing for luggage and jostling down the aisle. I’ve seen this countless time specifically in South Asia but never been able to fully explain this regional peculiarity. It could be to beat passport lines, guard hand luggage, or simply escape the ordeal of flying. Whatever the reason, for the first time, I understood the anarchy.

With my feet back on solid ground, I reflected on what had just been the worst flying experience of my life. I’d love to write here that this moment of reflection brought me an inner peace, an appreciation for life, or even some kind of emotional discovery that many only experience in the face of death. I didn’t have any of that. Rather, all I could do was focus my attention towards my next flight in (what I expected would be) four days’ time, to Lukla – one of the most dangerous airports in the world.

Bad omens, indeed.

A Holi Catastrophe in Kathmandu

I had arrived in Kathmandu the night before Holi Festival, the Hindu festival that celebrates the vibrancy of life through colour, love and the power of good over evil. Celebrations begin with a ritual called Holika Dahan, or “The Burning of Holika”, where Hindus take to the streets and burn Chirs – bamboo poles decorated with coloured cloth – to celebrate the triumph of faith.

As the taxi navigated its way through the uncoordinated streets of Kathmandu, the orange setting sun became indistinguishable from the life of the flames at the roadside. The air was thick with smoke and haze and the sound of drums drowned out the cries of our struggling hatchback.

I was staying in Thamel in the heart of the city, famous for its bustling streets and vibrant atmosphere. As we broke through the crowded junctions and found our way down its narrow lanes, the homogeneity of the commercial stalls, shops and cafes had me completely disorientated. Building after building stocked the same outdoor gear, identical ponchos, handicrafts, knives and everything in between.

Tourists and locals alike were walking side-by-side, some more staggered than others, fighting off hawkers and promoters hoping to capitalise on the liveliness that Holi had injected into the city. My excitement grew; this was a side of Kathmandu I hadn’t seen on my previous visit, and this wonderful concoction of music, light, commerce and chaos had me yearning for more.

I arrived at my hostel after dark and met James, a lad from London who had been on the same flight as me from India. What an easy ice-breaker: the trauma bond was complete. After a few beers, it turned out that James and I had studied the same course at the same university 3 years apart.

This led to bizarre conversations about mutual friends and social life overlaps, yet somehow we had never met before. It’s a strange world. We agreed to meet the following morning to explore the Holi celebrations and so I turned in early for the night. My bed had never felt so still.

I was awoken by the distant rumbles of laughter and children shouting in the street, hinting at what was to come. The iconic celebrations of Holi begin with a city-wide explosion of colours that descends upon the capital, painting every street, face and building in a blaze of bright powder and infectious energy. The hostel was lively and filled with travellers decked out in matching white t-shirts, sunglasses and other makeshift protective measures in anticipation of these traditions.

To get into the spirit of the festivities, James and I grabbed a couple of beers from a humble convenience store, donned our own white t-shirts and old clothes, and braved the streets of Thamel. However, the thought of such organised fun made us cringe just enough to politely decline the generous offer of joining a 20-strong group of homogenous European backpackers.

We opted to discover the celebrations at our own pace in the hope of gaining some anonymity at a comfortable distance, yet this proved ineffective almost immediately as we were smothered with paint powder by some young locals parading their way through the streets.

We exchanged an enthusiastic “Happy Holi!” individually and with each greeting, received a faceful of paint that added to an increasingly psychedelic appearance. These interactions were also accompanied by the occasional blast of water from mischievous kid soldiers at the roadside. Armed with industrial-sized water guns that they could barely hold upright, they sprayed water at us and watched us squirm as it crawled down our backs.

It was at this point that we noticed they were refilling these guns in streams of filthy water at the roadside which had formed a cocktail of paint, dirt, dust and anything else that the Kathmandu streets had absorbed over the previous few days. Without a moment’s notice, James revealed our bottle caps from his pocket and resealed the beers: priorities first.

What was supposed to be a peaceful 15-minute stroll turned into over an hour of detours, wholesome exchanges of paint and beer, “Happy Holi!”s, and dodging the wrath of the teenage aqua-warriors. Our destination was Kathmandu Durbar Square in the heart of the city which is decorated with beautiful temples and historical architecture in the shadows of the once royal palace.

As we emerged from the winding streets of Thamel, gasping for air and dripping from head to toe, we were greeted by an enormous crowd of locals and tourists alike. During the Holi Festival, huge swaths of people gather in the Durbar Squares as they erupt into a frenzy of music, dancing, drinking, shoulder-mounting and photographs.

The atmosphere was electric and we were reunited with the group of travellers from our hostel, which attracted the eyes of some journalists who flocked towards us and aimed their poncho-wrapped cameras with the directness and intensity of the local aqua-warriors. I have to admit that I did flinch – I guess those kids traumatised me after all.

After about an hour of partying and celebrating in Durbar Square, we met the tallest man in the city. Ben towered over the crowd and had clearly attracted plenty of attention as he was covered in substantially more paint than everybody else. Unfortunately, not all of this attention was positive, and after snapping plenty of photos with locals, the paint in his face suddenly turned a shade darker.

“My phone is gone.”

We began searching the ground and crawling beneath the crowds in a haphazard attempt to find it, but our patrol was continuously disrupted by the regular “Happy Holi’s” and paint explosions. I could tell by Ben’s face he was losing his patience with the extravagance of the whole ordeal, and as much as he wanted to enjoy these special moments, he was overcome by panic.

As we navigated our way out of the chaos, it became increasingly apparent that in the midst of celebrations, embraces and photographs, Ben’s phone had been removed from a secure part of his bag that it couldn’t have just ‘fallen out of’. After consulting our good friend ‘The Cloud’, the location had been turned off and it became clear that it was stolen.

The guards at the police station stared us up and down – and rightly so. I glanced at my reflection in a shop window on the way down to the police station and between my paint-stained teeth, beer-soaked hair and ripped t-shirt, it would be pretty reasonable for the police officers to consider us to be a bunch of boozed-up foreign liabilities.

We decided to hang back and let Ben deal with the police officers on his own and we passed the time the only way we knew how: more street beers. Eventually after Ben emerged from the station, morale was low and it was pretty clear that even if the police had taken him seriously, there was very little they could do.

As the festivities were beginning to die down for the day, we decided to get something to eat at a humble Thali restaurant and freshen up before continuing the party later that night.

Calm Amongst The Chaos

We regrouped in Thamel just before sunset and decided to take a taxi to the east of the city. In Nepal, however, the term ‘Taxi’ clearly has a very fluid definition. Almost immediately, a battered hatchback pulled up and offered us a ride. Unsure as to whether or not this was an official taxi – or whether the vehicle could even hold all 6 of us – we agreed on a price and squeezed into the car. And I mean squeezed.

If the car was road legal, the passengers definitely weren’t. After thirty minutes of sharp turns, smokey side streets and the moans and groans of both the vehicle and its passengers, we emerged from the labyrinth of Thamel and arrived at a narrow passage. The tall red-brick buildings on either side obscured the source of a brightly-lit courtyard. As we clambered out of the clown car, the appearance of a giant Stupa was accompanied by a chorus of gasps.

This was our first sighting of the Stupa of Boudhanath, a spiritual landmark that has been at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism since it was first built in the 7th Century. Since then, this enormous stupa has been maintained as a gloriously pure house for Buddhist relics surrounded by rings of prayer wheels that are spun by pilgrims, worshippers and visitors throughout the day.

I couldn’t believe the scale of the Stupa: after two years of living in Sri Lanka – a majority Buddhist country – I had grown to take these monuments for granted. Yet, as I gazed into the eyes of the golden harmika – and they stared back – I was blown away by the beautiful architecture and my surroundings.

It’s hard to believe that Boudhanath and Thamel are in the same city; we had escaped the noise, smoke and lights of the city to be warmly embraced by the peace and serenity of this monumental safe haven. Even amongst the most frenzied celebrations and all the chaos that accompanied them, we found peace under the watch of a radiant full moon.

Holi was here.