Kathmandu, 6 Days

The Monkey Temple isn’t inside Durbar Square, and it isn’t called Hanuman Dhoka either, a mix-up that trips up a lot of first-time visitors reading outdated guides. Hanuman Dhoka is the old royal palace complex inside Kathmandu Durbar Square. The Monkey Temple is Swayambhunath, a Buddhist stupa on a hilltop across the river, named for the resident macaques that patrol the steps. Different sites, different price points, and worth keeping straight before you plan your days.

Day 1: Arrival and Thamel

Tribhuvan International Airport to Thamel by taxi should run somewhere between 400 and 600 Nepali rupees if you negotiate before getting in the cab, though drivers often open with quotes two or three times that for tourists who look unprepared. The prepaid taxi counter inside the airport is more expensive but removes the haggling entirely, worth it if you land tired after a long flight. Kathmandu sits at about 1,400 meters, low enough that altitude sickness isn’t a real concern here, though it becomes relevant fast if this trip is a stopover before trekking higher into the Himalaya.

Thamel itself is dense with trekking gear shops, bookstores, and rooftop restaurants, and it rewards an unhurried first walk more than a checklist. Skip planning much beyond settling in and eating well; a full day of jet lag recovery here is time well spent given what’s ahead. Nepali is the official language and the one you’ll hear on the street, but English is common enough in Thamel’s shops and restaurants that a phrasebook is a nice-to-have rather than a necessity, at least until you get further outside the tourist core.

Day 2: Kathmandu Durbar Square

Foreign visitors pay 1,000 Nepali rupees, about 8 US dollars, for a one-day ticket to Kathmandu Durbar Square, and that ticket includes entry to the Hanuman Dhoka palace museum and the chance to see the Kumari, Nepal’s living child goddess, at her residence within the square if she’s making an appearance that day. If you’re staying more than a few days and plan to return, ask at the ticket office beside the Kumari’s house about a longer-validity pass tied to your visa dates rather than buying a fresh day ticket each visit. Give yourself a full morning here; the square holds dozens of temples and courtyards from different centuries and dynasties, and rushing it undersells how much history is packed into a relatively small footprint.

Day 3: Swayambhunath and the western hill

Swayambhunath, the actual Monkey Temple, costs a flat 200 rupees for foreign visitors, a fraction of the Durbar Square ticket, and it’s worth the climb up the eastern stone stairway for the views over the Kathmandu valley alone. Go early, before 9am if you can manage it, both to beat the heat on the exposed stairs and to see the stupa before the tour groups arrive in force. The monkeys are entertaining from a distance and occasionally light-fingered up close, so keep food and dangling jewelry out of easy reach.

Day 4: Bhaktapur

Bhaktapur, a separate medieval city about 90 minutes outside central Kathmandu by taxi or local bus, deserves a full day rather than a rushed half-day add-on. The entrance fee rose to roughly 2,000 rupees, about 15 US dollars, in mid-2025, noticeably steeper than Kathmandu’s own Durbar Square, but Bhaktapur’s preserved brick lanes and pottery squares are arguably the best-looking medieval townscape in the valley, largely because it was rebuilt carefully after the 2015 earthquake rather than patched over. Climb the steep stairs of Nyatapola Temple, the tallest pagoda in Nepal at five stories, for the best rooftop view in the city, and budget time to watch potters working the wheel in Pottery Square rather than just photographing the finished pieces.

Day 5: Patan and Changu Narayan

Patan Durbar Square, across the river in what’s technically its own city, has a museum widely considered the best-curated in the valley and a bronze-casting tradition still active in workshops just off the square. The Patan Museum, housed in a restored wing of the old royal palace, alone justifies a couple of hours, with a collection of bronze and gilt-copper religious statuary that rewards slowing down rather than skimming past cabinet after cabinet. Changu Narayan, the valley’s oldest temple site and dedicated to Vishnu, sits on a ridge outside the city and gets a fraction of the visitors of the bigger sites, making it a good pick if you want a quiet, atmospheric stop rather than another crowded square. The stone and metal carvings around the temple courtyard date back over a thousand years in places, and there’s rarely more than a handful of other visitors around even at midday. Combine the two if you have a driver for the day, since they sit on opposite sides of the valley and aren’t an easy same-day pairing on public transport.

Day 6: Last shopping and departure

Spend your final hours back in Thamel, particularly around Indra Chowk if you want dense, chaotic market shopping rather than the more tourist-curated shops nearer the main tourist strip. Haggling is expected at the markets, not rude, so start well below the asking price and meet in the middle. Build serious buffer time into your airport transfer; Kathmandu traffic is unpredictable and a flight missed here often means a multi-day wait for the next available seat during peak trekking season.

For food across all six days, rotate between the well-known Thamel spots serving Nepali thali and momo alongside the international menus aimed at trekkers, but also duck into the smaller, unsigned momo stalls a block or two off the main tourist streets; they’re consistently cheaper and often better than the places with English menus taped to the window. A good Nepali thali, rice with lentil soup, seasonal vegetables, and pickle, should run somewhere between 300 and 600 rupees at an honest local place, noticeably less than the marked-up trekker cafes in the heart of Thamel. Drink bottled or properly filtered water throughout the trip, not tap, regardless of how confident your hotel is about its supply.

On accommodation, Thamel’s guesthouses cluster heavily at the budget end, with clean, basic private rooms available for a fraction of what a comparable room costs in most Southeast Asian capitals, while a handful of mid-range hotels closer to Durbar Square offer more comfort for travelers who want to be near the old city rather than the trekking-shop bustle. Either base works for this itinerary since taxis between neighborhoods rarely run more than a few hundred rupees and traffic, while heavy, moves you across the valley faster than it looks from the map.