Bhaktapur

Bhaktapur, also called Bhadgaon or Khwopa, was founded on the eastern trade route through the valley towards Tibet, and chronicles date its foundation to the 12th century, though the site had been settled since Licchavi times. It was the capital of the valley under the early Malla kings until 1482, when the kingdom split and Bhaktapur became one of three rival capitals, alongside Kathmandu and Patan. The competition between them was expressed in architecture, and the town's finest buildings date from that rivalry: the Dattatreya temple, the Nyatapola of 1702, the Golden Gate and the Palace of Fifty-five Windows.

In 1769 Prithvi Narayan Shah of Gorkha took Bhaktapur, the last of the three cities to fall, and the valley's political life moved permanently to Kathmandu. Losing the capital preserved the town: while Kathmandu was rebuilt by the Rana rulers and then by 20th-century growth, Bhaktapur stayed a farming and craft town of brick and tile. An earthquake in 1934 damaged it badly, and many temples on Durbar Square were never replaced, which is why the square is unusually open.

In the later 20th century the Bhaktapur Development Project, funded by West Germany, restored houses, drains and temples and rebuilt the town's infrastructure, an early and much-studied example of urban heritage conservation in South Asia; a fee paid by foreign visitors helps to fund upkeep. The Kathmandu Valley's monument zones, Bhaktapur's among them, were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. The earthquake of April 2015 brought down houses and temples across the town and killed people here; repairs and rebuilding, much of it in traditional brick and timber, have gone on since.

Bhaktapur is the most concentrated surviving Newar town in Nepal, and Nepal Bhasa is still widely spoken in its lanes. Life is organised around the guthi, the community trusts that own land, maintain temples and run festivals, and around neighbourhood squares, each with its own shrine, rest house and water tank. Caste and quarter still shape who does what: potters in Talako, farmers across much of the town, priestly families around the temples.

Its festival calendar is exceptional even by valley standards. Bisket Jatra, at the solar new year in April, is the largest: a chariot carrying Bhairava is dragged through the streets and pulled between two quarters in a tug of war, and a tall pole is raised and then brought down. Gai Jatra, Dashain, Tihar and the Newar new year of Mha Puja follow through the year, along with masked dances performed by hereditary groups and processions of local deities. Dhimay drumming, long copper horns and mask dances are part of the town's ordinary soundscape.

Craft is the other half of its identity. Bhaktapur's woodcarvers cut the struts, doors and lattice windows seen across Nepal — the Peacock Window in Tachupal Tole is the best known single piece — and its potters, metalworkers, weavers and thangka painters supply the valley. Some of these trades are now sustained by tourism, but the potters' yards, in particular, still work to local demand for curd pots, water jars and festival vessels.

About 80,000 people live in the municipality, and it is one of the most densely built parts of the valley. Farming remains unusually important for a town of this size: households still own plots on the surrounding terraces, and rice, mustard and vegetables are threshed and dried on the squares and rooftops in season, a sight rarely seen in Kathmandu now. Tourism, craft workshops, small trade and commuting to the capital provide the rest of the work.

The old town within the former walls is the core, its courtyard houses often holding extended families, with shared wells, stone spouts and shrines in the middle. Newer concrete housing has spread onto the fringes and along the roads towards Kathmandu and Thimi, and the municipality's efforts to control building heights and materials inside the heritage zone are a continuing local argument, as are the town entry fee and how its revenue is spent.

The day starts early, with puja at neighbourhood shrines, milk and curd deliveries, and vegetables laid out on the paving. By the middle of the day the squares fill with school pupils, visitors and cattle; in the late afternoon the plinths around Nyatapola and the walkway at Siddha Pokhari become meeting places. Rebuilding after 2015 is still visible in scaffolding and stacks of salvaged brick, and water supply, waste collection and earthquake safety are steady concerns.

Bhaktapur's most famous product is juju dhau, 'king of curds': rich buffalo-milk yoghurt, sweetened and set in shallow unglazed clay pots that let some moisture out so it thickens. It is sold by weight from dairies and stalls across the town and eaten as a snack, an offering and part of festival feasts.

The everyday cooking is Newar. Baji, beaten rice, replaces boiled rice at feasts and is eaten with choila, buffalo meat grilled over straw and dressed with mustard oil, chilli and ginger; bara, thick fried lentil cakes sometimes topped with egg; chatamari, a thin rice-flour crêpe with meat and egg; wo, kachila and spiced offal dishes; and roasted black soybeans. Kwati, a soup of nine sprouted beans, marks Janai Purnima, and yomari, steamed rice-flour dumplings filled with molasses and sesame, belong to the midwinter festival of Yomari Punhi. Aila, a clear home-distilled spirit, and thwon, rice beer, are poured at feasts and given as offerings.

Simpler food fills the rest of the day: daal bhaat with seasonal vegetables, momos, sel roti rings fried at festival time, and tea from small shops in the lanes. Street stalls sell puffed rice snacks, samosas and fruit, and sweets shops do most of their business around Dashain and Tihar. The restaurants around Taumadhi and Durbar Squares serve the same dishes to visitors, often on upper floors with a view of the temples.