Imagine being asked to work every Christmas, away from home, at altitude, because December is the only month the job pays. That is roughly the position of a Nepali trekking guide in October. Dashain is when sons and daughters go home, when parents give the blessing that is supposed to carry you through the year — and it lands in the busiest fortnight of the trekking season.
Guides and porters work through it every year, mostly without complaint. This article is about what that costs them and what a trekker can do about it. The general rules and rates are in guides and porters in Nepal.
What Dashain Means to Your Crew
Most trekking staff come from the middle hills — Gorkha, Dhading, Lamjung, Solukhumbu's lower valleys, Okhaldhunga, Ramechhap — and most are from families that celebrate. For them the tenth day is specific and unrepeatable: you kneel in front of your father and mother, receive the tika and the jamara, hear the blessing, and are given a banknote as if you were still ten years old. Then you do the same at your grandparents' house, and your in-laws'.
A guide on the Thorong La that morning misses all of it. He will telephone if there is signal. He may put a tika on himself and his porters from a twist of paper in his pack. And he will have explained to his children that the season's wages matter more — which is true, and does not make the day easier. The festival itself is described in the fifteen days of Dashain.
Not all staff are in this position. Sherpa guides in the Khumbu, and Buddhist staff from Mustang, Manang and Tsum, keep different festivals; for them Dashain is a working week like any other.
Why They Work Anyway
Trekking work in Nepal is seasonal: roughly ten weeks in autumn and ten in spring. A freelance guide who declines an October trek has given up a tenth of his year's income, and may not be offered the next one. Porters, who are paid by the day and have the least security, can afford to refuse even less.
So the labour is there. The question for a trekker is not whether someone will carry the bag on the tika day but whether they are being treated properly for doing it.
The Festival Bonus
Nepal has a strong custom, backed by labour law for salaried employees, of a festival allowance paid before Dashain — typically a month's basic pay. It is what buys the goat, the new clothes and the bus tickets. Permanent office staff of trekking companies receive it. Freelance guides and day-wage porters, who are most of the people on the trail, often do not, unless the operator chooses to pay something equivalent.
| Who pays | What is reasonable |
|---|---|
| The operator | A festival bonus for every guide and porter working across the tika day, on top of the agreed wage. Ask your operator what they pay; a straight answer is a good sign |
| The trekker | A festival addition to the normal end-of-trek tip — a few extra days' wages each is generous and noticed |
| Either | A small gift on the day itself: sweets or fruit bought in the last village, handed over at breakfast |
Tips are a personal decision and the usual guidance still applies — see how much trekking in Nepal costs. At Dashain, err upward.
Tika on the Trail
The festival follows people up the mountain. On the morning of the tenth day you may find your guide mixing rice and red powder in a saucer. As the senior member of the crew he gives the tika to the porters, who are usually younger; lodge owners in Hindu villages do the same for their staff and their guests. If you are offered one, accept it — forehead forward, a small bow, Dashain ko shubhakamana.
In the evening there may be a shared meal, a round of cards, and if the lodge can manage it, goat. It is one of the better evenings a trek can offer. The etiquette is set out in receiving Dashain tika.
An Itinerary That Respects the Day
- Make the tika day a rest day if the route has one to spend. On the Everest Base Camp trek the acclimatisation day at Dingboche or Namche can be placed on it; on the Annapurna Circuit, the day at Manang; on the Manaslu Circuit, the day at Samagaun.
- Spend it in a village, not at a high camp. A lodge with a family in it, a phone signal and a kitchen that can produce a feast is worth more than a few hundred metres of progress. Ghandruk on the Poon Hill circuit and the Tamang villages of the Langtang valley are good examples.
- Keep the day short if you must walk. Start late, finish by early afternoon.
- Offer the phone. If you have data and your guide does not, hand it over for the call home.
- Do not schedule the hardest day on it. A pass crossing on the tika day is legal and unkind.
Where a trek is short, the simplest courtesy is in the dates: finish before Phulpati, or start the day after the tika, and nobody has to choose. Our Dashain calendar has them.
Booking Staff for a Dashain Trek
Guides who are willing to work the festival are committed early, usually by August. A trek booked in the week before Dashain will be staffed, but with whoever is left, and independent trekkers hoping to hire a porter at the trailhead on the eighth or ninth day will find very few. Since a licensed guide is now required on most trekking routes, this is not a detail to leave to arrival.
If you have trekked with a particular guide before and want him again, ask whether he would rather not work the tika. Some will say so if given the chance, and a trek that starts three days later costs you nothing.
Welfare Does Not Take a Holiday
The ordinary obligations matter more, not less, in the busiest weeks: a load limit that is actually observed, insurance that covers the porter as well as the guide, proper clothing and a bed for staff at altitude, and descent with pay for anyone who falls ill. In a crowded October, with every lodge full, it is the porters who are most likely to be left without a place to sleep. Ask your operator how their staff are accommodated above 4,000 m. Our guide to responsible trekking in Nepal sets out what to look for.
Small Things That Are Noticed
- Ask where they are from and who is at home for the festival. Nepalis talk about family readily, and being asked matters.
- Share the festival food if you are offered it, and offer yours.
- Learn the greeting: Dashain ko shubhakamana.
- Say thank you for the day specifically — not only at the end of the trek.
- If a guide's village is on your way back, accept the invitation to stop. You will get a second tika and the best meal of the trip.
