Nepal Honeymoon Tour

You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you outside the arrivals hall with marigold garlands and a private car to your hotel.

Your room has been dressed with flowers and there is a cake waiting — the hotel knows why you are here. Your guide calls in briefly to say hello and agree a time for the morning, and then leaves you to it.

The evening is left free on purpose. After a long flight and, usually, a long wedding, the best first night in Nepal is a quiet dinner and an early bed. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A start after a proper breakfast. The first stop is Swayambhunath, the hilltop stupa west of the city, where the car takes the side road to save most of the steps and the whole valley lies below the painted eyes on the spire.

From there you cross the Bagmati to Patan Durbar Square, the most graceful of the three royal squares: the stone Krishna Mandir, the gilded Golden Temple and a palace museum with a courtyard café that is a good place for lunch.

The afternoon is for the Garden of Dreams, a restored 1920s garden of pavilions, fountains and lily ponds behind high walls at the edge of Thamel — quiet, green and made for sitting in. Your guide leaves you at the gate, and the evening is your own. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A morning flight of twenty-five minutes takes you west to Pokhara (822 m). Sit on the right-hand side: Ganesh Himal, Manaslu and the Annapurnas pass the window one after another.

The hotel is beside Phewa Lake, and the middle of the day is free for the pool, the lakeside path or a long lunch. Pokhara is warmer, greener and a good deal slower than Kathmandu, and most couples feel the change within the hour.

Late in the afternoon a boatman rows the two of you across the lake to the island temple of Tal Barahi and along the forested far shore while the sun sets behind the western hills. Overnight in Pokhara.

The one early morning in Pokhara. A half-hour drive in the dark reaches Sarangkot (1,592 m) as the first light touches Dhaulagiri and moves east along Annapurna South to the fishtail peak of Machhapuchhre, with the lake under mist far below.

After a late breakfast there is a short visit to Devi's Fall, where a river drops into a sinkhole, and then free time until mid-afternoon. Tandem paragliding from Sarangkot can be fitted in here if you have chosen it.

Before sunset you go up to the World Peace Pagoda on the ridge across the lake, for the Annapurnas above the water in the evening light. Dinner tonight is a private candle-lit table for two at the water's edge. Overnight in Pokhara.

After breakfast the car heads south out of the hills, four to five hours with a stop on the way. The road drops through the Mahabharat range and comes out onto the flat, warm plain of the Terai, where the air, the trees and the houses are all different.

You reach the resort beside Chitwan National Park (150 m) in time for a late lunch and an introduction from the naturalists who will take you into the park.

Toward evening you walk down to the bank of the Rapti river to watch the sun set over the grassland on the far side, often with deer or a rhino at the water. After dinner there is a Tharu cultural evening, with stick dances performed by the people of the neighbouring villages. Overnight at the jungle resort.

The morning begins on the water. A dugout canoe carries the two of you and a naturalist down the Rapti in the early mist, past gharial and mugger crocodiles on the sandbanks and kingfishers and storks in the shallows. It is slow, silent and one of the loveliest hours of the week.

The middle of the day is hot and the animals rest, so you do too — the garden, a book, a long lunch.

In the afternoon a jeep safari goes deep into the park through sal forest and tall grass. Greater one-horned rhinoceros are seen on most drives, along with spotted deer, wild boar, langur monkeys and peacocks. Tiger live here too but are rarely seen, and should be counted as luck. Overnight at the jungle resort.

A last breakfast in the garden, then a short drive to Bharatpur airport for the twenty-minute flight to Kathmandu (1,400 m), which turns a day on the highway into a morning.

After checking in and a rest, the afternoon is in Bhaktapur, the best preserved of the valley's medieval cities and free of traffic inside its walls. You arrive as the light turns warm on the brick: the 55-window palace, the five-tiered Nyatapola pagoda, Potters' Square, and a clay pot of juju dhau, the sweet curd the city is known for.

The evening is a farewell dinner at a traditional Nepali restaurant, a meal of many small courses served with folk music and dance from across the country. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The morning is free. Boudhanath is fifteen minutes from the airport and makes a gentle last visit — a walk round the great white stupa and coffee on a rooftop above it.

We collect you from your hotel three hours before your flight and drive you to Tribhuvan International Airport, where our representative sees you through to the check-in counters.

If your flight leaves late in the day we can hold the room or store your bags, so the last hours are spent in the city rather than in the terminal — just let your guide know the evening before.