Nepal Photography Tour

You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you outside the arrivals hall with a name board and drives you to your hotel in Thamel.

Your guide meets you at the hotel in the early evening to go through the ten days, check what equipment you have brought and agree the first morning's start, which is an early one.

If you arrive with daylight to spare, the lanes of Thamel and the market at Ason are ten minutes away on foot and make an easy first hour with a camera. Overnight in Kathmandu.

You leave the hotel at around 5:15 am for Boudhanath. The half hour before sunrise is the best the stupa offers: the dawn kora is crowded with pilgrims, butter lamps burn along the plinth and juniper smoke drifts across the dome. Breakfast is on a rooftop above the square once the sun is up.

Pashupatinath follows while the light is still low over the Bagmati — the stone shrines on the terraces, the temple roofs across the river, and the sadhus, with whom your guide agrees the terms for portraits in advance.

After a rest through the flat midday hours, the afternoon is in Patan: the Krishna Mandir, the gilded courtyard of the Golden Temple and the bronze casters' workshops in the lanes behind the Durbar Square, finishing in the square itself as the sun drops. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A slower start, then east to Bhaktapur, the best preserved of the valley's three old cities and car-free inside its walls. The morning goes to the Durbar Square, the 55-window palace and the Golden Gate while the squares are still quiet.

Potters' Square is worth an hour on its own: clay thrown on hand-turned wheels, pots drying in rows in the sun and kilns smoking under straw. After lunch the lanes around Dattatreya Square and the five-tiered Nyatapola take the afternoon light well.

In the late afternoon the road climbs to Nagarkot (2,175 m) on the valley rim, arriving for sunset over the layered ridges to the west. Overnight at Nagarkot.

Up before dawn for the viewpoint above Nagarkot. On a clear morning the range runs from Ganesh Himal and Langtang in the north-west across to the Everest massif on the eastern horizon, with the valleys below under mist — a long lens picks out individual peaks, a wide one takes the ridges.

After breakfast the drive west follows the Prithvi Highway along the Trishuli river, about six hours with stops for the gorge, the suspension bridges and whatever is happening at the roadside.

Bandipur (1,030 m) sits on a ridge above the highway: a single flagstoned bazaar of Newar townhouses with carved windows and no traffic at all. You arrive in time to work the street in the evening light. Overnight in Bandipur.

A ten-minute walk before dawn brings you to the Tundikhel, the old parade ground at the edge of Bandipur's ridge. The panorama from here runs from Dhaulagiri past the Annapurnas and Manaslu to Langtang, with the Marsyangdi valley filled with cloud beneath.

Back in the bazaar the town is waking up — shutters opening, children walking to school, vegetables laid out on the steps — and the morning light comes straight down the street.

The drive to Pokhara (822 m) takes about two and a half hours. The late afternoon is on Phewa Lake by rowing boat, with the painted boats of the lakeside, the island temple of Tal Barahi and sunset behind the western hills. Overnight in Pokhara.

An early drive to Sarangkot (1,592 m). The light reaches Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) first, then moves east along Annapurna South and Hiunchuli to the fishtail summit of Machhapuchhre, with Phewa Lake and the town in mist far below.

If the air is still on the way down, a stop at the lakeshore gives the reflection of Machhapuchhre in the water, which lasts only until the first breeze. After breakfast the old bazaar of Pokhara and one of the Tibetan settlements fill the middle of the day.

For sunset you cross the lake and climb to the World Peace Pagoda, the white stupa on the ridge opposite, which looks back across the water to the whole Annapurna range as it turns pink. Overnight in Pokhara.

A last look at the lake if the morning is clear, then the drive south out of the hills, four to five hours with stops. The road drops through the Mahabharat range and comes out onto the flat, hot plain of the Terai — a different country from the one you woke up in.

You reach the lodge beside Chitwan National Park (150 m) for a late lunch and a briefing from the naturalists. In the afternoon a walk through a neighbouring Tharu village gives mud-walled houses, ox carts and people coming in from the fields.

Sunset is on the bank of the Rapti river, looking west across the water into the park. Overnight at the jungle lodge.

The day starts on the water. A dugout canoe drifts down the Rapti in the dawn mist past gharial and mugger crocodiles on the sandbanks, with kingfishers, storks and egrets working the shallows — the quietest and most atmospheric hour of the trip.

The middle of the day is hot and the animals lie up, so it is spent at the lodge. Use it to back up cards and clean sensors.

The afternoon jeep safari goes deep into the park through sal forest and elephant grass. Greater one-horned rhinoceros are seen on most drives, along with spotted deer, sambar, wild boar, langur and peacock, and the low sun through the dust is the light wildlife photographers hope for. Overnight at the jungle lodge.

One more early hour at the river or on the forest edge for the birds, then breakfast and the drive back into the hills, five to six hours along the Trishuli with a lunch stop. The Bharatpur flight can replace it if you have chosen the add-on.

You reach Kathmandu (1,400 m) in the late afternoon. If there is energy left, the market streets of Ason and Indra Chowk are at their busiest in the early evening — spice sellers, brass shops, shrines wedged between stalls — and make a good last session.

Dinner is your own choice tonight, and your guide will have suggestions. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The morning is free. Swayambhunath at first light is the usual choice for anyone with a late flight — the stupa, the prayer flags and the whole valley below in haze — and the vehicle is available for 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.

Carry cameras, lenses, cards and drives in your hand luggage rather than the hold, and keep lithium batteries with you — the airlines require it and it is the only sensible way to travel with a trip's worth of pictures.