Da Ugly Devil's Heaven

Nepal has lots of people and tradition within it, and no wonder we do celebrate different festivals accordingly. We have different groups of people and most of them have their own calendars, but most of them all do have 12 months as the world-known Gregorian calendar, i.e. January through December. Amongst the various New Years, most of the Nepali people do celebrate New Year according to the Nepali calendar, i.e. Bikram Sambat also known as Bikram Era, which also runs 12 months from Baisakh (mid-April) to Chaitra. The whole 12 months are: Baisakh, Jestha, Asadh, Shrawan, Bhadra, Ashwin, Kartik, Mangshir, Poush, Magh, Falgun, and Chaitra. Lots of excitements are there since this is the first month, first day of the new dawn. We have different festivals on this day. Lots of concerts too are being organized during day. People try to celebrate it the way they care and want this day.

Kathmandu is surrounded by four hills namely, Jama cho (Nagarjun Hill), Sipu cho (Shivapuri Hill), Fu cho (Fulchoki Hill), Dhin cho (Champadevi Hill). So in this New Year you will find people roaming around all of these hills to see the beautiful view of Kathmandu from up ahead. Among these four hills, Fulchoki Hill is the biggest one but Shivapuri Hill has the longest journey as it has a wide range. So the journey for this hill begins one day before the New Year. Most of the people also go to Nagarkot to view the beautiful sunrise of the New Year. So people stay there the night before the New Year and wake up early before the Sun and wait for the sunrise. In Bhaktapur, people have different festivals going on. In Kathmandu, too various concerts are being organized on the New Year Eve and the New Year as well. It is just so awesome. One should be here to have those cool experiences.

This year it was not that much fun for me as I didn’t go anywhere to celebrate. It is Saturday so only fun I had was playing Basketball as I do every Saturday. At the end of the day, we sat around Basantapur (our hangout place), had some tea, and after a while we headed to Thamel, the most happening place in Kathmandu. But unfortunately, when we reached there the concert had the last song to play. So after that, we returned to our houses and the day ended. I sometimes miss the days I used to celebrate the New Year, sometimes celebrating by going hiking to those big hills, sometimes going to Bhaktapur, sometimes going to the concerts, sometimes…

Happy New Year to all my Nepali Friends!!!