Kathmandu's Biggest Street Festival Has a Stone Demon That Spits Rice Beer Into the Crowd

Once a year, a carved stone face in Kathmandu's Durbar Square starts dispensing rice beer to a crowd standing directly beneath it, and nobody finds this strange. That is Indra Jatra, Kathmandu's biggest and oldest street festival, and in 2026 it runs from Wednesday 23 to Tuesday 29 September, with the main chariot day on Friday 25 September, centred on the old royal palace complex at Hanuman Dhoka.

The festival honours Indra, the Vedic king of heaven and god of rain, at the point in the Nepali calendar — the waxing moon of Bhadra into Ashwin — when the monsoon should be finishing and the harvest is close. Raising the Yosin pole in front of Hanuman Dhoka is the ritual invitation: a single tree trunk set upright as a line between heaven and earth, asking Indra down to bless the coming season before it is lowered again eight days later to close the festival.

The costumed cast is the part visitors remember. The Majipa Lakhey — a red-faced guardian demon danced only once a year, in a papier-mâché mask and a costume that can weigh up to 50 kilograms — moves through the crowd protecting children, part terrifying and part beloved. Alongside him, Sweta Bhairav's mask pours Newari rice beer from a pipe fixed at its mouth, and devotees queue to catch it. And for three of the eight days, the living goddess Kumari is carried through the old city on a gilded wooden chariot alongside the deities Ganesh and Bhairav, pulled by hundreds of hands — a procession first established by King Jayaprakash Malla in the 18th century that unified the city's kings with its oldest living tradition, and is still the one moment each year the Kumari leaves her palace for the street.

Indra Jatra 2026, day by day

What this means for trekkers

What this means for you

If a Nepal trip lands between 23 and 29 September 2026, building in even one extra day in Kathmandu turns a transit city into the reason to come. Base yourself near Durbar Square, expect the lanes around Hanuman Dhoka to be genuinely packed on the chariot days, keep well back from the ropes and the Kumari herself, and dress modestly — it is a religious procession before it is a spectacle.

Most visitors see Indra Jatra as bookends to a trek rather than the whole trip: fly in, catch the festival, then head for the hills once the chariots are put away. A Kathmandu Valley cultural tour covers Durbar Square and the surrounding Newar towns properly rather than rushing them between processions, while a single Kathmandu day tour works if the festival is a stopover before you fly onward to a trek.

Sources: Wikipedia (Indra Jatra); PublicHolidays.asia.

Cover photo: SuyogyaRT via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0). Section photos: Mick Latter via Pexels (Pexels licence); Quang Nguyen Vinh via Pexels (Pexels licence).