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Tihar 2026 runs 7-11 November - Kukur Tihar (dog day) 8 Nov, Laxmi Puja / Diwali 9 Nov, Bhai Tika 11 Nov. Nepal's five-day festival of lights…
By Travel Himalaya Nepal · Jun 6, 2026
Planning around both festivals? Dashain and Tihar 2026 dates side by side , with tithi timings for Kathmandu. Tihar 2026 runs November 7–11 — Nepal's five-day festival of lights, warmer and more neighbourly than Dashain. The two unmissable nights are Kukur…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
Festival dates: November 7–11, 2026 Most important nights: November 8 (Kukur Tihar — dog worship) and November 9 (Laxmi Puja — the night of lights) Also called: Deepawali / Yamapanchak / Diwali (though Nepal's version differs meaningfully from the Indian…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
Ask a Nepali which festival they love more — Dashain or Tihar — and you will get a genuinely divided room. Dashain is larger, older, more deeply embedded in the social hierarchy. But Tihar, which arrives two weeks later in the cooling air of early November…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
The festival begins not with lights or flowers but with food placed on the rooftop for a bird. Crows, in Hindu and particularly in Yama-related mythology, are messengers — the carriers of news between the living world and the realm of death. To keep the crow…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
If Kag Tihar's theological logic requires some explanation, Kukur Tihar needs none at all. Every year, on the second day of Tihar, the photographs appear on the internet and stop people in their tracks: dogs wearing marigold garlands as thick as a wrestler's…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
The cow, in Hindu cosmology, is not merely an agricultural animal but a manifestation of the goddess Laxmi herself — patient, gentle, endlessly giving. On the morning of the third day, cows are decorated with garlands and tika and offered special food. In…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
This is the night everything builds toward. By early evening on Laxmi Puja, the streets of Nepal begin their transformation. Oil lamps — small clay diyas — are placed in the windows, along the ledges, on the steps, down the path to every front door. Candles…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
For the broader Hindu community, Day 4 is Govardhan Puja — a celebration of the story of Krishna lifting the Govardhan hill to protect his village from Indra's rain. In Nepal, it passes relatively quietly compared to the two nights on either side of it. For…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
The last day of Tihar belongs to siblings. Sisters perform a full puja for their brothers — an elaborate, lengthy ceremony quite unlike the relatively simple tika of Dashain. The Bhai Tika (also called Bhai Puja) tika itself is a seven-colour application: the…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
One of the most distinctive features of Tihar is the sound that fills the streets from Laxmi Puja night onward: the drums, the singing, the shuffle of feet on cobblestones. These are the Deusi and Bhailo groups — typically young men for Deusi and young women…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
Of all Nepal's major festivals , Tihar is the most accessible and the most welcoming for visitors. Unlike Dashain, which partially closes the country and sends everyone to their villages, Tihar is celebrated in place — in neighbourhoods, on streets, in…
Travel Himalaya Nepal · News
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