How to be a good guest

The essential list

• Dal bhat tarkari — lentil soup, rice, seasonal curry, pickle, sometimes meat or curd. The national dish, eaten twice a day by most Nepalis, and refills are free and expected. "Dal bhat power, 24 hour," as every porter will tell you.
• Momos, steamed or fried, with a tomato-sesame achar. Also jhol momo, swimming in spiced broth, which is better.
• Newari food, the valley's own cuisine: bara (lentil pancake with egg), chatamari (a rice crêpe, the "Newari pizza"), choila (fiercely spiced grilled buffalo), yomari (sweet steamed dumpling), and samay baji — a ceremonial platter of beaten rice, black soybean, ginger, egg and choila that is the whole cuisine on one plate.
• Thakali khana set — the refined northern version of dal bhat. If you see a Thakali kitchen, go in.
• Juju dhau, Bhaktapur's "king of curds", set in a clay pot.
• Sel roti, a sweet ring of fried rice dough, everywhere during Dashain.
• Chiya — milk tea with cardamom and ginger. Tongba, warm fermented millet drunk through a bamboo straw. Raksi, the local spirit. Everest and Gorkha beer.

Where

• Patan: Honacha behind the Durbar Square for the unpolished Newari original — a low bench and pointing. Café Swotha, Yala Mandala and Newa Chen for the same food with a courtyard.
• Boudhanath: any rooftop facing the stupa; the Tibetan bakeries on the kora do good momos and better coffee.
• Thamel: touristy but genuinely good. Fire & Ice for pizza when you have had enough dal bhat, the Rum Doodle for the mountaineering history on the walls.
• Bhaktapur: the terraces on Dattatreya Square, late afternoon.
• Pokhara Lakeside: bakeries, for the post-trek breakfast you have been dreaming about since 3,500 m.
• Vegetarians eat extremely well in both countries. Vegans should learn to say "no ghee, no curd" and check on the dal.

Teahouse etiquette

• Eat where you sleep. Rooms are cheap or free because the lodge makes its money on food. Eating elsewhere is a real discourtesy.
• Order dinner when you arrive, not at seven. One stove, one cook, twenty trekkers.
• Uphill has right of way, and always step to the mountain side — never the drop side — when mules pass. Animals don't brake.
• Greet everyone. Namaste to every porter, every trekker, every grandmother carrying sixty kilos of firewood.
• Don't photograph porters as scenery. Talk to them first.
• Carry your rubbish down, fruit peel and tissue included. Above the trailhead there is no waste collection worth the name.
• Rooms are plywood boxes. Whisper after nine, and use a head torch with a red mode.

Trail realities

• Toilets run from Western-style low down to a squat over a hole up high. Carry your own paper and hand gel; paper goes in the bin, not the pan.
• Hot showers, where they exist, are solar buckets at NPR 300–500. There is usually none at the highest camp. Wet wipes are your friend.
• Dark at six, and the dining hut is the only heated room. Bring a book, cards, and the down jacket to wear indoors.
• Blankets are thin. A liner or your own bag is the difference between sleeping and enduring.
• Breakfast at altitude takes forever. Order it the night before.
• Poles for the descent — a long steep zig-zag is what destroys knees, not the climb. Rent a pair in Pokhara for a few euros.
• Leeches are a monsoon problem; by October they are mostly gone, though after rain in low forest you may still meet one. Salt or a fingernail — harmless.

The essentials

• Ema datshi — chillies stewed in cheese. This is not a dish with chilli in it; the chilli is the vegetable. It is the national dish and it is seriously hot. Kewa datshi (potato) and shamu datshi (mushroom) are gentler entry points.
• Red rice, nutty and slightly sticky, grown in the Paro and Punakha valleys.
• Suja — butter tea churned with salt and yak butter, closer to a thin soup than to tea. Try it once, ideally somewhere cold.
• Ara, the home-distilled spirit of rice, maize or millet, sometimes served warm with a fried egg in it.
• Hoentay (buckwheat dumplings from Haa), puta (buckwheat noodles from Bumthang), jasha maru (spicy minced chicken), phaksha paa (pork belly with radish and dried chilli).
• Zaow, roasted rice, offered with tea in rural homes — this is what a traditional wooden cup is for.
• Red Panda, an unfiltered wheat beer from Bumthang, and Druk 11000.

Eating well

• Hotel buffets in Bhutan are built for tour groups and are dull. Tell your guide on day one that you want to eat Bhutanese, and where locals eat.
• Ask for "ezay", the fresh chilli-and-cheese relish served on the side. And say "not too spicy" if you mean it — Bhutanese medium is European hot.
• A homecooked meal with a family and a picnic by a river are usually the two best meals of a Bhutan trip. Don't fill up beforehand.
• Vegetarian is easy — Buddhist Bhutan eats a great deal of vegetables and dairy. Vegan is harder; cheese is in everything.

Where it comes from

• Tibetan at heart. The momo comes from the Tibetan mog mog: a filled dumpling of unleavened wheat or barley dough, traditionally with yak or mutton, salt and wild garlic, boiled or steamed. It crossed the mountains with traders and refugees, and by tradition reached the Kathmandu Valley mainly through the Newar merchants on the Lhasa–Kathmandu route.
• Nepal turned it into street food. In Kathmandu the filling became buffalo, chicken or vegetables, the flavour spicier and the sauce richer. Today the momo is Nepal's national fast food: on every corner, from a stall to a bakery, and every family has its own recipe.
• In Bhutan it's the same dumpling but more vegetarian: cheese (datshi), potato, cabbage, sometimes meat brought in from India. You usually get a sharp chilli-and-cheese sauce, ezay, with it rather than a tomato achar.
• Often by hand in Nepal, with a spoon if there's soup. And don't pass a bite round: jutho, saliva on your momo, makes it unclean for anyone else.

The fillings

• Buff, water buffalo, the Nepali classic and usually the best.
• Chicken, the safe choice, available everywhere.
• Veg: cabbage, carrot, onion, sometimes paneer or spinach.
• Cheese: the commonest filling in Bhutan, and the "cheese momo" at some momo places in Nepal.
• Potato in the mountains, where meat is expensive and potatoes grow. On the trail it's often the only vegetarian option.
• Yak, in Tibetan places and high in the mountains, with a stronger flavour.

• Tobacco is heavily restricted. Selling it is illegal, smoking in public places is banned and fined, and importing it carries steep duty. Declare it at customs and pay the tax rather than chance it.
• Tuesday is a dry day — no alcohol sold nationally, bars closed.
• You cannot travel independently. Every day is with a licensed guide. That is the model, and it is the reason the country feels the way it does.
• The Sustainable Development Fee funds free healthcare, free education and carbon-negative forestry.

• Bhutan is the only carbon-negative country on earth. Sixty per cent forest cover is written into the constitution, and littering genuinely shocks people.
• No traffic lights in the whole country. Thimphu has a white-gloved policeman in a pavilion; a light was installed once and removed because people hated it.
• Television and internet arrived in 1999. Within living memory.
• Mountaineering above 6,000 m is banned — the peaks are the homes of deities. Gangkhar Puensum, 7,570 m, is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world and will stay that way.
• Bhutan runs 15 minutes ahead of Nepal and half an hour ahead of India.

Why they're just there

• Killing is a sensitive matter. In Bhutanese Buddhism every animal is a being on its way to rebirth, and chasing one off, having it put down or locking it up weighs heavily on your karma. A stray isn't cleared away; it's simply part of the place.
• The cows usually belong to someone. They're owned by nearby farmers and graze freely along roads and through villages by day; in the evening many walk home on their own. Fences are expensive, roadside grass is free.
• Some animals have been ‘bought free’. In tsethar, the saving of life, believers buy an animal headed for slaughter and release it, which earns great merit. That cow or goat may never be slaughtered afterwards, and often wears a coloured ribbon, a bell or an ear tag.
• Horses and mules are working animals. In the mountains they're still the lorry to places with no road. Between trips they're left to graze wherever there's grass — town included.
• The dogs belong to everyone. Bhutan has tens of thousands of free-roaming dogs. People give them scraps, monks feed them at the temples, and they sleep through the day in the middle of the square. In 2023 Bhutan became the first country to sterilise and vaccinate all its free-roaming dogs; a notch in the ear means a dog has been done.

How to deal with them

• Cows have right of way. Drivers stop or crawl round them, and that's normal. Don't walk right behind a cow or horse, and never step between a cow and her calf.
• Leave the dogs alone. Most are calm and sleepy, but they aren't pets. Don't stroke them, don't feed them, don't run when one barks — just keep walking calmly. They're most territorial at night and in packs.
• Bring earplugs. The dogs sleep by day and defend their street by night. A barking chorus at three in the morning comes with every hotel room in Bhutan.
• Bitten or scratched? Rabies is rarer than it was but not gone, especially in the south. Wash the wound straight away with soap and water for fifteen minutes and get to a hospital or BHU (Basic Health Unit) the same day for a vaccine, even if you've been vaccinated. Your guide will know where.
• High in the mountains they turn into yaks, which are a lot bigger than they look in photos. On a narrow path, step to the uphill side and let them pass.

Nepali

Namaste / Namaskar

Hello, goodbye, respect

Dhanyabad

Thank you

Kati ho?

How much is it?

Mahango bhayo

That's expensive

Mitho chha

It's delicious

Pugyo

Enough — crucial at dal bhat refills

Pani

Water

Bistarai

Slowly — the trekking mantra

Ramro chha

It's beautiful

Maaph garnuhos

Sorry / excuse me

Dzongkha

Kuzuzangpo la

Hello — the la is the politeness

Kadrin chhe la

Thank you

Log jay gay

Goodbye

Ga de be yoe?

How are you?

Legshom be

Very good

Zhim be

Delicious

Ing / Mindu

Yes / no, there isn't any

Chhu

Water

Tashi delek

Good fortune, blessings

Adding la to the end of almost anything in Dzongkha makes it polite. Use it liberally and your guide will grin.