Muktinath Yatra [Nepal] – My Travel Diary & Experience
Written in 2018. Prices, timings and routes may have changed since; check before you go.
When to go Muktinath through the year
Easiest: Jun to Sep. Hardest: Dec to Mar. Tap + for the month-by-month weather and where these numbers come from.
- January: Hard. Daytime about 1°, night about -13°.
- February: Hard. Daytime about 2°, night about -12°.
- March: Hard. Daytime about 5°, night about -10°.
- April: Mixed. Daytime about 9°, night about -3°.
- May: Mixed. Daytime about 13°, night about 2°.
- June: Easy. Daytime about 17°, night about 6°.
- July: Easy. Daytime about 19°, night about 9°.
- August: Easy. Daytime about 19°, night about 9°.
- September: Easy. Daytime about 17°, night about 7°.
- October: Mixed. Daytime about 12°, night about 1°.
- November: Mixed. Daytime about 8°, night about -4°.
- December: Hard. Daytime about 4°, night about -9°.
Approximate: ten-year averages from NASA POWER satellite data, adjusted for height; the figures can be a few degrees out. Conditions change; check before you go.
Where do these numbers come from, and how far can you trust them?
The figures come from NASA POWER, a free NASA project that publishes weather estimates for every point on Earth, put together from satellites and weather models. We took every day from 2015 to 2024 for this place, and averaged each month: the usual daytime high, the usual night low, and the rain.
Hills, mountains and islands are where this kind of data is least exact: the satellite sees an area roughly 50 km wide, not one town. We adjust for the height of the town, but the temperatures can still be a few degrees out, which is why you see a word for the day (Cold to Hot) and the night rounded to the nearest 5°, and why some places show the rain as bars with no numbers.
Easy, Mixed and Hard are our rule of thumb, not a forecast. In the mountains the warm months are the easy ones: Hard means days that stay below about 5° or nights below about -12°, and Mixed means a cold day or night, or a wet month.
An average is not the weather on your dates, and it knows nothing about festivals, crowds, road closures or this year's monsoon. Check a forecast a week before you go.
Muktinath word is derived from Mukti and Nath. The word “Mukti” means “Salvation or Nirvana” and “Nath” means “God”. Mukti Holds great significance for all spiritual people and most relevant in Hindu religion.
Muktinath Yatra Story
It was in May this year in 2018 that my family and I finally finalized our trip to Muktinath, Nepal. It was a long due plan. Going on Muktinath requires a good amount of research, mostly for the number of breaks the journey requires.
Therefore, it is best to consult a specialist travel agency dealing in temple tours. In our case, after scanning through many travel agencies, we opted to take Muktinath Yatra with Myoksha Travels, a Mumbai based temple tour operator.
Kolkata to Kathmandu
It was a 5-day tour. We took a flight from Kolkata to reach Kathmandu, Nepal which took us about 1.5hrs to reach. On reaching there, we booked a hotel and stayed there in Kathmandu for the night. We decided to stroll around in Kathmandu for the day at our stay there.
Therefore, on that day we visited the Pashupatinath Temple, which is one of the key attractions of Nepal. The Temple architecture is beautiful with the main temple built on Nepalese style architecture. The main deity is a stone Mukhalinga.
Pokhara From Kathmandu
On our second day, we took another flight to Pokhara from Kathmandu. You can take a Jeep and travel the distance. However, because of poor road conditions, we felt it was too risky, especially when travelling with senior citizens. The flights were arranged by our travel agent. It took us around 20-25mins to reach.
We booked a hotel and stayed there for the night. We decided to check on Tal Bahari Temple. This temple is in the centre of the Fewa Lake and you need to take a boat to reach there.
Note for Senior Citizens
On the next day, we took a mountain flight from Pokhara to Jomsom. Again, you can take a Jeep or bus. But the roads are risky and the journey is time taking. Hence, it is not a good idea to take the road route when travelling with senior citizens, kids, heart patients etc. It took us 15-20mins to reach Jomsom via a mountain flight. If you are travelling via flight, you can visit the Muktinath temple on the same day.
Muktinath Temple
We took a Jeep to Muktinath Temple, which again was arranged by our travel partner, like all flights from Kathmandu. It took us around 1.5hrs to reach Muktinath. The Jeep dropped us at a certain distance from the Temple and we had to walk the rest. We had to climb around 250steps to reach the Temple.
On reaching the Temple we felt worthy of all the breaks throughout the journey. Muktinath temple is one of the most ancient temples and hence is very small. The main deity is of Gold and is of the height of a man. There are 108 bull faces in the outer courtyard on which you can pour water.
There is an old Buddhist monk there. The Prasad was waiting for us in the ashram by the time we finished the Darshan. We stayed back at Muktinath for the day. If you want you can travel back to Jomsom and spend the night there. The next day we travelled back to Jomsom, the same way we travelled here and then flew back to Pokhara and stayed the night there.
Return Journey to Home
On day 5, we flew back to Kathmandu and from there took a flight back home. It was a once in a lifetime experience traveling to these wonderful places.
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