Kathmandu

Kathmandu is impossible to summarise and a joy to attempt. You can walk for thirty minutes through its old city and pass a 14th-century temple, a fresh momo stall, a wedding band, a sleeping cow, three thangka painters and a courtyard where a goddess actually lives. It is, in the kindest possible way, sensory overload.

Three Durbar Squares — Kathmandu, Patan, Bhaktapur — anchor the valley. Each is its own former kingdom. Bhaktapur, in particular, feels like a film set that forgot to be a film set. The great white dome of Boudhanath, ringed by maroon-robed monks at dusk, may be the single most peaceful place in the city. Pashupatinath, on the river, may be the most intense.

Your Charlii representative is a local who knows where the courtyards open into other courtyards. He'll take you to a Newari kitchen behind an unmarked door, point out the small shrines tourists walk past, and make sure your last evening in Nepal ends, as it should, on a rooftop in Patan with a thali in front of you and the temples lit up below.