Losar
Losar is the Tibetan word for "new year" the most important holiday in Tibet falls during this period. Losar is specially celebrated for 15 days (without counting the preparatory period), with the main celebrations of the first three days. The Tibetan calendar is made up of twelve lunar monts and losar begins on the first day of the first month.
The last day of 12th month of the year is a time to clean and prepare a welcoming atmosphere for New Year. The monasteries perform a special ritual with mask dance to expel negative forces. The custom of this day is to make special soup called guthuk in every household and in monastic communities. It is made of nine different ingredients including dried cheese and various grains. Also dough balls, one each in family or community, are added with various ingredients hidden in them such as salt, chilies, rice, wool, and coal etc. the ingredients one finds hidden in one's dough ball are supposed to be a lighthearted comment on one's character, which make the dining environment filled with laughters and jokes. If one finds chilies in dough, it means they are talkative. If white collored ingredients like wool or rice are inside the dough it is considered a good sigh etc.
In the evening after the guthuk soup, each member of the family collects some of their guthuk, a piece of nail, hair, a used cloth, some money in one place. Then they make a special ritual to throw it to a nearby junction, which marks the end of the year and expelling of all negative forces in ones body, mind and in households.
The Losar, on the first day of the first month, begins with a very early wake up following a water collection from nearby springs. One person from each house hold visits the nearby springs with offering of khapse (different kind of cookies specially prepared for Losar), incense smoke, khata (a ceremonial scarf) etc in water springs. The offerings are made to the nagas, the water spirits who activates the water element in the area, associated with the natural world around us.
After all this offering each of them brings a pot of water from each spring they visited and offer this to their deities at home and the rest of the water is kept in major water pots as a good fortune. After this offerings all the families in their best dresses gather and the day starts with chhimar, khapse, changgol and blessing form their elders (changgol is made from chhaang a locally brewed beer that can be made from rice, maize, wheat, etc).
This Losar is known as gyalpo Losar (King's Losar). On the third day a great gathering of Sherpa, Tibetan, Tamang and other groups organizes a great gathering in Boudhanath stupa to celebrate the Lhapso (offering to the god) and to exchangte the traditional greeting, "Tashi Delek".
Then from the third day onwards, the households and communities begin to celebrate and enjoy the festive season. Different communities organize pic-nics, invites relative and friends, and goes to visit their elders and monasteries.
The gyalpo losar (King's Losar) is celebrated in the Himalayas of Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, and India. The Gurungs of Nepal celebrate the Sonam Losar one month earlier than the other gyalpo losar (King's Losar) celebrating peoples. A myth states the King could not return in the time from a war so his people did not celebrated and kept waiting the arrival. A group of sonam losar celebrities did not wait the King and continued the celebration of losar which become the sonam losar. And the group who celebrated on King's return become the gyalpo losar (king's Losar).

Itinerary
Day 1- Departure for Nepal
Day 2- Arrival in Kathmandu
Day 3- Kathmandu- P.N. Chitwan
Day 4- P.N. Chitwan
Day 5- Chitwan – Pokhara
Day 6- Visit Pokhara
Day 7- Pokhara – Kathmandu
Day 8- Gulhuk Puja Festivaland Mask Dance
Day 9- New Year Festival in Boudhanath & in Sherpa Monastery
Day 10- Visit Daklsin Kali Pharphing – Kirtipur- Patan
Day 11- Pasupatinath- Bhaktapur
Day 12- Visit Soyambu – Ktm Durbar Square and Ason Bazaar
Day 13- Kathmandu- Departure

Mani Rimdu

Mani – Rimdu festival at Chiwang monastery is one of the most important religious activities of entire Everest region. Chiwong monastery is a Nyingmapa monastery built in 1929, and is very famous for its sacred dance festival, the Mani Rimdu, which lasts for 3 days and takes place in the 10th Tibetan month (November-December). The aim of Mani Rimdu is to expel negative forces. During the festival monks exhibits a religious drama, mask dance, representing divine personages under the guidance of powerful mantra of their main Lama. The main Lama of the region is, currently, the Tulsik Rimpoche.
(Tulsik Rimpoche is the founder of the Thubten Choling monastery, a high Nyingmapa lama, after he left Tibet in 1959, following the Chinese occupation of Tibet. Trulshi Rimpoche is one of the Sherpoa people, who faithfully use to go to Rongphug monastery, a Tibetan monastery at the foot of Everest, founded at the beginning of the 20th century by Ngawang Tenzin Norbu. In the 1940s, following the death of Ngawang Tenzin Norbu, Trulshi Rinpoche become the head of Rongphug. Five hundred monks and nuns are currently living in Thubten Choling).
During the festival dates, all Sherpa people from Solu-Khumbu gather in the courtyard of the monastery. It is an occasion for Sherpas not only to witness the ceremony, to make offerings and to earn merit for their next life, butalso to meet friends and enjoy good food and drink.