Kalash Festival (Chilam Joshi)

Trip highlights

• Two full days of Chilam Joshi

  In the valleys rather than one afternoon — the milk offering, the walnut branches, and the dancing in the charso that begins when the work is done and runs until the light goes.

• Three valleys, not one

  Bumburet is the largest and busiest, Rumbur quieter and steeper, Birir the smallest and least visited. We move between them, because they keep the festival differently.

• A Kalasha guide throughout

  Arranged and paid directly, who can tell you what you are looking at and — more usefully — when to put the camera down.

• Chitral, and Tirich Mir

  The fort above the river, the bazaar, the polo ground in the middle of town, and 7,708 metres standing over all of it on a clear morning.

At a glance

• 9 days, fixed to mid-MayChilam Joshi runs four days in the middle of May, set by the Kalasha calendar.
• Three days in the valleysBumburet, Rumbur and Birir, with two full festival days.
• Chitral and the Hindu KushTirich Mir, 7,708 m, stands over the town on a clear day.
• A Kalasha guide in the valleysLocal, paid properly, and the reason you know where to stand.
• Hotels and valley guest housesHotels in Islamabad and Chitral, simple guest houses in the valleys.
• No altitude problemThe valleys sit around 2,000 m. Nothing on this trip goes high.
• May onlyChilam Joshi is the spring festival. Uchal is August, Chaumos December.

Day by day

1. 1Day 1Arrive Islamabad

   Met at the airport, driven to the hotel, and a briefing over dinner about the valleys — what the festival is, what it is not, and the handful of things worth knowing before you arrive somewhere people live.

2. 2Day 2Fly to Chitral

   

   An hour over the Lowari with Tirich Mir out of the window, or seven hours through the Lowari tunnel if the cloud is in. Afternoon in Chitral: the fort on the riverbank, the Shahi Mosque and the bazaar, which is where you buy anything you have forgotten.

3. 3Day 3Chitral into the Kalash valleys

   

   Two hours by jeep off the main road and up a track beside the river into Bumburet, the largest of the three valleys. The road is narrow, unsealed and spectacular. You arrive in the afternoon, which is when the first dancing usually starts — Chilam Joshi does not begin with a ceremony so much as gather momentum.

4. 4Day 4Chilam Joshi — the milk day and the valleys on foot

   

   The festival opens with milk: households that have taken their goats up to the pastures bring milk down and pour it, and branches of walnut and willow are cut and carried. Between the set pieces the day is spent walking between hamlets — Brun, Krakal, Batrik — on paths through terraced fields and past houses stacked up the slope with carved verandas. The dancing builds through the afternoon and runs into the evening.

5. 5Day 5Rumbur and Birir — the quieter valleys

   

   Over to Rumbur, which is steeper, smaller and far less visited than Bumburet, and on to Birir if the roads and the festival schedule allow. Each valley keeps Chilam Joshi slightly differently and the crowds thin dramatically once you are off the main track. This is usually the day people remember.

6. 6Day 6The last festival day, and back to Chitral

   

   A final morning in the valleys for the closing dances, then back down the track to Chitral in the afternoon. A hot shower, a proper bed, and dinner somewhere in town.

7. 7Day 7Chitral — a day that is not the festival

   A deliberate decompression day. The Chitral Gol valley below Tirich Mir, or the walk up to Birmoghlasht above the town, or simply the bazaar and the polo ground. It is also the buffer: if the flight out is cancelled tomorrow, this is the day we spend on the Lowari road instead.

8. 8Day 8Fly to Islamabad

   The morning flight back, or the road if it is grounded. Afternoon in Islamabad — Faisal Mosque, the Margalla hills, or the Saidpur lanes — and a last dinner.

9. 9Day 9Departure

   Transfer to Islamabad International for your flight home. A day room is arranged if your departure is late.

Good to know

**The dates**

Chilam Joshi falls in the middle of May and runs for four days. The Kalasha calendar is not the Gregorian one and the dates are confirmed by the valleys rather than published a year out, so treat mid-May as the window and book with us before you book an international flight. Broadly: Chilam Joshi in May, Uchal in August, Chaumos across the winter solstice in December.

**How to be there**

The Kalasha have been receiving visitors for decades and the welcome is genuine, but Chilam Joshi is a religious festival in a place where four thousand people live, not a show put on for tourists. Three things, and our guide will remind you of all of them. Ask before photographing anyone, particularly women and particularly closely — the answer is usually yes and the asking is what matters. Do not walk into the *bashali*, the women's house, or the altars above the villages; both are off limits to outsiders and to Kalasha men. And if you are offered a place in the dance, take it.

**What you will read elsewhere**

There is a lot of nonsense written about the Kalasha, most of it some version of the claim that they are descended from Alexander's army. Genetic studies have not supported it. They are an indigenous people of the Hindu Kush with a language of their own, and that is more interesting than the myth. We have written a longer piece on the valleys and the festival calendar if you want the background before you come.

**Accommodation in the valleys**

Simple guest houses, clean, with hot water that is sometimes a bucket. During festival week the valleys are full and the good rooms go months ahead; this is the main reason to book early. Chitral and Islamabad are ordinary hotels.

**Getting to Chitral**

The flight is one hour and the road is seven through the Lowari tunnel. The flight is a visual approach in a small aircraft and it cancels whenever the weather closes. The itinerary carries a buffer day in Chitral for exactly this, and we do not book you onto a same-day international connection.

**Weather in May**

Warm days, around 25 °C in the valleys, and cool nights. The valleys sit near 2,000 metres so altitude is not an issue on this trip. May can still bring rain, and the jeep track in gets slippery rather than impassable. Bring a light waterproof.

Questions about this trip

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