The Kalash Valleys

In three side valleys of the Hindu Kush live the Kalash, a small community of a few thousand people who practise a polytheistic religion with its own gods, calendar and festivals, quite distinct from anything around them. Women wear black robes with heavy embroidery and elaborate cowrie-shell headdresses, and the villages are built of stacked timber and stone on steep slopes among walnut and mulberry trees. The festival calendar is the heart of it: Chilam Joshi in May welcomes spring with dancing in the meadows, and Choimus around the winter solstice runs for days. Visitors are received, and the valleys have become a destination, which brings both income and pressure on a very small culture.

What you actually see

• Chilam Joshi festival - the spring festival of dancing and offerings, usually in May.
• Bumburet and Rumbur villages - stacked timber houses on steep valley slopes.
• The Kalasha Dur museum - a community museum explaining the religion and calendar.
• Walnut and mulberry terraces - the valley agriculture that sustains the villages.

When to go

May to September for road access, with Chilam Joshi in May the most visited moment. Winter festivals are more traditional and much harder to reach, since snow closes the passes. Roads from Chitral are rough in any season.

Honest expectations

This is a very small community under real cultural pressure, and visitor behaviour matters more here than almost anywhere else in this catalogue: ask before photographing, particularly women, do not treat festivals as a photo opportunity, and accept refusals. Foreign visitors must register and are sometimes accompanied. Accommodation is simple homestays and guesthouses. Roads are rough and journeys long.

Nearby

Chitral town is the gateway; the Shandur pass to Gilgit crosses east in summer.