Nagarkot Damsite Camping and BBQ with your loved ones | Imfreee

Nagarkot Damsite (Bojini Dam) is naturally beautiful, clean fresh water lake. It is surrounded by pine forest and you can see the authentic Nepali Village, Kalamasi (also called Bojini) near the lake. If you are looking for a place to have quality time with your loved ones, then this is for you.

Here, you can see the beautiful view of the artificial lake (in monsoon) created by the Bojini irrigation dam. You can also enjoy the nearby pine forest and visit the nearby Kalamasi village also called Bojini village.

Bojini/Nagarkot Dam – Beautiful lakeside near Kathmandu

Bojini Dam is an artificial dam near Kalamasi Village, Nagarkot. The dam was built by locals for irrigation. And it created a small lake with clean spring water.

This place is less known but nowadays with the internet, it is gaining popularity as a beautiful tourist destination near Kathmandu and also called Nagarkot Damsite. 

The lake is surrounded by pine forest. And the open and green ground on the other side of the dam is very suitable for camping. Spring water is available 24 hour for free, and you can also get the firewood from the nearby pine forest for FREE.

The place is located at the same height of Nagarkot. And is one of the best places for camping and Barbeque with your loved ones.

How to reach Nagarkot Damsite?

Route: Kathmandu – Koteshwor – Jagati – Karyabinayak – Nagarkot Road – Bojini Nagarkot Damsite

Check out the route map below:

1. The road is really good to reach the Damsite. So you can easily go on your own vehicle.
2. You can also get a public bus from Jagati, Karyabinayak. And then you will have to get off from the bus and walk for about half an hour to reach there.

Our Experience at Nagarkot Damsite, Bojini Dam

As a plan to celebrate good Friday with friends, we confirmed Nagarkot Damsite (Bojini Dam) as our destination. So, on Friday evening, after office time, we moved towards the dam site.

It was already 7:30 P.M. when we started our journey. Since it was winter, the sun was already gone, was really dark outside and cold as well.

Don’t know the location of Nagarkot Damsite

We were 4 guys on two bikes and no one had gone to this place yet. So it was new for all of us. We were carrying tents, sleeping bags and food on our bags, as our plan was to spend the night there and return the next afternoon.

With the hope of reaching there early and getting better place for camping, we continued our journey. We followed the direction on offline map app, maps.me. But on the way, after we crossed Gatthaghar, we asked one man about the road to go Nagarkot.

Then he gave us the direction and told us to take a left turn from Jagati. As instructed, we moved ahead and took our left turn from Jagati. And Continued to move ahead. But we were stopped by the policemens and asked us where we were headed. And we told everything about our plan, so after hearing us they let us go and we continued our journey.

One of our friends heard that there will be two roads ahead and one will be shorter than others. So after moving forward for a little bit we found the junction. And asked a local about the road to reach Nagarkot Damsite faster.

From there, we took the right side as told by the locals. The road was black topped (pitched), so did not have difficulty though it was dark. 

Bad news: Need to return home

After moving ahead for a while, we were again stopped by the policemens, and again they enquired us. And since we were carrying huge bags, they wanted us to check the bags here. They also informed us that there will be a local election in Nagarkot, so no vehicles will be allowed till evening. And we better prepared for that or return from there.

But we already made our mind to stay there, so we said we will continue our trip and return the next evening when vehicles will be allowed. While checking one of the policemen even tried to seize our things like marinated chicken (for BBQ) and our drinks. Fortunately the senior police officer was kind and let us keep our things.

We said goodbye to the officers and continued our journey. No traffic jams, good roads and the views of all the houses on the Nagarkot hills with their lights on was really majestic. Those houses looked like stars on the way.

Where’s the Lake? Did it disappear?

Whenever we got confused, we asked about the direction with the locals we met. And continued our journey. Finally we reached the destination at 9:00 P.M. It was completely dark and couldn’t see anything.

There were no signs of any houses nearby and a dried lake. We looked around the lake and chose a place to set up our tent.

From a nearby haystack we borrowed (no one was around so it’s stealing) some hay to use it as a mattress. Then we marched towards our camping place, since it was dark we used our mobile phones as torch light and moved ahead.

Making a Fire and Making Chicken Barbeque

Though the lake was dried, it was damp and we slipped sometimes. Finally we reached the place and then quickly set up our tent. And prepared to lit fire and have a BBQ.

Since we did not bring any stoves with us, we had to dig the ground to make fireplace. And then use coal & petrol we brought with us from Kathmandu to make a fire. 

After trying for a couple of minutes, we successfully made the fire. Then we took out our marinated chicken and started to put it over the fire.

While preparing barbeque we also had our snacks i.e. KurKure, Wai Wai Noodles, Furandana (Fried Beaten Rice with spices and chips) and Coca Cola.

After some time our Barbeque started to smell good, and it was cooked. So we started munching (eating) our meat. 

Someone is Watching, Scary Night

We stayed there for sometime talking with each other and having our dinner i.e. snacks and BBQ chicken. Then at around 11:30 we went to sleep inside our tent. 

It was cold, lonely and scary outside. And felt like someone (ghost) is watching us. And in fear we didn’t even turned off the lights. Due to tiredness, we fell asleep as soon as we hit the bed.

But after a while I woke up because I felt uncomfortable as I did not have any pillows. So I looked for my backpack and made it as a pillow and slept.

The Next Day at Nagarkot Damsite, Bojini Dam

We woke up early in the morning. And the first thing we had to do was to move our tent in a better place. So we looked around. And a little far, we saw the perfect place.

It was clean open and not so damp. So, we moved everything there and set up a tent. And then made a fireplace and made fire with the woods we found around.

Making Coffee from Spring Water

And then we brought water on our bottles from a nearby spring water. We boiled the water and drink it. Then we made coffee and had it with biscuits. 

After having a little bit of breakfast, we planned to roam around the pine forest. So we climbed the hill with the hope of finding any nearby villages. But even after walking for about half an hour, we could not find any sign of village. So we decided to return to our camp.

While returning we brought some dried wood to make fire. Since it was already morning, people were already moving and going to the jungle to gather wood and fodders for cattle.

In Search of Village

We asked one of the local about the nearest shop, and they replied that there is a village nearby called Bojini and we can find a shop there. So two of us went in search of the shop.

After walking for about 15 minutes we could see houses and a village. It was really beautiful, and untouched by the materialistic lifestyle of the city. There we asked for the shop and we found one small shop. 

There we bought a couple of noodles and 4 eggs and then returned to our camp. In our camp we started to boil water and cooked noodles. We also tried to roast the eggs in fire instead of boiling.

Egg Bursted and We got Scared

We have heard of roasted eggs, so we tried on our own. We put the egg in fire but not too deep and then covered it with warm ashes.

After sometime one of the egg bursts, and we got scared. And then we took all the eggs out from the fire. We shared and ate the burst one. And then our noodles were cooked and shared among all of us and enjoyed our meal.

We also ate the remaining eggs and other snacks and then sun basked for half an hour. With nothing to do, we planned to catch crabs in nearby spring water. So we moved towards it. Here, though the water was cold, we tried finding crabs.

But we were not finding any. Later we found one crab. Happily we brought it to our tent and roasted in fire with BBQ Sauce and enjoyed. 

Let’s see Mountain ranges from Nagarkot

Since the police were not allowing any vehicle to move due to election, we were stuck there with nothing to do. And we were getting bored, so we planned to go to the Nagarkot View tower for a while and then return home.

So we packed our things and moved towards Nagarkot view tower.

Within 15-20 minutes we reached the view tower. We climbed the tower and from the top we could see the mountain ranges. It was really amazing to see a 360 degree view of the mountains.

Finding alternative route to go home

While we were there we heard talking about the alternative way to get out of the Nagarkot. We asked in detail about the way. We had two options, either wait for 3-4 more hours and then return home or take an alternative route and reach home within 2 hours.

So we decided to take the alternative route via Sankhu, Jorpati, Bouddha and go home. The road was unbelievably good and we also enjoyed the view of mountains, hills, farms and awesome hotels on the way back to Sankhu.

From Sankhu, the road was under construction, so some places had really amazing wide roads, whereas some places were small and dusty.

Anyway within 2 and a half hours we reached our home successfully.

Some things to remember if you are going to Nagarkot Damsite

1. Reach the Bojini Damsite early if you are planning to stay there in a tent.
2. While going there, you might get confused, so don’t hesitate to ask for directions with locals.
3. Bring enough food/snack with you.
4. Also don’t forget to bring toiletries and electronic gadgets like torch lights, power bank with you.
5. You’ll get to see the lake only in monsoon, it’ll be dried in winter and summer season.

Other amazing places to travel near Kathmandu in Visit Nepal 2020

1. Simba Falls, Manikhel: 5 step Waterfall in Lalitpur
2. Jamacho, Hiking in Kathmandu (Shivapuri National Park Area)
3. Sikali Khokana
4. Hiking to Champadevi
5. Markhu, Kulekhani and Chitlang
6. Jamchen Vijaya Stupa, Budhanilkantha
7. Bhasmasur Dada, Chaap Dada to Chandragiri Hike

Thank you so much for reading to the last and if you’ve any questions regarding the route or anything, then please leave a comment below. And also don’t forget to comment a beautiful place like this where you’ve visited and we should too.