Damak

Eastern Nepal town beside the Ratuwa river, surrounded by tea gardens near the Indian border.

Damak is a small town in the Jhapa district of eastern Nepal, about 50 km west of the Indian border crossing at Kakarvitta. The town straddles the Ratuwa river and is surrounded by tea gardens — the area around Damak is part of Nepal's modest tea-growing belt, and you can walk through the plantations.

At the heart of the bazaar is a replica Pashupati temple, active with daily worship and busy at puja times. To the north of town lie the Beldangi refugee camps, which for years housed Bhutanese Lhotshampa refugees and remain a significant, if slowly emptying, settlement.

Damak is primarily a transit stop for travellers crossing between India and the hills of eastern Nepal, but it has lodges, banks, and transport connections towards Ilam and the eastern hill routes.

Guide

Getting There

Damak is in the Jhapa district of eastern Nepal, about 50 km west of the Indian border crossing at Kakarvitta and roughly 580 km east of Kathmandu. The nearest airport with scheduled services is Bhadrapur (BDP), about 35 km east, with daily connections to Kathmandu on Yeti Airlines and Buddha Air. From Bhadrapur, shared jeeps or local buses run to Damak in about an hour.

From Kathmandu, the overnight bus to the far east (Birtamode or Kakarvitta) passes through Damak, taking around 12–14 hours. From the Indian border at Kakarvitta, Damak is about an hour by local bus or shared jeep. Travellers coming from Darjeeling or Siliguri in India cross at Kakarvitta and can be in Damak by mid-morning.

Onward connections head west toward Ilam (for the tea hills, about 3 hours), south to Birtamode, and on into the Terai highway toward Janakpur and Kathmandu.

Guide

Things to Do

Damak is a small transit town rather than a destination in itself, but the tea gardens surrounding it and the Bhutanese refugee settlement at Beldangi give it a character distinct from other lowland Terai towns. Travellers with time can walk the tea plantations, visit the town's temples, or make the short trip to the refugee camps.