The site of a shocking royal massacre is now a tourist attraction

In the wall of a courtyard inside the royal palace in Kathmandu, a spray of bullet holes has drawn a crowd. Half a dozen divots run through the paintwork like an archipelago, just a few metres from where a sign marks the spot where Nepal’s crown prince was found near death after allegedly murdering nine of his family members in 2001. It’s a killing ground, and it feels like half of Kathmandu is here.

Narayanhiti Palace Museum – and crime scene.Credit: Getty Images

Home to Nepal’s royal family until 2008, Narayanhiti Palace sits at the edge of the busy Thamel district but has long been out of sight to all but the royals. Today, it’s a museum – a royal residence frozen in time – and there are crowds of Nepalis queuing to see what generations before them had never been able to see.

The mood around the apricot-coloured palace is festive, even if the star attraction is morbid. It’s the massacre site that has all of our attention, but to get there we must first weave through the palace and its pomp.

The self-guided palace visit is like a trip through an imperial IKEA, with cordons directing visitors in a circuitous, single-file tour through the labyrinthine building – once inside, the only way out is to complete the walk.

The arrival hall, lined with mirrored columns and an incongruous polar bear skin, is an indication of the faded regal opulence to follow. Chandeliers the size of double-storey buildings hang from the throne-room ceiling but other rooms look like they’ve stepped from a Soviet administration block. There are walls hung imperially with cloth wallpaper, and others tiled bathroom-like in marble.

In a crowd of fascinated Nepalis I snake through the 52-room building, stepping around the skins of cheetahs, tigers and gharial crocodiles, and watched by the lifeless heads of buffaloes, deer and a pair of rhinos hanging on the walls.

The royal crown of the former monarchs of Nepal.Credit: Alamy

We pass through the rooms allotted to visiting dignitaries, into the king’s and queen’s separate bedrooms, and through the vast coronation room with its almost-two-metre-wide throne and cascading chandelier. Were we not all fixated on the murder-mystery to come, the most impressive moment of the visit would be immediately beyond a second security check where, since 2018, the king’s pure-gold sceptre and sword, the royal fly whisks (yes, they’re a thing) and the king’s crown, trimmed with more than 700 diamonds and 2300 pearls, have been laid out for viewing.

After this lingering look at the royal lives, the moment comes to witness the royal deaths. The tour finds its way to an exit into the palace yards and a side building where history records that Crown Prince Dipendra shot and killed his father and mother – the King and Queen of Nepal – along with his brother, sister and other family members. He then turned the gun on himself, though he survived for three days, during which time he lay in a coma as the King of Nepal.

This majestic gate was the main entrance to enter the palace.Credit: Adobe

The site of the massacre is now pieced together like the set of a whodunnit movie. Signs detail where King Birendra was killed in the billiards room. Visitors can’t enter the room but they can peer through windows smudged by thousands of curious faces.

The drama intensifies in the adjoining courtyard where other signs add further detail to the story, noting the spots where Queen Aishwarya and Prince Nirajan fell, the spray of bullet holes and, finally, the patch of concrete where the crown prince was found wounded – all beside a jaunty green patio that had been the king’s hair salon.

The late members of Nepal’s royal family at Narayanhiti Palace in Kathmandu. Sitting: King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya; standing (from left): Princess Shruti, Crown Prince Dipendra and Prince Nirajan.Credit: AP

Around these memories of excess and execution, crowds gather – large family groups, loved-up young couples, a swirl of kids. There’s a picnic atmosphere, as though this is Kathmandu’s ultimate day out for locals.

Inside these walls, built to keep common eyes away, we’ve all finally seen how Nepal’s most lavish family lived. And how it died.

THE DETAILS

VISIT
Narayanhiti Palace is open daily, except Wednesday. Cameras and phones aren’t permitted inside and must be left with locker-room attendants. See narayanhitipalacemuseum.com

FLY
Malaysia Airlines and Thai Airways both fly to Kathmandu, transiting in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok respectively. See malaysiaairlines.com; thaiairways.com

STAY
Dating back to Kathmandu’s hippie-trail days, Kathmandu Guest House is a city mansion transformed into a hotel, restaurant and art gallery, 15 minutes’ walk from the palace. See ktmgh.com/kathmandu-guest-house

MORE
ntb.gov.np

The writer travelled as a guest of World Expeditions.