Basantapur is a
village development committee in
Sunsari District
Sunsari District is one of 14 districts in Koshi province of eastern Nepal. The district is located in the eastern part of the Outer Terai and covers an area of .
According to the 2011 Nepal census, the population was 753,328. The district head ...
in the
Kosi Zone
Kosi or Koshi (, ) was one of the fourteen zones of Nepal until the restructure of zones to provinces. The headquarters of Kosi Zone was Biratnagar which was also its largest city. Other cities of Kosi Zone were Inaruwa, Dharan, Dhankuta, J ...
of south-eastern
Nepal
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
. At the time of the
1991 Nepal census
The 1991 Nepal census was a widespread national census conducted by the Nepal Central Bureau of Statistics.
Working with Nepal's Village Development Committees at a district level,
they recorded data from all the main towns and villages of each ...
it had a population of 5566 people living in 879 individual households.
At the center of town is a sculpture of
rhododendron
''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the Ericaceae, heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan ...
, which grows very commonly in the area.
Tourism
Basantapur serves as a base village for some
treks including the Tinjure, Milke and Jaljale trek, which provides views of
Everest
Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its ...
,
Kanchenjunga
Kangchenjunga is the third-highest mountain in the world. Its summit lies at in a section of the Himalayas, the ''Kangchenjunga Himal'', which is bounded in the west by the Tamur River, in the north by the Lhonak River and Jongsang La, and ...
and
Makalu
Makalu (; ) is the fifth-highest mountain on Earth, with a summit at an elevation of AMSL. It is located in the Mahalangur Himalayas southeast of Mount Everest, on the China–Nepal border. One of the eight-thousanders, Makalu is an isolat ...
, the first, third and fifth highest mountains in the world. Kanchenjuna and Makalu can be seen from Basantapur on a cloudless day.
Aside from lodging, Basantapur has a very local economy and provides only basic amenities. There are no shops geared specifically for tourists or trekkers.
Transport
The road to Basantapur from Dharan is bumpy and slow. Basantapur can be reached by local bus in about 4 hours from Dharan.
Microbuses from Dharan are also available for a nominally higher price and normally arrive quicker than the local buses, which stop more often.
Basantapur can also be reached by hiring a taxi or private Jeep.
Accommodation
There are at least seven lodges in Basantapur, all within walking distance of the bus stop at the center of the village, which takes 5 minutes to walk from end to end.
References
Populated places in Sunsari District
{{Sunsari-geo-stub