สถานที่ทาเมลThamelठमेल

The name comes from Tha Bahi, which places the district's root in the Newar community, the indigenous people of the Kathmandu Valley. Thamel has been the centre of Kathmandu's tourist trade for over four decades, since the years of the overland hippie route, and it is now the valley's densest concentration of shops aimed at outsiders.

What the shops stock is where this atlas has to be careful. The encyclopedia's account lists food, trekking gear, music, handicrafts, souvenirs and woollens, and itemises no charm. Inference — prayer flags, rudraksha strings, dzi beads and gau boxes are what a Himalayan souvenir lane carries, and this project has read no survey of Thamel's stalls, so the objects below are linked as kin of the district rather than asserted as stock.

What can be cited is where the materials come from. Rudraksha — the seed of Elaeocarpus ganitrus, strung and counted by Shaivites — is cultivated in the Himalayan foothills, and the most popular varieties are found around Kathmandu and the Arun Valley. Printed cloth prayer flags reached Nepal and Tibet through the Indian monk Atisha, who died in 1054. Dzi beads are found in Tibet and in neighbouring Nepal, Bhutan, Ladakh and Sikkim, and Tibetans treat them as hereditary gems rather than as purchases.

Trading, and the pre-base camp for mountaineering: gear shops, money changers, agents, guest houses. No day is marked below, because the alleys keep shop hours and nobody publishes them.