Freak Street Kathmandu

Freak Street Kathmandu was the final destination of the hippie trail from Europe to Nepal back in the 60s and 70s. It still exists in Kathmandu, Nepal but it isn’t officially called Freak Street. It is Jhochhen Tole, sometimes called Old Freak Street, and it exits the south side of the Kathmandu Durbar Square. Today it’s nothing special, just an ordinary street much like any other in the historic centre of Nepal but Freak St. is worth visiting. Discover more in our post.

This article was first published several years ago, after the earthquake, before the floods. We have not been in Kathmandu recently. We are updating in 2026 to add information about the artwork we feature, direct from the artist.

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Freak Street

The name Freak Street remains in places along Jhochhen Tole in central Kathmandu Nepal. You can feel the echoes of Old Freak Street in shop signs and buildings, still fairly intact after the devastating Kathmandu earthquake of 2015.

But what was Freak St. like then, and what’s there now? Is it worth taking a look while you’re in Kathmandu?

We always visit when we’re in town and on our last visit we were lucky enough to catch a photographic exhibition on Freak Street back in the hippie days, highlighting hotels and cafés that have stood the test of time and famous faces from way back when.

Find out more about Freak Street in the 60s, 70s and today, below.

This post, from here, was originally written by my son, D. He was 14 and ready to get involved in the website.

Freak Street Nepal and the Hippie Trail

The hippie trail was an overland journey between Europe and South Asia. The countries travellers would pass through while traveling depended on the traveler in question but most left from London or Amsterdam and went through Europe then Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India but some made it even further than that.

Freak Street’s Snowman Café

The paving in this part of Kathmandu, as you can see above, is traditional flagstone rather than modern tarmac. That’s nice to see.

Snowman Cafe is a small cake shop that has been on Freak Street since 1965, it’s one year older than my mum, and it has a reputation for some of the best cakes in Kathmandu.

Sadly though, we didn’t get to try any. The Snowman was originally a tobacco shop but converted into a cake shop after hippies got the munchies from smoking hashish and wanted to eat cake.

The shop is a family-owned business and still has the same owner as it did back in 1965.

Freak Street Newari Girl Street Art

The Newari are the original inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley and surrounding areas and they are still around today. We actually found an amazing street artwork of a Newari girl down by Freak Street.

Kathmandu has great street art, you’ll even find quite a few space invaders by Invader. I don’t think there are any Banksies yet.

In 2026 Martin Travers, the artist who painted this mural reached out to me and gave me more information about this mural. The information below is directly from him.

The mural is called Kathmandu: Myths and Memory, and I painted it in 2018 on Freak Street, just opposite the Snowman Café.

The idea behind it was to celebrate the cultural identity and heritage of the Kathmandu Valley, particularly Newa/Newar culture.

I was interested in the way Kathmandu’s extraordinary cultural history is still woven into everyday life, while at the same time the city was changing so rapidly through development, tourism and modernisation.

The young woman in the mural represents the Newa woman and the cultural identity of the valley rather than being a portrait of one particular person. I wanted to bring some of the visual language and symbolism of Kathmandu’s traditional culture into a contemporary public artwork, and create something connected to the history of the place rather than simply decorative street art.

Believe it or not, when I painted it there were very few murals depicting aspects of local culture. I wanted to help change that.

I painted several murals around Kathmandu, including the Lakhe mural nearby and the British Embassy mural, and worked with art students and local street artists who assisted with the projects. I also ran a workshop through Siddhartha Art Gallery and the British Embassy.

It’s really nice to see how many murals celebrating Newar heritage can now be found around the city. I was particularly interested in using public art to draw attention to Nepal’s cultural heritage and make it accessible to people who might otherwise simply walk past it.

Freak Street seemed like a particularly appropriate location because of its own history. It has this fascinating mixture of old Kathmandu, Newa heritage and the much more recent history of the hippie trail, so there are all these different layers of Kathmandu’s identity occupying the same small area.

I also wanted to tell part of the story of the founding of Kathmandu through the imagery surrounding the girl. The stone carvings depict Chhepu, the central demon figure, eating the serpent from the ponds that were said to have been drained by Manjushri, who appears seated with his sword above his head inside one of the lotus flowers.

In the other is Green Tara, who in Newar tradition is associated with Queen Bhrikuti, who is traditionally credited with helping bring Buddhism to Tibet.

Many visitors to Nepal are familiar with Tibetan Buddhist art, but perhaps less familiar with the Newar artistic traditions that influenced and helped shape it. So I wanted the mural to highlight that connection as well.

It’s actually lovely to see that people are still stopping to look at it years later. Your article seems to have brought a number people to the mural, judging from the comments, so I’m very happy for it to be there.

And just to clarify, the large Lakhe mural further along Freak Street is also one of mine, but that’s a separate work with a very different story. That one was created as a memorial following the 2015 earthquake and commemorates Laxman Ranjit and his wife Nilu. There are quite a few articles online that seem to mix the two murals together, so it might be useful to make that distinction in your article.

Freak Street Juju Dhau

Juju Dhau (aka the King of Yoghurt or King Curd) is a delicious sweet yogurt created by the Newari people and can be found mainly in Bhaktapur, Nepal.

It is possible to find Juju Dhau in Kathmandu but the only place we managed to find it was on Freak Street. If you’re not going to Bhaktapur then I recommend you head down to Freak Street just to try some King Curd.

Could you save this pin to Pinterest for us please?

We had a brilliant time on Freak Street, and it was super lucky we caught that photographic exhibition. Freak Street is a shadow of a past era, but when you look closely you may just see something interesting.

Personally, I love Kathmandu. I love the food, but the people are almost always really nice and friendly and the place itself is powerful, but not quite as full-on and in-your-face as India. I would always be up for a dal bhat with our friends Ram and Jack the pug.

This Freak Street blog post is the work of D, a junior writer on our website. See his author profile by clicking on his link at the top of the page.

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