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The old trade route to Tibet passes through Durbar Square and becomes a narrow lane after it rounds the Taleju Mandir. Passing through Makhan Tol - the name harks back to a time when butter ( makhan) was sold here - it runs a gauntlet of thangka (Buddhist scroll painting) sellers and then takes a northeasterly bearing towards Kathmandu's traditional goldsmiths' neighbourhood. The first big intersection you reach is Indrachowk , named in honour of the Vedic (early Hindu) king of the gods. A sort of Asian Zeus, complete with thunderbolt, Indra fell from grace in India centuries ago, but in the Kathmandu Valley he's still revered as a rainmaker and rates his own festival. The gaudy house-like temple on the west side of the crossroads - its front decorated with European ceramic tiles, a common practice earlier this century - is that of Akash Bhairab (Sky, or Blue, Bhairab), whom Nepalis consider to be equivalent to Indra. The upstairs temple is out-of-bounds to non-Hindus, but you can see the scary black mask of Bhairab through the open window; it's paraded around Kathmandu during Indra Jaatra. Shopping is good around Indrachowk. Pashmina (and acrylic) shawls are sold from the steps of shrines in the intersection, and colourful bead necklaces ( pote) and tassels ( dhaago) hang in curtains from the stalls of the Pote Bazaar , a small market area to the southeast. Pote, worn by virtually all married women in hill Nepal, typically consist of numerous strands of glass beads, all of the same colour, drawn together with a cylindrical gold ornament known as a tilhari. Many married women also weave dhaago into their hair - these are always red, a colour that indicates married status. The stalls here are owned mainly by Muslims, descendants of Kashmiri traders who migrated to the valley three centuries ago. You can watch them deftly making pote, using a big toe or a nail to anchor each strand while stringing it.
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