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Carpets
Tibetan-style hand-woven carpets have come a long way from their folk roots. What started out, thirty years ago, as a modest income generator for Tibetan refugees has become Nepal's biggest export item - and a multi-ethnic creative collaboration. The traditional Tibetan form has been reinvented, with a unique look and lustrous, hard-wearing texture brought about by the use of synthetic dyes, blended Tibetan and New Zealand wool, standardized manufacture and modern chemical washing processes. In recent years the field has been enlivened by an explosion of contemporary colour schemes and designs.

Many foreigners prefer carpets in earthy, pastel colours , assuming them to be traditional and presumably coloured with vegetable dyes. Actually, traditional Tibetan carpets come in bright, almost gaudy hues - the earth tones are in vogue because of foreign demand. Synthetic dyes can produce any colour or shade, whether muted or bright, whereas vegetable dyes have a more limited range. Carpets made of all-Tibetan lamb's wool and/or vegetable dyes are less common, and more expensive.

Traditional Tibetan designs are bold and simple - angular dragons, flowers, clouds or various auspicious symbols, usually against a plain field and contained within a geometric border. Many carpets being produced these days are further simplified, using large, open fields, and combining traditional motifs with abstract patterns.

Carpets are woven throughout the Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys. Compared to Middle Eastern makes, Tibetan-style carpets have deeper, more luxuriant pile, but lower knot densities and coarser patterns. One of the best shopping areas is in Patan, and you'll find more information about their manufacture in that section. The choice is vast, so take your time. Start by getting an idea of what different knot counts (usually 60, 80, 100 or 144 per square inch) and wool mixes (50-, 80- or 100-percent Tibetan wool) and sizes look like. Sizes aren't standardized, but many carpets are 3x6 feet; 18-inch squares, which make fine seat covers, are also common. Make sure the ratio of vertical to horizontal knots isn't less than 2:3.

Prices are of course subject to bargaining, but the carpet seller won't go below a certain price per square metre or foot. For carpets made in Nepal, the going rates per square metre seem to be $120 for 100-percent Tibetan wool at 100 knots per square inch; $80 for 100-percent Tibetan wool at 80 knots per inch; $55 for a 50-50 wool mix at 100 knots per inch; and $35 for 50-50 wool and 80 knots per inch.

Nepali carpets are often made with child labour. At least one organization based in Kathmandu (Rugmark) certifies that its carpets aren't, and some others say theirs aren't, though you have no way of verifying their claims.

Nepali carpet factories are also increasingly imitating Kashmiri and Afghan styles , though these tend not to be as fine as the originals. Imported Kashmiri carpets are sold in many boutiques run by traders fleeing the tourist meltdown in Kashmir. These rugs are among the world's finest, but Kashmiri rug salesmen are among the world's wiliest, so proceed with great caution. A pukka carpet is a major investment, costing $600-2000 for a decent 3x5, depending mainly on knot count. It should have a label on the back stating that it was made in Kashmir, what it's made of (wool, silk, or "silk touch" - wool combined with a little cotton and silk to give it a sheen), its size, number of knots per inch, and the name of the design. To tell if it really is silk, scrape the carpet lightly with a knife and burn the fluff: real silk shrivels to nothing and leaves a distinctive smell.


Jewellery
Every hill bazaar has its metalsmiths who sell gold and silver at the going rate and, for a modest charge, will tap it into an earring, nose ring, necklace clasp, bracelet or any other form in which a woman wants to display the family wealth. Common to almost all hill women are malla, necklaces consisting of strands of glass beads drawn together with a cylindrical gold ornament. Shops in Kathmandu sell jewellery made of silver, white metal and semiprecious stones, which, though designed entirely for the tourist market, are nonetheless attractive.

Gem sellers in Kathmandu deal in a wide range of cut and uncut stones at reasonable prices. Garnet, tourmaline, ruby, aquamarine, citrine ("golden topaz") and cat's eye come from mines in Nepal's Ganesh Himal and eastern hills; turquoise, amethyst and sapphire come from Tibet; coral from India; and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. Most stones are cut and polished in India. Take care when buying, as gem quality and cut can make a vast difference to value. Turquoise is often fake (bite it to see if the colour comes off).


Miscellaneous crafts and pottery
Khukuri , the deadly knives of Nepal's feared Gurkha soldiers, are Nepal's most ubiquitous souvenirs. Bhojpur, in the eastern hills, is the traditional forging centre, but knives are heavily peddled in Kathmandu. An authentic one will have a moon-shaped notch at the base of the blade to channel the blood away, and its sheath will contain two small tools for sharpening and honing. Prices start at Rs400, but a city-slicker model with a buffalo-horn handle will cost several times that.

The Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara are awash with Tibetan curios , though the vast majority of these are manufactured in Nepal or India. The range of items is formidable: prayer wheels, amulets, charm boxes, bracelets (usually inscribed with the mantra, Om mani padme hum), prayer-flag printing blocks, chhang pots, phurpa (ritual daggers), masks, turquoise and coral jewellery, musical instruments and many other religious artefacts. Much of it has been artificially aged, and the turquoise is often fake. Tibetan chests and other furniture, if genuine, are quite expensive. The sale of human skulls and bowls (which are quite real), ornamented with metalwork and baubles and traditionally used for tantric purposes, is illegal and such items are now sold only in secret; decorated goat skulls are easy enough to come by.

Some shops in Kathmandu sell nothing but musical instruments , including sarangi (Nepal's version of a fiddle), murali (flutes) and jhankri (shaman) drums. Tibetan instruments can be purchased in Boudha.

Simple, unglazed pottery is produced by kumal (potters) throughout the hills. Very little of it rises above the level of mundane implements, but the potters of Bhaktapur and Thimi turn out ornamental items - candlesticks, elephant-shaped plant pots and so on. Some of the non-profit shops sell non-traditional, glazed pieces. Ceramics don't travel well, though, so you'll have to wrap them carefully.


Other items
Attractive embroidered pouches and wooden "caddies" of Nepali tea make great presents or souvenirs. They're sold mainly in the Kathmandu Valley, but the tea itself is cultivated in the eastern hills around Ilam (just over the border from Darjeeling). Two principal varieties are grown for export: Ilam, which has a full flavour much like Darjeeling, and Kanyam, smokier but considered superior by many. If you're not bothered about presentation, loose tea is much cheaper than the packaged stuff and can be sealed in plastic for travelling.

Incense can also bring back fond memories of Nepal after your return. Literally dozens of varieties manufactured in Nepal, and still others imported from India, are available in every bazaar. Tibetan mixtures, made in Nepal and sold mainly in Tibetan neighbourhoods such as Boudha and Swayambhu, are redolent of juniper. Essential oils, used for aromatherapy, massage and other purposes, come in a wide variety in tourist-quarter shops - like incense, they're extracted from a variety of plants in India and Nepal.

There's no need to lug a library along when travelling in Nepal: Kathmandu and Pokhara each have dozens of bookshops devoted to travel, fiction and classics. Kathmandu, especially, seems to have more booksellers per capita than anywhere in the English-speaking world. You can get new and used books in English and other European languages, usually as Western imports but sometimes in cheaper Indian imprints. Most shops will buy books or trade as well.

A burgeoning number of music stores stock CDs and cassettes . Those catering to foreigners offer a range of traditional and contemporary Nepali, Tibetan and Indian music, plus some Western stuff. The tapes are usually of poor quality, and the CDs can't always be trusted either, but they're fairly inexpensive so it's worth taking the chance on a few. Cheaper tapes produced for the home market are available in local shops and stalls.

Things not to take home include ritual objects made from human bones (or even animal bones that a customs officer might mistake for human ones), and anything made from a rare or protected species (including ivory, certain furs and peacock feathers). These are illegal to export from Nepal. So are shaligram (fossil-bearing stones), though nobody seems to care much about their export.


Paintings
Like so many things in Nepal, thangka - Tibetan ritual paintings - are now cranked out for the tourist market, yet the best ones remain undiminished by commercialization, and even the cheapest can't hide the dense Buddhist symbolism inherent in the form.

Thangka are produced not only by Tibetans but also by Tamangs and, increasingly, by artisans of other Nepali ethnic groups. In addition, paubha - paintings in the style of the Kathmandu Valley's Newars - are undergoing a modest revival after near-extinction earlier this century. Paubha are created in much the same way as thangka, but they tend to contain less background detail, focusing instead on a central deity, who may just as easily be Hindu as Buddhist. Some thangka dealers also carry other Tibetan-style paintings depicting herbs, animals, medical charts and so on.

Before buying a thangka or paubha, first watch a painter at work in Patan or Bhaktapur - the main production centres - to get an appreciation for how painstaking the art is, and try to get someone to explain the imagery and the meanings behind it. When you see one you like, examine the detail of the eyes, facial expression and fingers of the main figure; background figures should also stand up to scrutiny. Many paintings aimed at tourists make a great show of their "gold" paint: real gold won't come away when a moist finger is pressed against it. Most "old" thangka have been aged with wood smoke. A halfway decent small (15cm x 30cm) thangka will cost at least Rs1500, though poor ones will go for much less than that. A large (90cm x 120cm) one, using microscopic brushstrokes and genuine gold paint, will cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

So-called " Maithili " art has caught on in the past few years. These brightly coloured folk paintings, which keep alive age-old religious and fertility symbols, are created by women in the villages surrounding Janakpur in the eastern Tarai. However, they're most easily bought in the non-profit shops of Kathmandu or Patan, where Maithili motifs are reproduced not only on paper but also pottery and papier mâché.

Other non-traditional artforms are gaining in popularity. Notable are the thangka -influenced naive maps of Nepal and the Kathmandu Valley that are found primarily in Patan, and the watercolour (and occasionally acrylic or oil) street scenes and ethnic portraits sold in all the tourist areas. Batiks , depicting typical Nepali scenes, are an inexpensive artform introduced in the past two decades as an income-generator for disabled people in the Kathmandu and Pokhara valleys.


Paper items
Items made from lokta, an indigenous form of handmade paper , make excellent, lightweight purchases. Traditionally lokta was made by hill people in winter, when there was nothing going on, and was valued for official documents because of its strong, cross-fibrous texture. In the past decade or so, many aid organizations have seized on lokta as a year-round opportunity to generate income, and it has blossomed into a thriving industry carried out by an internationally famous UNICEF operation in Bhaktapur and increasingly in other places.

Lokta is often confused with rice paper. Actually it's made from the bark of a shrub (genus Daphne) that grows wild in Nepal's eastern and central hills between the elevations of 2000 and 3000 metres (it's not cultivated, so the increasing popularity of lokta products may eventually lead to its depletion). The fibrous bark is boiled, beaten to a pulp, mixed with water, poured into floating frames, and finally sun-dried on fallow terraces. The result is a rough but richly textured parchment which is then block-printed to produce beautiful greeting cards, lampshades, calendars, gift wrapping, boxes and a growing range of other products.


Statues and other metalware
Artisans of the Kathmandu Valley have been casting bronze, brass and copper statues of Buddhist and Hindu deities for at least 1300 years - an unbroken artistic tradition with few parallels worldwide. The images are produced by the lost-wax process, in which a model is carved out of wax, surrounded by clay and then fired, melting the wax and leaving a terracotta mould. Small pieces can be cast from a single mould, but larger ones have to be assembled from up to a dozen pieces, the joins concealed by ornate embellishments.

Statues are cast mainly in the style of Tibet (Nepal's main customer for centuries), depicting a tremendous variety of Buddhas, bodhisattva and defenders of the dharma, as well as Hindu and indigenous deities. Each is characterized by a certain posture, weapon or other identifying feature. If you're shopping for a metal statue, the Handicraft Association of Nepal's inexpensive booklet, A Short Description of Gods, Goddesses and Ritual Objects of Buddhism and Hinduism in Nepal, sold in some bookshops, can help in figuring out the iconography.

Patan is the traditional casting centre. Prices depend on size, metal and workmanship, but are never cheap - at least Rs5000 for a 20cm-tall image. The best-quality images will have carefully detailed fingers and eyes, and the metal will be without pits or spots.

Many brass pots and vessels are wonderful pieces of design. Ghada, the brass water jugs that Nepali women cradle against one hip, may be too big to tote home, but small incense holders, raksi pourers, puja trays, oil lamps and jal urns are all attractive and relatively cheap.

So-called "singing" bowls are popular both as domestic and ritual objects. Made from an amalgam of various (traditionally seven) metals, these vessels produce a continuous harmonic ringing when rubbed around the rim with a wooden pestle. When held near the navel, the singing bowl is said to resonate with the body and aid in meditation.


Textiles and clothing
Nepali designers are applying their creative talents to textiles and, as with carpets, adapting indigenous designs in stylish new ways. Most of these items are produced by tiny cottage-industry outfits and have yet to find their way overseas, but the fleeting success of certain fashions shows there's a receptive market.

Dhaka, a brightly patterned cotton weave made on hand looms in the eastern and western hills, has long been used to make topi (men's caps), cholo (women's half-length blouses) and shawls. Palpali dhaka, the preferred make for topi, comes from Tansen (Palpa). Women's cooperatives are now producing dhaka in colour schemes and patterns aimed squarely at Western tastes, and turning it into scarves, ties, placemats, jackets, handbags - you name it.

Other cotton weaves, including khadi (traditional homespun) and many forms of sari material, are produced locally all over Nepal. These, too, turn up in innovative incarnations - block-printed, quilted and hand-stitched - from pot holders and tea cosies to cushion covers and bedspreads.

Hemp products are appearing in many outlets. For clothing, hemp fibres are usually mixed with cotton, wool or silk to produce linen-look garments (pure hemp is rather rough on the skin). Hemp is also being used in handbags, totes, caps and hats, and even shoes and slippers. At least one group also markets allo, a wool-like material woven from the pounded bark of nettle stems.

Pashmina, a cashmere-like wool gleaned from the softest hair of goats, is made into shawls which are worn by many Kathmandu Valley residents in winter. These are good purchases, but be sure you're not buying acrylic. Rub off some fibres and burn them: pashmina will smell like burning hair, acrylic won't smell of anything. Kashmiri shops sell more elaborate embroidered shawls and various items decorated with chain-stitch patterns, including cushion covers, tea cosies and garments far too magnificent to wear in public. You can also pick up nice leather jackets and other clothing items at reasonable prices.

Silk is a relatively new industry in Nepal, with a few manufacturers in the Kathmandu Valley producing thread and raw material. Others weave Indian thread into dupian, which looks like raw silk but is softer, shinier and more expensive, or fine crepe de Chine.

Nepal's burgeoning garment industry has been quick to experiment with all these materials and more, producing everything from cheap readymade Punjabis and the like to designer fashions purchased by foreigners and a growing clientele of wealthy Nepalis. Boutiques in Kathmandu and Patan display some stunning original pieces melding Western and local influences; in global fashion terms, these are quite cheap, and all the more exciting for their obscurity.

Tibetan wrap-around dresses, called chuba, can be bought off the peg or custom-made by shops in Kathmandu and Boudha. Intricate Tibetan and Bhutanese brocade also turns up in specialist shops in Kathmandu and Boudha.

Sweaters, socks and other woollens, knitted in the home by women, are amazingly cheap and sold all over tourist areas. The cheaper ones suffer from quality-control problems - many will quickly fall apart at the seams. Ask which grade of wool the garment is made from. For more durability and better styling, it's worth paying more at one of the pricier boutiques in Kathmandu or Patan.

Other cheap clothes sold in tourist areas are usually of very poor quality, but they'll do for holiday wear - cotton dresses are good choices for trekking. Lots of travellers seem to think they're going native by wearing baggy pajamas and the like, which amuses Nepalis. Machine-embroidered T-shirts are inescapable. Tibetan-style black felt with rainbow trim is another budget-wear staple, finding its way into caps, jackets, bags and the like


Where to shop
Ninety-nine percent of crafts outlets are concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley and Pokhara: that's where the buyers are, and just about all of the mass-produced stuff is actually made there. Competition is intense. You can't stroll the tourist strips without being importuned by curio sellers cradling "priceless" goods in white cloths, or beckoned from the sidelines by operators of makeshift stalls; their overheads are low and so, at least in theory, should be their prices. More reputable shops , galleries, "emporiums" and boutiques have better selections and aren't so hard-driving (many have fixed prices). In Patan - Nepal's handicrafts capital - you'll also find "factory" showrooms , where you can watch the wares being made.

One of the most encouraging developments in recent years has been the rise of non-profit (or "fair trade") shops in Kathmandu and Patan. By providing outlets for women, disadvantaged people and workers' cooperatives in some of Nepal's remotest hill areas, they increase employment and channel money where it's most needed. They also appear to avoid the pitfalls of other development projects in the hills, where lavish foreign aid has often led Nepalis to expect something for nothing.

Quite a few items sold in tourist areas are made elsewhere, and needless to say it's more fun (and cheaper) to pick them up at their source. Best buys are noted in the relevant pages, along with a few local specialities that can't be found anywhere else.

No matter what the seller says, very few items are older than last week. Genuine antiques - anything over 100 years old, or anything customs officials might think is that old - have to be cleared for export by the Department of Archaeology in Kathmandu. Get the dealer to take care of the paperwork.


Wood and papier-mâché
Nepali woodcarving reaches its apex in Bhaktapur, where you'll find everything from modest Buddha busts and Ganesh figures to exquisite, full-size window frames. Miniature replicas of Bhaktapur's famed Peacock Window are ubiquitous, and artisans are increasingly turning out non-traditional items such as animals, CD boxes and chess sets. Pieces are carved with mallet and chisel out of one of several types of wood, most of them from the Tarai. The most common are sal, a hard, heavy, chocolate-coloured wood like teak; sisu, similar but with more grain to it; chaab, a cheaper, softer, honey-coloured wood; and korma, also light in colour but harder than chaab. Prices depend not only on size but also the type of wood and the quality of carving: Rs1000 should get you a finely detailed 20cm figure. Sandalwood figures, carved in extremely intricate designs after the Indian style, are considerably more expensive.

Wooden masks are used by Tibetans and highland Nepalis in religious dances and shamanic rituals. The genuine articles are rarely sold, but replicas are widely available in tourist areas; in the never-ending battle for tourists' attention, craftsmen are now souping up their masks with overlain metal designs.

Thimi is famous for its papier-mâché masks , copies of those used in the masked dances of the Kathmandu Valley in which dancers take on the persona of the deity represented. The Nawa Durga (Nine Durgas) and their attendant deities Ganesh, Shiva and Bhairab are the ones most commonly recreated for tourist consumption, ranging from full size down to bite size. The Nawa Durga also take the form of puppets with papier-mâché or clay heads and multiple wooden arms.

Separately, Kashmiri shops sell little laquered papier-mâché boxes, incense holders, napkin rings and ornaments - they're not Nepali, but they make great cheap gifts
 

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