July 27, 2025

Before Thamel, before the souvenir shops and trekking offices spread like ivy through the city, there was Freak Street—a place of legend, not because of monuments, but because of stories. In the 1960s and 70s, Jhochhen Tole (as it’s locally called) was the final stop on the Hippie Trail, drawing dreamers, rebels, seekers, and misfits from across the world. They came to meditate, drop acid, buy legal hashish from government shops, and maybe, just maybe, find enlightenment.

For a while, this place hummed with incense smoke and Bob Dylan on tape decks. The temples were silent but the tea shops were electric. Long-haired travelers shared hash pipes with monks and wrote letters home on embroidered cushions. And while that era faded—outlawed, cleaned up, and mostly forgotten—you can still feel it here if you walk slowly. The walls remember. Some of the guesthouses do too.

Today, Freak Street is quieter, more shadow than spotlight. Most tourists go elsewhere, and that’s part of what makes it special. You can sit in a café with just the soft murmur of Newar neighbors and the occasional backpacker who’s wandered off the guidebook path. The architecture—carved windows, pagoda temples, forgotten bahals—hasn’t changed much. Neither has the sense of freedom laced with melancholy, like waking up from a beautiful dream you half-remember.

And beneath all the counterculture nostalgia lies something older still. The street winds down from Hanuman Dhoka, and before it was a hippie haven, it was part of the city’s sacred topography—used for chariot routes, processions, and religious observance. The hippies didn’t create its magic; they just noticed it. And today, if you walk through Freak Street with open eyes, you might notice it too—a gentle, haunting hum that says: something happened here. Something still does.