Freak Street — officially Jhochhen Tole — was the original hippie hub of Kathmandu in the 1960s and 1970s, when the overland trail from Europe to Southeast Asia passed through Kathmandu and the city was famous for legal hashish, cheap accommodation, and extraordinary temples. The Beatles came through, Timothy Leary came through, half the counterculture came through. Today Freak Street is faded but not without character: a few guesthouses and restaurants survive, and the location at the southern edge of Durbar Square makes it one of the better-value places to stay in the old city.
The street has a slower, more genuinely Nepali feeling than Thamel — fewer trekking agencies and more ordinary neighbourhood life. Worth walking through even if you stay elsewhere.