From Taumadhi Tole to Tachupal Tole (Dattatreya Square) and Hunuman Ghat.
The road that goes from Taumadhi square to Dattatraya square is the historically main commercial thoroughfare of the city. Major ladmarks are: a hiti (fountain) with a beautiful image of Uma Maheshevar; Golmadi Tole a minor square with a small three tiered temple dedicated to Ganesh, a hiti (fountain) and a white chaitya; by the side of a big water tank the Inacho Bahal with miniature pagodas on top of the roofs of the courtyard; the Bimshen pokhari.
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Tachupal Tole (Dattatreya Square) the third and the oldest square is dominated by the Dattatreya Temple, with in front a Garuda statue top of a column and guarded by two large stone wrestlers. On the opposite the Bhimsen temple with in front of a sort of platform with a small two roofs temple dedicated to Vishnu and a column surmounted by a brass lion. Seat of royalty till the xv century in the square survives the Pujari Math, example of residential mansion with exquisitely carved windows and doors, notable the famous Peacock Window (xv c.) with a peacock in its centre. In a minor area north of Tachupal Tole there is the small temple of Ganesh Salan temple at the side of a large tank.
From Inacho Bahal a side road descends toward the river to Hunuman Ghat, one of the burning places of Bhaktapur. The many chaityas, religious images, statues, sanctuaries and lingams scattered around give a strange and stranded feeling.
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To Potter’s Square
About 100m before the Durbar square Gate entrance there is a tiny double roofed Shiva-Parvati temple with the peculiar carvings on its struts are said of the erotic elephants. The road that from the City Gate leads to Potter’s Square passes by one of the innumerable hiti (fountain) of Bhaktapur with nearby a Garuda statue without any temple in front of it. Few footsteps and you reach a Ganesh shrine below a pipal tree on a hillock overlooking the famous Potter’s Square. In the square there are two temples, the small Vishnu temple and the larger Jeth Ganesh temple. Many potters can be seen making variously shaped and sized earthenware, working on their traditional wheels and thousands of finished and semi-finished clay products lie about in beautiful rows under the sun. Potters and their families are busy in preparing the lumps of black clay and the traditional open kilns.
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