Vaishya Dev is known in tourist books as the God of toothaches here in Nepal and is represented in Kathmandu.

Here it is in an alleyway, in essence a large collection of metal washes nailed to each other at the base of what was once a sacred tree. Hindu mythology, its culture, combined with Buddhism gives Nepal an endless array of festivals and unusual practices that have long disappeared in neighbouring Asian countries.

On a holiday to Nepal, you can get very modern dental treatment (much more cheaply than the West) with European trained dental technicians in very clean, modern clinics. What’s nice, is that dentists also examine your tongue and advise on diet, sleep and other factors. There is an ‘interconnectiveness’ with treatment, much like Buddhist karma, looking not just at the symptom but also the cause from a lifestyle perspective.

However, traditions still remain, here a boy enters his head into the symbol to relieve toothache. Shamans too also perform ceremonies around toothache patients, dancing with yak tailed sticks and chanting but they are often more expensive than the dentists