Nepal's police fought thousands of protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets today as an anti-monarchy campaign widened dramatically into the tourist heartland of the capital.
An alliance of seven political parties leading the campaign against King Gyanendra called on citizens to stop paying taxes and asked the police and army to join the protests. Several people were injured and dozens were arrested in the clashes that left the streets of Kathmandu strewn with stones and burning rubber tyres.
Many vehicles were off the street on the 11th day of a general strike called by political parties demanding restoration of democracy, and thousands walked to work. Sunday is a working day in Nepal and there was no holiday for Easter.
The district of Thamel is a maze of alleys in the centre of the capital full of backpacker hotels, bars, curio shops and trekking and travel agencies that is a magnet for most tourists entering the country, but has also been immune to the current unrest.
In the Balakhu district, thousands of protesters battled police with stones, as police lobbed tear gas shells at them repeatedly. Police fired several rounds of rubber bullets to scatter the activists.
King Gyanendra sacked the government and assumed full power in February 2005. The seven-party political alliance, which has been opposing him since then, launched a general strike on April 6th, bringing the nation to a standstill.
The parties upped the stakes today. "We ask taxpayers not to pay any tax to the government, civil servants to disobey orders and security forces to take off their uniforms and join the people," said Krishna Prasad Sitaula of the Nepali Congress, the country's biggest political party.
The unrest in Thamel, which many Nepalese consider a foreign enclave, was unusual. The district has usually been insulated from protests because of worries it would affect the tourist trade, a main source of the impoverished kingdom's earnings. Local businessmen said they could no longer afford to ignore the campaign against the king.
Kathmandu was a favoured destination for the original hippy trailblazers of the 1960s, and remains the base for visitors trekking in the tranquil Himalayan mountains and its forested foothills or visiting the birthplace of Lord Buddha.
Those on expeditions to Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, usually stay in the capital for some days to stock up on equipment.
Nepal had 277,000 tourist arrivals last year, down from a peak of about half a million in 1999 and about 300,000 in 2004. Most tourists watched the protests bemused, and many took photographs.
At least four people have been killed and hundreds wounded in police firing and baton charges on demonstrators. But neither side looks likely to back down from the confrontation.
The king has offered to hold elections by April next year, but activists say he is not to be trusted and should immediately hand over power to an all-party government.