Location: Nayabazar (the road between Kantipath/Lazimpat and Ring Road on the west side) Establishment: Metal working shop Cost: 18,000 rps for a Steel roof rack for a Maruti, 6,000 for iron or aluminum Near by walking: tons of “get ‘er done” shops Info: (01)-4383516 Prakash Lama: 9841541871 ★★★★★★ “We Deal In: Roof Rack, Bumper Guard, Seat Modification, Solar Water Heater, Other Vehicle Related Work, Stainless Steel, Aluminum and All Metal Works.” Located about three quarters of the way from Lainchur and Ring Road, Buddha Metal Centre is an unassuming, if not incredibly dirty and dingy shop with a bit of a front lot to it. Metal roof racks lean out front, catching the eye of this reviewer, who was in sore need of one for his micro-safari Maruti Gypsy lately.

Though the shop is not as clean as the dirtiest of back rooms in a warehouse, it is a trustworthy place. The owner and operator, Prakash Lama, is fluent enough in English that not even rudimentary Nepali is required for negotiation. Prakash’s workers have enough experience under their belts to construct roof racks for most vehicles (they didn’t even need to measure the Maruti, just knew it). They even went to the trouble to lay rubber (pieces of inner tube?) between the rack’s contact patches and the roof of the vehicle. The only room for improvement is the install process and water-proofing. The “installation” took place in a lot a few minutes away and included fabrication of the contact patches and posts, over a three hour period one day, the time primarily owing to the petrol shortage and the fact that the yard is using the alternator from a large diesel engine to generate their electricity. My advice: send the driver or take a good book. And prepare to apply water-proofing adhesive or other during the install process or soon after to insure 100% water proofing. For long term uses, prepare to get the machine screw measurements and replace the screws with galvanized ones after install; they just have steel screws as of this writing.