There's a big flea market every Sunday in a car park near the railway station in Kathmandu, and I've been going there on and off for about five years. I'm a photography student, so I mainly go looking for old cameras and lenses, but I always end up browsing everything.
It starts very early, around six in the morning, and by eleven most of the good things have gone, so serious buyers arrive at sunrise with torches. Sellers lay their goods out on sheets on the ground or on folding tables, and there must be a couple of hundred of them.
You can find almost anything there. There are piles of second-hand clothes, a lot of them jackets and jeans that have come from abroad in big bundles. There are old radios, phones, cooking pots, school textbooks, broken toys, tools, and occasionally real treasures, like brass statues or old Indian film posters. My best find was a film camera from the seventies that cost about the same as a pizza, and after a bit of cleaning it worked perfectly.
I think people like it for different reasons. For many families it's simply about saving money. Clothes and household items cost a fraction of the shop price, and in a country where incomes are low, that matters a lot. For people like me, it's more about the hunt. You never know what you'll find, and that's exciting. I'd also say there's a growing awareness among young people that buying used things is better for the planet. And finally, it's sociable. Bargaining with sellers and chatting with other regulars turns shopping into a morning out.