Kathmandu, Nov. 29 -- When asked about her first tattoo, Sumina Shrestha laughs. "You can't see it anymore, it's covered up," she says. Shrestha is one of just a few female tattoo artists in Nepal and runs her own studio in Thamel.

But the now 31-year-old started small. "It's funny-before I ever knew I was going to become a tattoo artist, we actually hand-poked in our school," she remembers. She and two of her friends bought sewing needles and fabric dyes at a local shop when they were around 15 years old, and hand-poked small symbols onto their wrists.

"I didn't want to get in trouble alone, so I made my friends do it too," Shrestha laughs. "We were very proud of our tattoos." It did not occur to her for many years to become a tattoo a...