Nepal
The information below is provided by Lonely Planet readers and is not verified by Lonely Planet. For the official lowdown, contact your nearest embassy or check out our Travel Links.
Visas, Embassies & Border Crossings
The airport departure fee increased to 1356 rupees for leaving to India (and other south Asian country), and 1695 rupees for leaving to anywhere else. Be there 3 hours before departure time. The officers will search all the baggage and even you from top to toe, at least 4 times before letting you on the plane. Chilli and matches are not allowed, bottled beer or the same chilli they provide during the flight is not a problem!
István Barta, Hungary (Jun 05)
Travel Tips
The Maoistsâ?¦ I was fortunate in that I didnâ??t run into any of them but yes, there are security checkpoints and increased police presence. But these are not targeted at you, they are targeted at the local population. Despite the increased presence of the Maoists, there should be no anxiety on the part on the travellerâ?¦ which country can you travel safe in the knowledge that you are welcome by the rebels? And which country can you go to have a good time and yet know that your money is not going to a faceless organisation but to real people who are trying to earn an honest living?
Name withheld (Jan 06)
Many of the big towns have open-fronted barbershops offering massages.
Always specify what you want beforehand and agree a set price as many
haircuts and shoulder massages hide hidden costs. Before you know it a
simple shoulder massage or haircut can turn into a back, leg, chest, foot and head massage, all with their own add-on costs. You may even get charged extra if they use hairwax or lip balm on you!
Matt Ward, UK (Nov 05)
On a recent trip to Asia, I visited Nepal (Kathmandu). I was aware that there had been a travel warning out for citizens of the United States. However I spoke with people who had been to Nepal before. My friend and I went to Kathmandu for 4 days and it was the best experience of my life. I did not feel in any way in danger, the people were very welcoming and it was very safe. The tour company told me that the number of tourists had dropped down in the last year, this is having a negative effect on the economy of Nepal. I would return to Nepal again next year if possible and I would strongly encourage anyone considering travelling to the Kathmandu region.
Laura McGuinness, USA (Sep 05)
In Kathmandu the electricity seems to be a major problem. During rainfall the whole system collapsed regularly. Don't use internet during the rains!
István Barta, Hungary (Jun 05)
E-Mail Services: These are now very common, almost every street in Kathmandu sports an internet cafe and these are often combined with an international telephone facility. Rates have dropped as competition has increased. Typically 50 rps for five minutes on line use.
It is still possible that all the time and effort spent in writing postcards is wasted due to the postcards never leaving Nepal. Always use at least a middle ranking hotel or the post office to guarantee departure.
At the Kathmandu domestic departure terminal. The X-ray machine has a 'Films Not Safe' sign where the 'Not' word has been removed. However no one in the group experienced damage to their film. The security processes are laughable since you are not checked but the luggage is on entering the terminal. Which means you can add items to your luggage once inside the terminal. Its only when you go through into the departure lounge you are personally checked.
Carl Flint, UK (Apr 05)
How to handle bagging street children? In Nepal there are a growing number of street children and because of the political situation it is increasing by at least a 1000 a year. A lot of these disadvantaged children are hanging around in tourist areas, bagging for food, cloths, pens, money, etc. For them it is a way of surviving, so they will continue to beg! Besides that it attracts children to the street because at home they do not get biscuits, chocolate, spaghetti, new cloths etc.
To support the disadvantaged children will probably give you a good feeling. And it is great to support them, but please do it the right way. There are many NGOâ??s working in Nepal to support the street children. If you really want to support the street children of Nepal, please find a trustworthy organization and donate your money, clothes or what ever you want, to these organizations. They know who are the most needy. And more important, the street children should learn to work for money, cloths, food etc, otherwise they will never pick up their lives!
Things you should never do: Street children are a very difficult target group to help. Most of them are living in the street since they were 6 or 8 years old. You cannot change their live by giving them what they are asking for, even not for a couple of months. It will take years to help and motivate them, picking up their lives again. If you do want to help them during your stay in Nepal, please contact an NGO first. An NGO with a good reputation and experience in this area will help.
Things you should never give:
Money: they will buy drugs/glue for it (even if they look innocent!)
New clothes: they will sell it back to the shop and buy drugs/glue for it
Food: they get used to getting their food by holding up their hand, while they should learn to earn it.
Education or work: they need professional support to get motivated to continue their study or job.
Marjo Jenniskens, Child Welfare Scheme, Nepal (Jan 05)
Moving About
Regarding traveling overland between Tibet and Nepal, it is a lot cheaper to travel from Tibet to Nepal than the other way round, especially in the winter. It is very easy (and inexpensive) to find travellers to share a rented jeep in Lhasa or Shigatse to travel to Kathmandu. However, the Kathmandu-Lhasa flight as well as the Kathmandu-Lhasa bus (USD85) are suspended in the winter from early November until the following spring, leaving one with only one option to travel into Tibet from Nepal: join an 8-day/7-night organized tour from Nepal. It is impossible to get a Tibetan Entrance Permit by oneself at the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu at the moment. I was told (by the Chinese embassy) that the only way was via a travel agent and I found no travel agent willing to get me just the permit without joining their tour (I was told this is a regulation set by the Tibetan Tourism Board!?).
YS Cheng, France (Nov 05)
Scams & Warnings
While staying in Pokara we decided to take a walk up through the forest to the world peace pagoda (as detailed in your lonely planet Nepal book). While walking I was attacked by two men and my backpack with all our money, passports and credit cards were stolen. When we reported this to the police we were told it happens all the time and we should have taken a guide (but we were not aware of this before we set off, had we known we would have hired a guide). The people in Pokara are upset with the police for not providing security and not warning tourists.
Jennifer James, UK (Nov 05)
When my wife, and I (54+55 years) walked down, the beautiful route from the " Sarangot-Vieuwpoint" to the lakeside of Pokhara, we where stopped by two young masked men, who asked for money. When I didn't react, one of them had a knife, and asked me again. My reaction was not afraid, and luckily they run away. ( My wife was limping with her leg, because of a fall) The Tourist Police were not availleble at the time of return, and at the normal policestation they didn't pay any attention to my story. We stayed at (a guesthouse), and the very helpful manager told us it had happened before, at the same place, where 2 Korean girls where robbed of about US$300 and 2 cameras.
Rein Langeland, Germany (Oct 05)
I recently had a black henna tattoo and have suffered a very serious allergic reaction. I have subsequently found that this is well documented and many henna dyes have PPD mixed in which is a very toxic hair dye banned in most countries. I was not aware of this and I am sure many travellers don't know about it either. It can actually cause death. Here is some more information: http://www.hennapage.com/henna/ppd/whybad.html.
Clare Edwards, UK (Sep 05)
World Peace Pagoda (Phewa Tal):
The path to the pagoda described in this book is not safe. We were mugged by four men with knives on this path and although no one was hurt, when we saw the police they said this is happening regularly.
Heather Rodgers, UK (Aug 05)
In your India LP you speak of "Gem Scams" well the same scam is in operation here in Kathmandu. As in the Indian one we were called in from the street by a guy, telling us of the fortunes we could make. These guys were very convincing, showing us photocopied passports of previous scamees and email feed back they got from these people. What the wanted us to do was to send jewelry to the UK where we would meet a guy who would give us our cash. Initially they wanted us to pay £1000 as "insurance" for their side, our insurance was that all these valuable gems were in our names and we could easily run away with them. Still not convinced the man in question offered to take us out for dinner, so we went with him ("if he is trying to scam us then at least we should get a free meal out of this bastard") Over dinner he said that seeing as we did not have £1000 to give him, we could just give £300 and receive £3000 each upon delivery, we knew it was definitely sus after he said this. We were susposed to meet him this morning but we decided not to.
Ronan De Lacy, Ireland (May 05)
Feeling the effects of altitude can begin on arrival at Lukla airport. An extra breath every few seconds especially whilst talking takes most people by surprise. Most photographs of your fellow trekkers from this altitude onwards reveals the majority with their mouths open, in effect gasping for breath. The first altitude related casualty I saw was a middle aged woman who became distressed at the shortness of breath, she had to return to Kathmandu having never got past Phakding. The second casualty we met was a young Dutch guy. He was being escorted down after collapsing in Pheriche. He was in his mid twenties, had decided very late on to book the Everest trek, he had not undertaken any training for the trek and by his own omission was not particularly physically active, and after suffering from headaches above Namche had blacked out.
Carl Flint, UK (Apr 05)
We were recently travelling in Nepal and wanted to get from Pokhara (Nepal) to Delhi (India) travelling overland. Despite our reservations we were talked into pre-paying the whole trip from Pokhara (can't remember how much it was). I just thought I'd outline the add-ons that the various parties tried to scam out of us on the way. At the border they tried to get us to pay for rickshaws across the border to the restaurant where we were supposed to pick up our tickets for the next bus and train, big argument (there were five of us after teaming up with some other Westerners so we had some arguing power) and eventually got across on the rickshaws at no charge. All of us had paid for our trip end to end back in Pokhara and waiting for the tickets at this restaurant we knew a scam was coming our way.
Unfortunately as the others were heading to Varanasi we had to be split up sooner or later and the locals who took us to our bus put our bags on top of it then walked us right up the back of it and then stood over us and demanded an extra 300r for our train ticket. The same happened to the others. To cut a long story short we did everything we could to avoid getting into that situation but eventually had no choice but to hand the money over (despite nearly starting a riot!). I suppose the moral or the story is don't prepay unless you get all your tickets in the hand but he did try to do this at the start and were assured there was no chance of doing it that way.
Jon Gourlay & Jeremy Grey, Australia (Mar 05)
I have just returned from a trekking trip in Nepal and thought that other readers of your Nepal travel guide would benefit from hearing about my experience with diamox, the anti altitude sickness drug. I took diamox at Annapurna with no problems. I took it again whilst in the Everest region and had a rather nasty reaction. Within 4 hours of taking half a 250mg tablet my eyesight started to blur. This continued throughout the day, and the next morning I awoke and could see virtually nothing with any clarity. I was taken to the Kunde hospital where the resident New Zealand doctor was completely stumped, more than a little concerned, and ready to helivac me back to Kathmandu. However the resident Nepalese doctor intervened and told me that he had indeed seen this condition before and that it was as a result of an idiosyncratic reaction to diamox. He told me I would be fine the next day (I was and continued on my trip up to Kala Pattar and EBC). Over the course of the next days I discovered that many lodge owners were also aware of this possible side effect of diamox.
Iain Langridge, UK (Mar 05)
Our story may be of importance to travellers in the Pokhara region. On the 15th November 2004 at 11.00 on the well trodden path from the dam in Pokhara to the World Peace Pagoda my wife and I were held up by 2 man armed with bush knives and sticks demanding to hand over our backpacks. We had little choice and lost our cameras, GPS, PDA, credit cards, some money and even our LP. In town we heard that these things occur regularly and not only to tourists.
Anonymous (Dec 04)
Several times a little boy begins walking next to you and tells he knows all the capitals of the world. He really does, we tried a lot. In the end he doesn't ask for money, but just for milk. You think it's OK, but he takes you to a familiar shop and makes you buy a large can of milkpowder, which he never will use, but he'll give it back to the shop for money. We didn't go to the shop, because someone in our guesthouse already warned us.
Roel van de Wiel, Netherlands, (May 03)
Gems, Highlights & Attractions
Biking in Nepal is nice..sometimes the atmosphere can get really euphoric. When me and my girlfriend arrived in Bandipur after a super steep 8 km climb that lasted for 1.5 hours some people started applauding, hahaha; a good reward. This climb and a overnight stay in a welcoming guest house is worth all the effort.
Martin Langevoord, (May 03)
The walk up to Sarangkot is a must , and should be done early enough to catch sunrise somewhere near the top, i.e. leave sometime between 4 and 5. This can be done in 2-2.5 hours from lakeside depsite what your book says, if you follow the lakeside road round to the third bay. There is a path marked to Sarangkot, and although it is pitch black, all you have to remember is to take the trail that leads UP and you'll be fine! If you leave too late in the morning, it'll probably be cloudy and a tiring waste of time.
Costi Karayannis, UK (Mar 02)
In Kathmandu, I took the Everest flight, the one where you get into a small plane and get flown around the mountain. It's quite an experience, since you are flying at about the same altitude as the mighty Himalayas that are all around you, and seeing it all from pretty close. The feeling of being there is magnified when your little aeroplane goes through pockets of turbulance that are present around the mountains. The flight lasts about an hour. I was shooting all this for a travel feature for television, and needless to say it gave me some pretty neat shots! Some of the airlines that fly you around are Gurkha Air and Buddha Air.
Husain Akbar, India (Sep 01)
Yarns, Fables & Anecdotes
The jungle walk started with a ride in a VERY sinkable canoe down the Rapti river. The water line was only an inch or two below the top of the boat! From this viewing point, we saw six crocodiles — you can imagine that at eye level those marsh-muggers are much scarier. When we arrived on land, our guide gave us the 'if you see a rhino and it's close, it's very hard to live' speech, advising us to either climb a tree or run zig zag if charged. Soon in, we heard the roars of a sloth bear and tiger fighting it out in the distance, and our adrenaline began flowing. Huge rhino sized holes in the grass all around us heightened our fears. Then it happened — we saw the grass moving back and forth violently, and heard rustling noises too. We ran down the trail to another path, and could see about 40 feet away a mom and baby rhino, an extremely dangerous combination to see when you are on foot. Our guides bolted down the path and we ran as fast as we could after them. Finally, after going over a bridge and not hearing any pursuit we felt safe. Later that day I couldn't help but ask the guides, 'Why didn't you guys zig zag?' They answered, 'Oh that never works, that's just something we tell tourists to give them confidence.'
Some of the tea houses we stayed in hand interesting posters on the walls:
'Life is for living and not for complaining'
'Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved'
'The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them'
'If you sit down quietly, it may alight on you'
And my favorite:
'We have been, let us say, to hear the latest pole. Transmit the Preludes, through his hair and fingertips'.
(For non-English speakers, don't worry if this doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to English speakers either)
Jeff Faris, USA (Jul 02)
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