Hi all,
I recently made a series of visits to the Central Jail in Kathmandu and wanted to share what I learned since the rules have recently changed (as of February 2017?). It's my hope that this post will save you or somebody a little bit of headache and heartache.
The Central Jail is located in Sundhara. You can ask the taxi to take you to China Town specifically. But before you go you must first get a letter from your embassy and a letter from the Dept. of Prison Management. Once you've got your non-objection letter from your embassy you take this to the Dept. of Prison Management in Kalikasthan. Ask the taxi to take your to immigration in Kalkisthan. The Dept. of Prison Management is right behind it. There they will take your embassy letter and issue you permission to visit whomever is in jail. Once you've got this you can head to the Central Jail. There they will make you go upstairs to the Big Boss's room and he will have to sign off on it. Once you've got his signature--and this is a very important step--you should go outside a make a dozen photocopies of it. You can use these photocopies each you visit the prison. Otherwise you will have to repeat all of the above steps and you do not want to do that.
Now that you have your stack of visiting letters, you take that one to the office downstairs and they will issue you a blue slip which you take to the main line outside. They'll check you bags and do a body search and give you a pass to then go visit. Make sure not to take any ATM cards of your mobile phone because they won't let you through with them! It can be good to take a friend with you to have them hold these things.
That's pretty much it. I feel sorry for those of you who have to read this but I hope it will save you some time and stress. The Nepal jail is not a very fun place. My friend was a victim of being a stateless person (Tibetan) and that's how they wound up there. Most of the people in there are in for drug charges. So please be careful if your smoking in Kathmandu because a good time can go sour really quick. And the embassy tend to not help drug offenders whatsoever.
My last tip that I found useful is to play the part of the goofy uncle from abroad. That means to pretend to be a little bit confused but mostly to smile and laugh with them. That'll cut through the tensions quite quickly. But you also have to push a little bit, very gently. Otherwise nothing will get done.
Okay that's all for now. Please feel free to contact me if you need more advice. I hope this post finds whoever needs it.
