Essentials to live in Nepal

Here's one of my favorite Kathmandu bargains:
Broken Equipment
If you have a fairly new digital camera or other electronic in need of repair but are too expensive to repair in the West see if they have a corporate presence here and bring it. One of my former assistants turned out to be a thrower and destroyed my Canon camcorder/digital camera. About four parts were bad and the total was only $50, a small price to pay for it. Damage elsewhere was a bit more costly.  Even if there is no corporate presence here you can still bring such things and have them fixed.

The thing to realize about bringing things to Nepal is that if you want to buy something that is traditionally used by the local people here it will be pretty inexpensive, but if you want something like an electric toothbrush you will pay about the same as in the west and will waste a lot of time trying to find one.

Anything made anywhere that isn't Nepal or India you will have to pay a huge tariff, but you won't realize it because it is already included in the price.

For example, when I went shopping for a new TV I saw the lovely Panasonic, Sony, etc. Then I saw a Wega brand TV for 25% less. Why? Because Wega, LG and a couple of other electronics companies have a presence here and no tariff. I have 2 Wega brand TVs and they have both outlasted the warranties and one even fell in the earthquakes and didn't break.

The Sony flat screen TV was around 28,000 NRs. and the Wega was 22,000 NRs. I think they are a bit less expensive in the US, which seems counter intuitive since they were made in Asia.

Please buy electronics and other items that are made in Nepal. You will support local families with jobs. I'd love to see other companies have a presence in Nepal and hire Nepali. 

So funny that the Chinese are counterfeiting Nepali handicrafts and putting the 'made in Nepal' tag on the item. These items are made in sweatshops in China by children. Nepali handicrafts are much more likely to be made by an actual adult craftsman. The quality is much better and you can support Nepali workers.

Love Nepal? Buy Nepali.