Trek prep - ATM charges, permits and shopping

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We arrived in Kathmandu from Delhi the afternoon of Weds 3rd October. The small airport was very easy to navigate and the new electronic visa application meant we didn’t need to use any of our passport photos and speeded up the form filling process. Despite the fact they prefer you to pay in cash (ideally US dollars but all major currencies now accepted) they will accept visa with a 2% surcharge. Unlike our experiences in India we found everyone incredibly helpful and smiley. I even ended up chatting to passport control about the importance of work life balance for quite a while (I was the last in the queue).

Our hotel picked us up from the airport for free and we were soon in our beautiful hotel, Taleju, in Thamel. We were greeted with mango juice, smiles and a free room upgrade. After dropping off bags we went for our usual wonder around the area to get our bearings and find some food and cash.
ATMs here charge a lot - we tried at least 10 different banks and found they all charge 500 rupees on top of your banks charges. Resigning ourselves to having to pay a fee we used the one with the highest limit possible - 35000 for any one transaction (£1 is about 150 rupees here).
Everywhere here also charges a 4% surcharge on paying by card so unlike in India cash works out cheaper.

The plan for our first full day was to sort out our TIMS (trekkers information management system) cards and ACAP (Annapurna conservation area permit) permits for trekking in Annapurna at the tourist service centre and then buy the bits we needed. The centre was busy and a little disorganised but everyone was very helpful and it was straightforward to organise. Of note it closes for lunch 1-2pm and at lunchtime on Saturdays.
Each card requires 2 passport photos (4 total) but they were taking & printing photos for free at the centre.
You also need to know your route and insurance details to fill in the forms.
The TIMS card is needed for any trek and unfortunately you need a new one for each trek (ie you have to pay for each trek seperately, even if they’re back to back).

After lunch the shopping started. We hate shopping.
We needed: jackets, map, walking poles, food, hats, drugs, gloves & sleeping bags. Thamel has all these things but in lots of tiny stores all with very similar fakes. There are a few full priced shops if you can afford them, or Nepalese brands which are better quality than the fakes.
Finding things took us much, much longer than expected. On day 1 we achieved a jacket for Stephen, gloves and some walking poles for me.
Many of the maps weren’t detailed enough (1:70000 was the best we could achieve in the end) and the clothing is all different sizes. Some we rejected as the quality was too poor (many of the down jackets were clearly synthetic), and others just didn’t fit. We both have long arms and it was hard getting long enough arms without the body swamping us.

We had hoped that days 2 & 3 on Kathmandu would be spent seeing the tourist sites. No chance. Day 2 we managed to get my jacket, hats, gaiters, drugs, a map, compass & snacks.

Surprisingly we discovered that it’s really difficult to find decent penknives, boot cleaner, bungee cords, shoelaces, biodegradeable wipes, scissors, anti-histamines and (not so surprising) dry shampoo.
I found it incredibly annoying that everywhere sells antibiotics over the counter here (azithromycin, metronidazole & amoxicillin in most places). In one pharmacy I overheard someone asking for antibiotics and without asking what for they were given some. Given the antibiotic resistance in this area from all these over the counter drugs I decided that we wouldn’t take any. Most infections are likely viral and without a stool sample random antiobiotics for diarrhoea could make things worse rather than better. Let’s hope I don’t get proved wrong on this decision!

Day 3 we got out enough cash to last the duration of the trek, pay our hotel and for a deposit on sleeping bags.
We have discovered that the SBI bank of Nepal does not charge for European Visa cards (it charges 395 for others).
After getting cash we went and picked up our sleeping bags and bought them back to the hotel to try and pack. Having tried them for size we decided Stephen could fit in the smaller bag and so swapped his extra large for a much lighter normal sized one.
Somehow the rest of the afternoon was spent packing our kit into different bags in different ways to try and make it fit comfortably. It’s a difficult balance between having all the kit we need and not carrying too much, I guess we’ll know when we get back whether we’ve got the balance right or not!

Tomorrow we plan to get the local bus to BesiSahar and from there we start the Annapurna Circuit trek. All being well we should finish it in 18-21 days having crossed the 5416m (>17000ft) Thorung La pass.

On our return to Kathmandu we are looking forward to actually seeing the city outside of the shopping district!

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Photos

Cocktails!
Pre trek cocktails and dinner