Prior to your trip:

• If you leave from India, book your flights 30-59 days in advance; this is when Indian airlines are most likely to offer the best deal.
• Fill out the online visa application. The interface used for this is very crappy, so doing it while having a buzz would be a good idea. The site times out a lot; and there are restrictions on the number of characters that can be entered for each field (of course it does not give you these warnings until after you submit). As for the Nepal hotel address field, enter some gibberish if you cannot find your ward number, district, or municipality. For the passport picture, take one with your phone on a light background, crop it, then upload (no need to be perfect with picture quality or size). Upon successfully submitting, print out the confirmation page.
• Make a copy of your passport and your latest visa page.
• Bring a pen to fill out disembarkation form (no pen will be provided at the airport).

At Tribhuvan International airport:

• After getting off the plane, fill out the disembarkation form (which can be found right before reaching immigration), get in line to pay for visa fee (exact change is best), then you will be given a receipt and directed to the officer that will stamp the visa in your passport.
• The foreign exchange rate at the airport is not bad. Note that the exchange rate changes by the hour, so when you see a good rate, exchange as much as you can. When we went, we got about 97 NPR for each 1 USD.
• There are places to buy sim cards at the airport.

Miscellaneous:

• There are power cuts 70% of the time. If your hotel does not have a generator, that means no Internet, no hot shower, no charging batteries.
• Cold showers are common.
• Nightly temperatures in February are low (about 37 – 42 degree Fahrenheit); and most hotels do not have heaters.
• Kathmandu is extremely dusty. Use a mask or risk getting bronchitis (which Adam got – he coughed like a nut for a whole month after).
• Lots of restaurants/hotels take credit card, but they will charge an additional 4%.
• Hotels are not noise proof, bring earplugs.
• “Namaste” is the key to all the smiles. I literally go around and say “Namaste” to everybody. When I got tired, Adam took over. Our system worked out quite well.
• Thamel (where most tourists stay in Kathmandu) is the heaven for souvenirs. Don’t wait to buy in less touristy spots because the amount and variety are also likely to decrease.
• No exciting food in Nepal. We tipped 10% at restaurants if there were no service charge.
• In the winter, sourvenir shops close down at about 8:00. The streets tend to get very eerie because there are very few streetlights.
• No need to visit all the Dubar Squares in Kathmandu Valley since they are very similar. Patan Dubar Square and Bhaktapur Dubar Square are not worth it at all (in my opinion).