Keeping in touch while living in Nepal

Hello everyone,

What are the best ways you've found for keeping in touch with friends and family back home while living in Nepal? How frequently do you stay in touch with loved ones?

Are there local equivalents to common instant messaging and online video calling services that you prefer or are more widely used?

If there is a sizeable time difference, how do you manage this?

Do you make international phone calls from a landline or mobile phone from Nepal? What do you think of the cost?

Thank you for sharing your experience.

Priscilla

I used to share my mobile number always with my friends or people I like them even without knowing them.
Also I'm visiting Sherpa mall and having coffee or iceCreem that aria where I can surely meet friends and more people.

Looking forward to visit Nepal in the cocming 3 weeks for 2 months to meet you and all.

Regards

I think if you use the EMS service you will find that it works better. They even have insurance.

I know Nepali who are trustworthy. It's easy to see fault when we have a Western education and can travel the world. But the people of Nepal have had a different experience and now have to watch us with our big money while they earn less than $10 a day. It's easy to see how someone would become discouraged.

The rich in Nepal are also extremely well endowed. They have more money that all the foreigners, expats and embassy people rolled into one! One of them has now even made it to the "Forbes List" with a net worth of 1, 2 billion US Dollars and Chairman of a group which includes nearly 80 companies. He is hardly the only one, witness the partial list of the others - 10 richest not only in "poor Nepal" but in the world - which readers can visit on:  www.promotenepal.com/variety/richest-nepalese-people/
The problem in Nepal is that the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen according to published information. In the meantime, the overwhelming majority of those very unfortunate people who lost their homes in that terrible earthquake are still by all accounts waiting for the reconstruction money to rebuild - two and one half years later. I would agree that the poor people of Nepal are trustworthy and hardworking too but with all the corruption in the country of the people in power who control the purse strings - and whose self interest comes first - the people at the bottom of the ladder will continue to suffer. As is so often the case in underdeveloped countries, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.
They could use national health insurance too.

:) I wish we can meet soon there. I will be visiting Nepal before end of year .

It's true what you say. Nepal has missed the train altogether. If I remember correctly, I think you once said that Nepal was still living in the 15th century. It is correct that the majority of the people are passive out there in them hills and countryside. Nepalis always seem to be in a waiting mode and waiting for the handout which either takes an eternity, or never comes. And like in any medieval times society, the serfs - as they once called back then - also lack the sorely needed education and will be passive, of any hope they may have had to try and correct the situation. Mind you, for the corrupt people with money and power at the top, it suits them perfectly to have things that way. The downtrodden can better be exploited for a longer period of time, maybe till the next century, like you say.

I use WhatsApp and Viber to contact friends and family in the developed world. WiFi works surprisingly well most of the time in Kathmandu.

I use messenger, whats app and my son calls me on his cell phone. It is cheaper for him to call me from Nepal to the USA then for me to call him from the USA. Wi Fi has been consistent over the last year and we talk several times a day.

Wi fi connections are good enough to even do Video calls several times a day. SInce there is a 12 hour time difference we touch base in the morning (eve there) and eve here (morning there)