Jenn and I were told that as a general rule it is relatively easy to find a furnished apartment in Kathmandu. Unfortunately, this is not exactly what we experienced. Upon recommendation we met with a real estate agent named Kumar Lama. We tried to tell him what we were looking for, but there seemed to be a language barrier. We told him we were looking for an apartment on the second floor or higher (to avoid insect infestations and potential flooding problems in the monsoon season), fully furnished, and within a price range of 12000 – 18000 Rupees per month ($200 - $300 CAD). The first place he showed us was over $400 per month (at least it was fully furnished!), the second and third place he showed us were both unfurnished and one was even on the ground floor!
I know I sound like a big whiner, so I am going to cut this short. After looking at a dozen places we found a place that we liked for the location, the price and the fact that it was very recently built. We settled on a partially furnished apartment, which entailed an agreement to supply a refrigerator, a two burner gas stove (with a gas cylinder included), a bed and a kitchen table with four chairs. We also negotiated to include curtains so we could have some privacy, and some kitchen utensils and pots and pans! As we were quickly learning, everything must be negotiated, price always being the last thing…
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