Anytime Nepal is mentioned, eventually the phrase “third world country” or the word “poverty” comes up.  For travelers on a budget, Nepal is great because it’s cheap and even when money isn’t an issue, wealthier visitors still spend comparatively less moolah than they would elsewhere like maybe in France. For expats that live here, they’re definitely privy to a more luxurious life because money stretches further when it’s Rs 75 to the US dollar.  But I’m not telling you anything new – the beggars on the streets, the kids with those noses in bags of super glue, the miles long lines outside of agencies sending workers overseas are a testament to how Nepal is not a vat of wealth.

That being said, a point I think needs to be brought to light is that Nepal actually does have money. Lots of it. Unfortunately the majority of the wealth in the country is limited to a very small percentage of the population.  We’re always prone to thinking of Nepal as so under privileged – we’re the students always looking for (full) scholarships, we’re the uneducated man desperate for a job, and so on, but a take closer look and you’ll see that citizens from here can afford all the goods from around the globe – and they’re even willing to pay a much higher price.

Case in point – the iPhone. If you’re in America, the iPhone 4 (16 GB) costs $200 – but that’s provided your phone carrier is either Verizon or at&t. For the same phone unlocked, it amounts to USD 649. So using Rs 75 to the dollar, the cost of the phone should be NPR 48, 675. In a country when the average salary is a fraction of what the phone costs you think it’s quite indulgent to buy the phone.

Almost fifty thousand for a phone… that’s a lot as it is. But when you stroll over to the Evo store (the authorized Apple dealer in Nepal), the same phone is about 10 grand more expensive. In fact, the phone which could be purchased for about 47G in the US amounts to a hefty 62,000 rupeers! With the additional two hundred dollars added to the bill here, you could just buy an iPhone 4 in America with a contract.

Maybe it’s because I’m earning a Nepali salary which is just enough to make do in Nepal, that’s a whole lot of money to me for one phone. So, out of curiosity I asked a representative at the Evo in Dubar Marg how well these phones sold and he gave me a quote of about one a day. Which means this one store is combing in a minimum of 60 grand a day.

And we say Nepalis don’t have money.

Nepal isn’t poor in the way we think it is. We’ve become poor in compassion, stringent in caring, and absolutely lacking in social responsibility. Maybe the richer of us could be fine with a phone that costs Rs 20,000 (which is still a lot for a phone!) and putting the rest of it to good use.

Saani has no real goals and aspirations but she sees opportunity in everything and goes with the flow. This is probably because she loves exploring and discovering. She writes for fun but for the same reason she also cooks, reads, and spends a lot of time on random websites that offer a chance to learn all sorts of tid-bits on life