■ NEPAL, KATHMANDU: This Sunday evening I was invited to wine and dine with my favorite Nepali citizen. Since I'm not one to show up without presents, I decided to go shopping at Kathmandu's Bhrikuti Bazaar first. This is perhaps the cheapest market in Nepal's capital so I decided to truly investigate how low the vendors would go for a Northface Winter jacket here.

To my amazement it was the vendors that operated with fixed prices that had the best bargains of all....