Shops in Nepal keep long hours, and in tourist areas usually stay open seven days a week. But when dealing with officialdom remember that Saturday, not Sunday, is the day of rest - and bureaucrats like to knock off early on Friday, too.

In theory, government offices and post offices are open Sun-Thurs 10am-5pm, Fri 10am-3pm; in winter (mid-Nov to mid-Feb), the Sun-Thurs closing time is 4pm. These schedules often get truncated at either end, though. Most museums keep roughly the same hours, except some close on Tuesdays instead of Saturdays.

Moneychangers and some banks in tourist areas are generous with their hours, but elsewhere you'll have to do your transactions between 10am and 2pm Sun-Thurs, 10am-noon on Fri. Travel agents tend to work a five-day week, 9 or 10am to 6pm, Mon-Fri; airline offices are the same but they take a lunch break at 1-2pm. Embassy and consulate hours are all over the place.

Complicating matters is Nepal's hectic calendar of festivals and holidays , which can shut down offices for up to a week at a time. Dates vary from year to year - Nepal has its own calendar, beginning in mid-April and consisting of twelve months that are completely out of step with the Western ones. (The Vikram Sambat calendar began in 57 BC. Thus the Nepali year that begun in April 2001 is 2058 VS.) Religious festivals, meanwhile, are calculated according to the lunar calendar. Tibetan festivals follow yet a different calendar.