Shopping for gear here in Khatmandu is so much better than I expected. The streets of Thamel are lined with trekking shops selling obvious knock-off's, great replicas and original gear which costs about 80% less than what you pay for it in Australia. My Hindi skills helped us to assess thing clearly and it wasn't long before we found a nice store called Sonam. Sonam is a Nepali owned trekking gear and seems to be providing a pretty good end product. They have a huge range of gear and market their product well. All of their equipment has a 3 year warranty and it is about a third of the price of the original gear (North Face, Black Diamond... Etc).
I ended up buying about 80% Sonam gear and also picked up a Exped down sleeping bag and a BlackDiamond head torch. Slept in the sleeping bag last night and it was very toasty.
