The lost Tibetan Kingdom of Nepal

The flight from Bangkok touched down nimbly, and taxied into one of our favorite cities in the world, Kathmandu. This time there was extra element of excitement for us, though, because we were here to explore the Forbidden Kingdom of Mustang. You can usually have a pretty good time in Nepal throwing together treks without a lot of pre-planning, but this is not the case if you want to set foot in Mustang. Govinda Panta, our friend and associate, runs Adventure Pilgrims Trekking (look for the world explorer鈥檚 logo outside his office on the street running north from the main square of the Thamel tourist district). Govinda can help with any Nepal adventure, but even for him, getting to Mustang involved months of bureaucracy- filing permits, registering staff, enumerating equipment and supplies, defining itineraries, etc. But here we were, ready to go! And there was Govinda, greeting us outside the airport with katas, the white scarves presented to people as a sign of respect and courtesy.

As we go re-acquainted with Kathmandu traffic on our taxi ride to our hotel (the pretty swanky Vaishali), Govinda introduces us to Pratap Gurung, who would serve as our sirdar, or expedition coordinator. To go to Mustang, an expedition has to have full staff including a sirdar, a cook and enough porters to carry all the supplies, which must include tents for lodging and all food to be consumed during the stay. Stoves and cooking utensils must also be carried in, with enough kerosene to last the duration. And, as noted above, all those things must be documented and approved by the trekking authorities, who will then issue the very expensive permit to enter the Forbidden Kingdom (which fees is on the process to reduce now.).

Mustang (also called the Kingdom of Lo) is a kingdom within a kingdom. It is a small northwestern border district which has historically walked the tiger trope between its larger neighbors, Nepal and Tibet. The people and traditions are Tibetan Buddhist, but the region has long been recognized as an automonomous Nepali state with its own king. The arrangement came about in antiquity when the King of Mustang began paying tribute to the Ghurka rulers of Nepal, and the status quo was respected even by Chinese when the overran Tibet in the 1950s. Today, the King of Mustang has a seat in the government of the King of Nepal, and spends some time in Kathmandu each year tending to affairs of state.

From Kathmandu, we flew to Pokhara and then to Jomsom to position ourselves for the 80_mile trek in and out of Mustang. The short flight to Jomsom is one of the most spectacular you can take, as you basically fly from the Pokhara Valley into the ';Great Himalayan Breach'; and land on a postage stamp-size runway 8,000 feet up. The Great Himalayan Breach is so named because here the Kali Gandaki River cuts through the highest part of the Himalaya, between the Annapurna range and the 26,800- feet Mount Dhaulagiri. The peaks on either side of the river tower 18,000 above it, so the canyon walls here rise over three miles above the riverbed. One feels very diminutive in a little 18-seater being buffeted by the wind!

This day, we made a safe landing and met our porters at the designed inn. We strapped on our loads (theirs significantly larger and heavier than ours) and set off to kagbeni, the gate way to mustang. In past trips, we had turned at Kagbeni and trekked off to the holy temple of Muktinath since we lacked the necessary permits to enter Mustang. This time, we were elated to stop at the police checkpoint and the be able to sign in and processed toward Lo Manthang, the medieval, walled capital city of The Forbidden Kingdom!

Trekking is a whole lot of work, no matter how you slice it, during this trip, I was reading the book Mustang: A Lost Tibetan Kingdom by Michel Peissel, the first Westerner granted to a permit to spend time in the area in the 1960s. I was gratified to read the part where he asks his Tibetan friend which part of trekking he liked best and the answer was: ';Going down when I%26#39;m climbing up; going down up when I%26#39;m walking down.'; Once you realized that the gorgeous mountain-and-valley vista you see before sunset, you have the picture. Mustang is particularly rugged country reminiscent of the American Southwest, expect on a much grander scale; mostly desert and rocky, its mean elevation of 15,000 feet makes it even higher than Tibet. The road to Lo Manthang involves crossing three mountain passes over 12,000 feet.

So we set off, following the course of Kali Gandaki at first. The Land of Lo is typical of other parts of Nepal in certain ways. The people are quite spiritual, and along the footpaths, even in the middle of nowhere, are placed orange, white and black chortens which are to be circled clockwise, or passed to the right. Rock cairns (to which all are encouraged to add) are also abundant, particularly at the passes. All along the landscape, but particularly on bridges and passes, prayer flags wave their petitions heavenward. Prayer wheels are inserted in walls built along trails to help travelers send their requests into the ether. We shared the path with a Saddhu one day. These men are typically successful businessmen who, later in life, decide to leave their families and wander the countryside seeking spiritual enlightenment, dressed in saffron fobs and carrying staffs. Some that you encounter in the towns or larger temples seem to be in it for the photo-opportunity tips, but we had little doubt this man in remote Mustang was really on a quest.

In the ensuing days, we scrambled through the ruins of the fortresses of forgotten medieval warlords; we visited Buddhist monasteries with their dusty libraries, grand status and grisly relics(e.g. an old mummified hand with long fingernails); we played Yathzee by candlelight in towns with no electricity; we sweated in our T-shirts on the trail had no immediately change and don down jackets when we stopped; we marveled continuously at presence of living, literally, ';at the top of the world'; for a couple of weeks.

As it happened, we got to meet the King of Mustang as he was returning by horseback to his palace in Lo Manthang with entourage, when our paths crossed at the inn at Geling. He was quite an amiable man, and had a few words with Govinda and took some pictures with all of us. It was quite an experience visiting his country and seeing a society just on the brink of new era. The reason expeditions have to bring in everything they will need is that Mustang reportedly has no infrastructure for tourism. But the Tibetans and Nepalese seem to have an innate market sense, and, since trekking permits began to be issued ten years ago, they have seen the needs of tourists and nascent inns, restaurants and stores are forming. The Chinese (whose border is only five miles away from Lo Manthang) are building a road in this direction from Lasha, and one has the sense that things are changing substantially for the Kingdom of Lo. We were glad to visit when we did, and see these things first person.

The lost Tibetan Kingdom of Nepal

Lovely description, wish I could be there right now.

A similar story about Mustang I read in %26#39;Kingdoms beyond clouds, by Jonathan Gregson, and really give a feel of a time ago.

Hope to be able to see Mustang before the connection to their outside world.