Change in plans

For a long time before I embarked on this journey, I decided to do the following: (i) a trek to Mount Everest base camp, and (ii) a trip to Tibet. However, on arrival in Kathmandu my plans changed.

Firstly, I had just finished this great book by Michel Peissel ' Mustang, The Lost Tibetan Kingdom'. Secondly the indecisiveness of the Chinese - closing the border to Tibet in March, then took forever to open it, only to close it yet again. And thirdly, as the Everest base camp route has been trekked to death, I then started to search for something that could offer me a trek of a lifetime, something to be remember always but also I wanted to see a place that practiced life, culture and customs as Tibet once did, this I found was in the last Himalayan Kingdom of Mustang.

Known as 'Little Tibet' Mustang offered me more than I expected. Sitting in the trans- himalayan region of north eastern Nepal (bordering Tibet), Mustang survived the Chinese invasion of 1951 and became a part of Nepal. Despite every citizen in Mustang holding Nepali passports, the citizens of Mustang, foster a strong unequivocal link to the Tibetan culture and predominately to the Sakya sect of Buddhism as it once flourished in Tibet. The dominant language is Mustangi, a dialect of Tibetan.

Mustang is only open to approximately 1500 tourists a year, and the trek up to the remote capital of Lo-Manthang provides nothing short of an absolute adventure :-) The trek which trails through remote areas and villages sometimes comprising of only one or two houses, also winds its way through substantial villages (Kagbeni, Chele, Tsarang and Ghemi) that once served as a thriving salt trade route between Nepal and Tibet. These whitewashed villages (decorated and built in an age old traditional form), are set amidst the dry mountainous terrain, lying in valleys populated by fields of barley and wheat, home to beautiful ancient chortens and monasteries that date back a hundreds of years, are a true reflection of the flourishing Buddhist culture that this region is known for. Flanked by an unimaginable terrain of what looks at times as the Sahara Desert in Africa, with its steep ravines, deep gullies and rocky jagged edge formations, the route to Lo-Manthang provides breathtaking views of the Annapurna mountain range snowy peaks and terrain only seen in movies.

What is to come in my next few posting is my twelve day trek in this himalayan kingdom making my way to the capital Lo-Manthang. I hope you find my posting as interesting as I found the trek to be.