Near the Top of Asia, the Kingdom of Lo (Part 7, Heading South)

Heading south out of Lo Manthang

Dear readers, we have walked to the remote capital of Lo Manthang in Nepal's Kingdom of Lo and ridden horses to the monastery of Nyiphu near the Tibetan border. But autumn was approaching, and it was time to head south and, eventually, home. 

Leaving Lo Manthang, we walked south through a rather desolate and bleak landscape. Imagine the winter here at 3,800 m elevation. For our trek south, we followed the eastern route which approximately follows the Kali Gandhi River. We crossed a couple of passes exceeding 3,900 m elevation, but it was not hard walking, and we had been at that altitude for over a week.

Modern steel girder bridge at Charang

Charang (Tsarang)

Long day in the saddle, Charang

Charang (or Tsarang), at 3550 m is the first town south of Lo Manthang. We stayed in the Kailash Hotel, a rustic but clean place. Note from the photographs above that we still had magnificent weather, with nights just a bit below freezing. It was October 14, so winter would be here soon.

A ruined palace, once the home of the Raja of Mustang, strategically overlooks the town.

Dhargyeling Monastery, Charang

The Dhargyeling Monastery in Charang, possibly over 500 years old, is a treasury of statuary, painting, and sacred scrolls. How do these pigments survive the brutal cycling from cold to hot?

Ghami

In another day, we reached the village of Ghami, where we had stayed a week before. From here on heading south, we retraced our steps along the Kali Gandhi River. 

Main Street, Syanboche

Packing up at the Dhaulagiri, Syanboche

Our next night was in Syanboche (also Syangbochen? approx. 3,800 m), really little more than a dirt street between some houses. 

Sure-footed walking near Chungsi

Samar

At the Annapurna, Samar

Samar was a rather well developed town, just a short distance above Chele and the crossing of the Kali Gandaki. North of town, the road passed through some treacherous terrain of landslides and rotten rock. We saw road crews trying to cut the road across some cliff-faces. We learned later that in the following winter, parts of the road were swept away in landslides. Our horses were more sure-footed than we were.

The next day, we walked across the river and stayed again in the big town of Kagbeni, which I described in Pat 2 of this series (click the link).

Jomson

Oh, oh, traffic, electricity, stores, lights - after another day's walk south from Kagbeni, we reached Jomson, the main commercial town of southern Mustang. Jomson has many hotels as well stores, a health center, and an airport. This was a major stop on the Annapurna circuit, so it has received tourist traffic for decades.

Jomson was the last stop for most of our group. They returned to Kathmandu by air. Within about a week, brutal cold descended into Central Asia, and many Mustang villagers had to head south abruptly. 

I opted to continue south on foot and walk down the fantastic valley of the Kali Gandaki. The river cuts the deepest canyon in the world between the 8,000-m peaks of Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. This amazing 4-day walk carries your through several biologic zones as the elevation drops and the temperature goes up. You are in high altitude desert at Jomson and semi-tropical rainforest at Tatopani. I wrote about this canyon walk in 2017. Highly recommended!

This ends one of my best hiking trips ever. I hope you enjoyed riding (walking) along. 

Near the Top of Asia, the Kingdom of Lo (Part 6, Nyiphu Monastery)

 

Waypoints from a Garmin Geko GPS receiver. Mystique is the guesthouse in Lo-Manthang. Maps made with ESRI ArcGIS software

North of Lo-Manthang, the terrain looks dry, wild, and forbidding. But humans have inhabited this area for at least 2500 years, indicating there was sufficient water for agriculture and animal husbandry. The cliffs around the valley are riddled with caves, some of which were used for human occupation hundreds of years ago. Many were tombs and contain religious relics dating back to the origins of Tibetan Buddhism.

 

Chhoser is a small town in the valley north of Lo-Manthang. I think this is where we bought tickets to visit the monastery. In the photograph above, note the rock walls made of rounded river rock. I assume this is one way that the villagers cleared the land to make it suitable for some agriculture (barley?) or grazing. You see similar rock walls in New England, where settlers in the 1600s and 1700s cleared rocks from the land and used walls as a disposal method.

The  Nyiphug Namdrol Norbuling Monastery is north of the town of Chhoser and is partly built into the mountain. We rented horses for the 8 km. trip north out of Lo-Manthang. Our Sherpa guides walked, but we wimpy lowlanders opted for the bumpy luxury transportation.

Ancient books wrapped in silk

Modern notebooks at a study table

Buddha backed by a modern commercial decorative cloth (or tablecloth?)

The rooms built into the rock are decorated like many gompas, with colorful fabrics, a sitting Buddha, candles, some electric lights, and a variety of offerings donated by pilgrims. Fascinating.

 

Monks occupied some of these caves in solitary meditation, sometimes spending months or years alone. Other caves shielded families in the past during warfare. I am not sure how they handled water supply. Some caves contained tombs dating back thousands of years. A 2017 Public Broadcast System (PBS) NOVA program described an expedition to investigate Secrets of the Sky Tombs. We were able to climb up to some of the caves, which have passageways and platforms that are semi-safe for tourists.

 

View from a cave above Nyiphug Gompa

This is a very special place. And the remoteness and culture will be profoundly changed when the road is complete down the Kali Gandaki. Already, the road to China means Chinese trade goods come in from the north. What happens when mass market tourism comes via bus? As David Ways wrote in 2019:

For trekkers the dreaded road from Pokhara to Lo Manthang to Tibet is not yet as bad as some people make out (it only exists in small sections and is completely off-road). However, once it is finished and the trading route to China is fully open there’s little doubt the Kingdom of Lo will disappear into folklore and package tours much like the Annapurna Circuit of 10 years ago.

Returning to Lo-Manthang

As of 2011, Lo was still a magical place, a time capsule of tradition and a way of life little changed over the decades. I am glad I visited this remote part of the world. When the COVID crisis is finally under control, consider a trip to the Kingdom of Lo. 

These are digital images from a Panasonic G1 digital camera. This was Panasonic's first micro four thirds (µ4/3) camera and was very refined for a version 1 product.

Near the Top of Asia, the Kingdom of Lo (Part 5; Lo Manthang)

 Lo Manthang is the largest town in remote north central Nepal, near the border with Tibet. According to Wikipedia,

Lo Manthang was the walled capital of the Kingdom of Lo from its founding in 1380 by Ame Pal who oversaw construction of the city wall and many of the still-standing structures. After the Shahs of Gorkha forged Nepal out of numerous petty kingdoms in the 18th century, Lo became a dependency but kept its hereditary rulers. This arrangement continued as long as Nepal remained a kingdom, until the country was declared a republic in 2008 and Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista (c.1933–2016) was stripped of his title. His protector King Gyanendra suffered the same fate, however the raja or gyelpo of Mustang was 25th in a direct line of rulers dating back to 1380 AD. 

Crossette (1996) provides some of the cultural and mid-20th century background to Lo: 

Until the unification of Nepal by Gorkha kings in the eighteenth century, most Tibetan borderlands were not really a part of the country. Psychologically, many pockets still are not. The kingdom of Mustang, nearly 150 rugged miles from Kathmandu in a protuberance thrusting into Tibet, was one of them until Nepal opened the territory to develop­ment and  trekking.  In upper Mustang, the Buddhist kingdom of Lo, with its walled capital, Lo Manthang, broke free of Tibet in the fourteenth century, reached its height about a hundred years later on the strength and income of trade with Tibet, and enjoyed an independent existence for nearly four hundred years. During that time temples and a few palaces were built in what was called Mustang Bhot - Tibetan Mus­tang. "Bhot," ''Bhotia," "Bhutia,'' and other variations of the word often mean Tibetan to South Asians in the same way "Hellenistic" meant not quite Greek but within the influence of the Greek world. The word, probably a variation of ''Bot," originally meant Tibet in the Tibetan language. 

Although the kings of Mustang had lost all their residual powers and the formal use of titles in the 1950s, Mustang was a wild card as late as the 1960s, when Nepal was unable to do much to stop a Tibetan exile guerilla force based there with what is widely assumed to be substantial help from the United States Central Intelligence Agency. The guerrillas, known in Nepal as Khampas because most were from the Kham region of eastern Tibet, obviously never stood much of a chance against the Chinese army in Lhasa, but they could serve as an annoyance to Beijing. Tibetan exiles in the Indian hill town of Darjeeling told me, with linger­ing bitterness, that American enthusiasm for their cause ended as sud­denly as it had begun when President Richard M. Nixon recognized the Chinese Communist regime. Some Tibetans went on fighting until the mid-1970s, when Nepal sent soldiers to wipe out the bases of the rebel­lion. About the same time, the royal government of King Mahendra introduced some development to Mustang, which had lost its Tibetan trade.

Lo-Manthang city map (only a bit not in scale)

Rooftops of Lo-Manthang

After walking for days northward through Mustang, Lo-Manthang seemed like the big city. We saw jeeps and motor bikes, some street lighting, stores, cows, horses, and guest houses. We even saw some satellite dishes, and the guest houses had wi-fi. Note the traditional wood sticks placed along the roof parapets. 

Winter preparation, Lo-Manthang, Nepal

Passageway supported by ancient timbers

The motorbikes have an interesting trade connection. As of 2011, the road south through the valley of the Kali Gandaki towards Jomson was not complete. We saw workers constructing sections of the road and learned that during the following winter, rock slides and avalanches destroyed some of their work. However, the Chinese had built a road north from Lo-Manthang to the border with Tibet. Therefore, most of the goods we saw in the small shops, such as packaged foods, cosmetics, candies, and propane bottles, came from China. We learned that several times during the year, Chinese traders held a fair at the border to which Nepalese buyers could visit without visas. That is where the Nepalese bought inexpensive motorbikes, petrol, spare parts, and who knows what else.

But change was ongoing already. As early as the early-1990s, Crosette (1996) describes the trip taken by a Nepali writer, Manjushree Thapa (1992), to Mustang:

She described the king's palace in Lo Manthang, with linoleum on the floors and men who drank themselves into nightly stupors while rolling dice. But she also wrote of the piety and devotion of people who had maintained their Buddhist temples and monasteries undisturbed by poli­tics over centuries. She sat down for tea with monks eating Chinese candy brought back from Tibet, where temples are once again open to them. One of their lamas made regular trips to Tibetan gompas, they said, where he was much in demand to say prayers, In return he brought back butter for the butter lamps of impoverished Lo Manthang. It was an interesting trade-off: the wisdom and piety of an unbroken Tibetan Buddhist tradition for the biscuits, sweets, and butter of soldier-rich, monk-poor Tibet. Tibetan gompas aren't alone in looking toward Lo for a rare cultural purity, Thapa wrote. With the barriers to outsiders coming down, Mustang, like Bhutan, will draw a special breed of tour­ist. "Because it promises a Tibetan culture more pristine than in Chi­nese-occupied Tibet, Lo is the darling of discoverers, adventurers and Tibetophiles," she said. But the outside world is alien, no matter what its motive for coming to Mustang. And outside influences were already making a mark before tourism began, as more people from this hidden kingdom traveled beyond its mountain walls.

Being a former royal capital, Lo_Manthang was full of ancient chortens. 

The raja's Royal Palace is a complicated, five-story structure built around 1400. Imagine the passageways and semi-forgotten chambers. There was probably a cistern to save rainwater. Does it have indoor plumbing now? Several large Tibetan mastiffs sat on an open porch and growled at everyone and everything.

The king signing a book. Note the magnificent furniture.

Dorky tourists with the King of Lo

Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista (Nepali:जिग्मे दोर्जे पलवर विष्ट) (1930-2016) was the unofficial King of Mustang (Mustang Rājā) between 1964 and 2008, when Nepal abolished the Monarchy. The King continued to live in the Palace, and local residents throughout Mustang continued to respect him and his opinions on cultural and administrative matters. We learned that he lived in the palace for the summer but spent winters in Kathmandu and Los Angeles. The raja died in Kathmandu at age of 86. His only son died at age 8, and the current heir to the throne lives in California, married to a Bhutanese princess. 

The school (read the sign for the full name) is supported by the American Himalayan Foundation. It is is a modern building and has electricity. 

Example of street lighting. 

I cannot remember how many nights we stayed in Lo_Manthang, either 3 or 4, making this a fascinating  cultural experience. GO before this remote part of the world changes forever!

References

Crossette, Barbara, 1996. So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, Vantage Books, 320 p.

Thapa, Manjushree, 1992. Mustang Bhot in Fragments, Himal Books (Kathmandu), 139 p.

Photography

These are all digital files from a Panasonic G-1 digital camera. I may have posted too many pictures, but this is a fascinating site off the normal tourist route. 

Cover of So Close to Heaven

Near the Top of Asia: the Kingdom of Lo (Part 4, Approach to Lo Manthang)

Walking to the horizon, view from Mui La (4170m or 13,700 ft)

The northern part of Mustang is bleak and dry - a high altitude desert. The winter cold must be brutal. 

We left the guesthouse in Ghami and headed north on the high trail (bypassing the town of Tsarang, where we would stop on our way south). We passed the longest Mani wall in Mustang. 

Dhakmar (3820 m elev.)

Dhakmar Khola

A river roars through Dhakmar. From there, it was up to the Mui La at 4170m, then on to Ghar Gompa.

Ghar Gompa (monastery)

Ghar Gompa is a famous monastery, part of which dates back to the 8th century. How did the monks survive here? How could they grow enough crops? The Little Ice Age from the 16th to the 19th centuries must have been very difficult.

Finally, Lo Manthang in the distance. This had been a long and tiring day, some 8 hours on the trail at 3800 - 4000+ m elevation. From our approach from the southwest, Lo Manthang appeared to be situated in a desolate dry terrain with no vegetation. But in reality, it is on a flat plain between two rivers, and the alluvial valley has been sufficient for agriculture for centuries.

Next: the "big city" of Lo Manthang.

These are digital files from a Panasonic µ4/3 digital camera. 

Near the Top of Asia: the Kingdom of Lo (Part 3; Mustang Trek North)

For most of us westerners, the Kingdom of Lo, now known as Upper Mustang, is about as far off the tourist path as you can go (although this is changing rapidly with road construction). Mustang is a district in northern Nepal, bordering Tibet. As of 2011, you needed to secure special permits to enter the area. The government of Nepal was trying to prevent uncontrolled over-tourism, especially considering that the infrastructure was primitive for tourists and food supplies were already limited for the local Nepalis, let alone for tourists, who eat vastly more. 

This is Part 3 of a 6-part series covering of my 2011 trek into the heart of Mustang. I hiked with a group of Americans plus two Austrians. Vidya Hirachan of Mustang Trails, Trekking & Expeditions (in Kathmandu) organized the logistics and transportation for the group.

1. A short 2011 article shows waypoints along the route.
2. I wrote about the town of Kagbeni in 2017. Kagbeni is the gateway to Mustang, where foreigners need to show permits before they can continue north into Upper Mustang. 

In this article, I will show scenery and towns along the route north. You can follow the towns on an excellent map posted by MagicalNepal. Part 4 will cover the approach to Lo Manthang, the capital of Mustang. Part 5 will cover Lo Manthang, where we had a short audience with the King (no, not Elvis).

Chele (3060 m)

Kali Gandaki (river) near Chele, Mustang, Nepal

From Jomson to Chele, the main trail follows the alluvial valley of the Kali Gandaki. The Himalaya are young mountains and still rising as a result of plate tectonics. Therefore, streams and rivers carry a tremendous sediment load of gravel, cobble, and sand. The trail usually follows the east bank of the river bed but drops down onto the gravel bed in some places. I am not sure how people traverse the route when the water is high.

Just below the town of Chele, the trail crossed the river on a modern steel bridge. In the past, a temporary bridge was probably washed out every spring. International aide organizations have been building bridges like this all through Nepal, and now villagers can cross dangerous rivers even in winter. These bridges are strong enough for motorbikes and yaks.

Chele is the third town north of Kagbeni. I do not remember the other two towns or if they offered tourist accommodations. 

The neat rows of dry sticks along the roof edges are a traditional demonstration of prosperity. I do not know if the wood is ever burned; I recall someone telling me it is left for display.

The local youngsters practice cricket. They run around with ease, unlike us tourists, who were puffing in the thin air.

We spent a comfortable night bundled up in our sleeping bags. We brought our own coffee, so we were fortified in the morning.

Samar (3660 m)

The trail ascended steeply out of Chele. The horses are amazingly sure-footed, more-so than us!

Samar from below town

Hotel Annapurna Restaurant & Bar - comfortable and clean

We spent a comfortable night in the Annapurna Restaurant & Bar. On this trip, we did not have our own cook staff or food supplies, so we ate what was available in the guest houses. On the first few days of the trip, the temperature was so high, Dr. Don (our cultural coordinator) reluctantly let us wear shorts. Times are changing, and none of the local folks seemed to care or be upset.

Bhena La (pass, 3835 m)

Carina protected from the sun and wind, Bhena La, 3835 m elevation.

From the town of Samar up to the Bhena La was a stiff uphill walk. Compared to the days along the the Kali Gandaki river bed, it was windy and cold here at 3800m. Every pass has prayer flags strung from the spires of the chörten or gompa.

Syangbochen (3800 m)

The porters and horse men spent long evenings gambling

Saddling and loading in the morning.

Syangbochen was another small town (5 houses?) and a teahouse, where we spent an overnight. It was cold at night but we had our down sleeping bags. Dinner was the typical and very good Dal Bhat (lentils, rice, and vegetables). The horse tenders were up early to prepare the loads. Two horses were on reserve with saddles in case someone in our group was tired and needed a ride. But only a couple of my fellow travelers ever needed the ride.

Chhunggar (3889 m)

All the main mountain passes are protected with a chörten. Chörten (Tibetan) or Stupa (Nepali) means heap, but in reality, they are carefully crafted stone towers made by skilled stone masons. The two circles are Buddha's eyes, and he faces all four directions. You are supposed to pass to the left side of the structure, meaning clockwise looking down. 

Jhaite (3817 m)

Jhaite (or Zhaite), 3817 m

Jhaite was a nice little town with some stands of trees and a well-decorated chorten at the town entrance. We had bypassed the town of Geling, which has a 15th century monastery.

Ghami (3520 m)

Village of Ghami

After a long day, we were very glad to see Ghami. 

The villagers were preparing for winter. The winter is cold and brutal here, and drinking water may be a problem. Some villagers stay all winter, but many walk south to take temporary jobs in the Kathmandu valley or in India. I do not know if the children go south to lower-elevation towns to attend school. 

Cattle or livestock feed for the winter

Chörten in Ghami

Ghami was quite a maze of passages, tunnels, and narrow alleys among ancient buildings. Like some of the other Mustang towns, Ghami had been an important stopover during the salt trade. The salt trade largely shut down during the middle of the 20th century when factories began to manufacture salt containing iodine. 

We stayed in another comfortable guesthouse, but I have forgotten the name. I remember the night was cold. 

This ends this phase of the trek northward into Mustang. To be continued.

These are all digital files from as Panasonic G-1 micro four thirds (µ4/3) camera.