Mustang and the Edge of the Plateau

Cross the Kali Gandaki beyond Jomsom and the country changes. The green falls away, the wind picks up, and the rock turns to red, ochre, and a strange pale gold that the afternoon light makes almost unbearable to look at.

Upper Mustang is a restricted area — a small number of permits, a required guide, and a landscape that has changed less in a thousand years than most places have in fifty. The walled city of Lo Manthang sits at the end of the road, its royal palace still standing though the kingdom itself was dissolved in 2008.

The culture is Tibetan Buddhist, old and deep. The cave temples above the valley hold frescoes that date to the fifteenth century, and the monasteries are still active, still chanted in, still lived in by a handful of monks in a way that feels less like preservation and more like continuation.

This is not an easy trip. It is dry, high, and exposed, and the wind can blow for days. But for the traveller who wants to see a Himalaya that the modern world has barely touched, there is nothing else quite like it. We run a small number of Mustang expeditions each season; they need planning, and they are worth it.