By Edward Wong
THE
tale begins with a demon.
 |
Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times
In Mustang, caves in cliffs near the village of Yara. More Photos »
|
Centuries
ago, it destroyed the foundations of a Buddhist monastery under construction in
central Tibet. Then Guru Rinpoche, who had brought Buddhism to the kingdom,
pursued the demon west, deep into Mustang. The two fought among Mustang’s snow
peaks, desert canyons and grasslands. Guru Rinpoche prevailed, and he scattered
the demon’s body parts across Mustang: its blood formed towering red cliffs,
and its intestines tumbled to the wind-scoured earth east of the cliffs. Later,
people would build a wall of prayer stones, the longest in Nepal, atop the
intestines.
On
the fifth day of our trek, we stood above the demon’s heart. Here, on a
hillside, the people of Mustang had built the monastery of Lo Gekar, one of the
oldest in the Tibetan world. A lama showed us around. I found no remnants of a
demonic heart, but the walls in a dark room at the rear were covered with
paintings of fearsome creatures with fangs and blue skin. Tibetans called them
protector deities. Our guide, Karma, pulled me over into the shadows and
pointed to another wall. I squinted, and saw a statue of Buddha that had been
carved from the rock. Or so I thought.
“They
say the statue is natural and was discovered this way,” Karma said. “People in
Mustang have many stories. They believe everything. There are spirits
everywhere you look.”
Mustang
was a caldron of myth, as I discovered on a 16-day trek through the Himalayan
region of Nepal in September. Modernity was creeping in to the area, but the
stories that people told had evolved little over centuries. As I walked through
the valleys and white-walled villages, I heard tales that brought alive the
harsh land, a place of deep ravines and stinging wind and ancient cave homes.
It had been this way before the kingdom was united under Ame Pal in the 14th
century, and the narratives seem as alive today as ever.
I
had longed to visit Mustang ever since I got a glimpse of it while trekking the
nearby Annapurna Circuit 12 years ago. On the northern arc of the circuit was
the village of Kagbeni, with its red-walled monastery. To the north was an
expansive gorge carved by the Kali Gandaki River. Beyond lay Upper Mustang, or
the Kingdom of Lo, forbidden to those who did not have a permit from the
Nepalese government.
This
fall seemed like the right time for me to go. As a boy, I had seen my mother
embrace certain Buddhist beliefs, and later I began walking paths in the
Himalayas in search of something transcendent in the landscape and the abiding
expressions of faith. I would soon turn 40, and my first child was on the way.
It was time to make a Himalayan pilgrimage at the close of a chapter of my life
and the beginning of another.
There
was another reason to visit now. Last year, as a wave of self-immolations swept
across the Tibetan plateau, China restricted access to the region — which had
already been limited since 2008. For tourists, Mustang is a good alternative.
It provides a taste of authentic Tibetan culture, and, like much of Tibet, it
lies in the Trans-Himalaya, a vast high-altitude desert to the north of the
main Himalayan range, which blocks most of the monsoon clouds that dump rain on
India and Southeast Asia in the summer.
Last
year, nearly 3,000 tourists entered Upper Mustang, according to statistics in a
government office in Kagbeni, an increase of more than 25 percent from about
three years earlier. But the permit fee — $500 for 10 days, and $10 for each
additional day — still deters many travelers. The low numbers, though, are
welcomed by those trekkers looking to avoid the busy Annapurna and Everest
trails, as well as by some Mustangis, even ones who say the government needs to
give Mustang a greater portion of permit revenue.
“Our
land is in one of the most beautiful corners of the world,” said Jigme Singi
Palbar Bista, 55, the ceremonial prince of Mustang. “But if a lot of tourists
come, we wouldn’t be able to support them all.”
After
a week in the Katmandu Valley with my wife, Tini, I met up with my friend
Gilles and flew north, between the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri massifs. Many trekkers
rush from Kagbeni to Lo Manthang, the walled capital of Mustang, and back in 10
days. We decided to go more slowly and explore some of the hidden corners along
the way. Summertime in Nepal is when some of its last remaining nomads set up
camp in the high grasslands west of Lo Manthang. In that area, too, are peaks
of more than 20,000 feet beckoning to be explored. A 16-day permit would also
allow us time to travel up the valleys running north of Lo Manthang, toward
Tibet, and then return to Kagbeni along the canyons east of the Kali Gandaki.
The eastern half of Mustang was more remote, and it had some of the
best-preserved Tibetan Buddhist cave art in the world.
Each
day of the trek, I marveled at how the landscape of Mustang was unlike anything
I had seen in the Himalayas. It was a place of canyon vistas revolving around
the enormous valley of the Kali Gandaki. The trekking routes on both sides of
the river ran up and down side valleys. The rivers were low most of the year,
but some summer monsoon rains meant we had to ford rivers a half-dozen times.
Much
of Upper Mustang is a desolate place, inhabited by about 5,400 people and once
crossed only by Tibetan pilgrims and yak caravans. We entered the area on the
second day of the trek. There, at a wide stretch of the Kali Gandaki, the
waters were flowing high and fast. All our gear was lashed to three horses.
Besides Karma, our team consisted of Gombo, a horseman from Lo Manthang, and
Fhinju, an ethnic Sherpa cook.
After
the trail crossed the Kali Gandaki, it climbed steeply up to the village of
Samar, considered the wettest and greenest place in Mustang. Right before dusk,
we crossed a pass draped with Tibetan prayer flags and walked down to a lodge.
Karma came from Samar, and his brother, the village head, owned the lodge. The
main villages in Mustang all had at least one home where trekkers could stay.
The rooms had simple beds or a bench with a thick Tibetan wool rug. Exhausted
from a long day of trekking, Gilles and I sat down in the warm kitchen for dinner,
next to French travelers. For dessert, the brother’s wife prepared apple pie
with custard.
From
next door came the sound of a pounding drum. “Traveling lamas,” Karma said.
Over
the next days, we settled into our trekking routine: get up at 6 or 7, eat
breakfast, walk for six to eight hours, reach a village before nightfall. The
countryside became more barren the farther north we went, as we approached Lo
Manthang. The hues of the mountains — shades of red and brown and ocher —
changed each day, and varied with the movement of the sun.
All
across the rugged land, people had built Buddhist chortens, or small stupas,
atop hills, on pathways leading into villages and even inside caves, in part to
ward off spirits that would do them harm. Tibetan Buddhism and the myths were
intertwined threads that were in turn woven into the landscape.
With
the tail end of the monsoon came the harvest. Villagers were out in the fields
cutting down golden stalks of barley. But the harvest also brought out more
stories of curses, bad spirits and misfortunes that could befall people. Karma
said the high passes that linked Mustang with the arid land of Dolpo to the
west could not be crossed until after the harvest, legend had it, lest the
harvest end in disaster. The same held for climbing the unnamed peaks that rose
to over 20,000 feet west of Lo Manthang. One day, tempting fate, I walked up
one. When I reached the snowline, above 19,400 feet, it began hailing. Dark
clouds loomed. I went down.
We
reached Lo Manthang after that climb and a couple of nights camping near nomad
families. We had sat in their black yak-wool tents and sipped cups of
buttermilk tea. In Lo Manthang, I spoke to the prince of Mustang (his father,
the 80-year-old king, had been ill for weeks) and visited the three red-walled
monasteries at the heart of the town. We met a team of dozens of locals being
led by an Italian, Luigi Fieni, who was repainting Buddhist artwork in the
gargantuan Thubchen Monastery. Its towering roof was held up by a forest of wood
pillars and its enormous gilded statues inspired awe.
After
two days, we left, following Karma to a place just as singular but hidden by
the land. From the village of Yara, we approached a cave east of the Kali
Gandaki gorge that was reachable only by a vertical climb. We took off our
packs and scrambled up using our hands. One slip and we would have plummeted
hundreds of feet to the valley floor.
This
was Tashi Kabum, a cave temple that local villagers had opened to the public
only a few years ago. Inside was a large white chorten, and painted on the cave
walls and roof were some of the best preserved ancient Buddhist art I had ever
seen. I could make out lotus petals on the roof. On one wall was a portrait of
a lama in red robes. More enigmatic was a painting of a smiling, ivory-skinned
man in a seated position. His face was illuminated by sunlight streaming
through an opening in the cliffside.
Fhinju,
our Sherpa companion, brushed his fingers over the painting. “Chenrezig,” he
said, and bowed his head in prayer.
For
Tibetan Buddhists, Chenrezig was a bodhisattva embodying compassion. Tibetans
believed the Dalai Lama was a reincarnation of him. He was a central figure in
Buddhist pantheons across Asia. Growing up in an American suburb, I had watched
my mother pray nightly in our living room to a statue of the Chinese
incarnation, Guanyin.
Here,
as far from my childhood home as it was possible to be, he gazed out at me
again. Faith in him had crossed borders and transcended time. The tale took on
a different meaning with each person. I stared into his eyes and saw his story
unfolding in days to come.
TAKING
THE HIGH ROAD
GETTING
THERE
Most
trekkers enter Upper Mustang at the village of Kagbeni. The nearest airport is
at Jomsom, a three-hour walk away. Flights to Jomsom from the resort town of
Pokhara cost less than $100 each way. The airlines and frequency vary with the
season, and there are often cancellations due to bad weather. But the view from
the plane, which passes between some of the world’s highest mountains, is
jaw-dropping. One alternative is to take a 14-hour bus ride to Jomsom along a
route that has frequent landslides.
GUIDES
Foreigners
must arrange their Mustang permits through an individual guide or trekking
agency. I recommend hiring a native Mustangi as a guide, though they are hard
to find. I used Karma Samdup (karmakurt@hotmail.com), who comes from the
village of Samar in Mustang.
If
you want to go with a Western-led travel agency, Project Himalaya (project-himalaya.com) and Kamzang (kamzang.com) run treks in Mustang.
LODGING
Every
major village on the trekking trails in Mustang has a guesthouse or home where
trekkers can stay. An experienced guide knows them all.
