Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/19NVQ7tP7vVDnU986
After Israel and Palestine, I stopped by Chennai for a few days to see my grandma and pick up my rental 60L hiking backpack. Gained my customary few pounds from my grandma constantly feeding me good food but it wasn’t an issue as I was going to lose it on the trek. I left most of my stuff behind except for trekking stuff, and then flew over to Kathmandu. I had a day there to finalize all my trek arrangements, and got to walk around the main tourist drag, Thamel, quite a bit. Honestly a nice enough chaotic city that basically feels like India, with roving groups of gringos everywhere. Sort of like a less historic Cusco or something. Nice enough city but pretty forgettable. After a day in Kathmandu I took a fun 10 hour bus ride west to Pokhara (same thing I did for the Poon Hill trek in my first rodeo in Nepal 3+ years ago, back when I was out of shape). Pokhara is like a shit Bali – tons of overpriced restaurants on the main street, an OK enough lake but nothing special, but there are cool mountain views when the skies clear out. Spent a day here to chill as the first day of my trek was another 10-12 hour drive on bumpy roads, so I wanted to not do that back-to-back.
The Upper Mustang trek is a fairly easy one (at least, fairly easy for me). But I have gotten to the trekking level where I can do a trek like this for the Tibetan Plateau and Tibetan Culture and not really worry about the hiking part. Like it was tough enough at times to make it a fun trek but nothing too challenging. It was 11 days of hiking, with a low point of ~2800 meters and a high point of ~4200 meters, so nothing too crazy. The entire Upper Mustang region is a restricted area, which means that every single non Nepalese citizen needs to pay 500 USD for a permit that grants them up to 10 consecutive days of access. For every additional day, you need to pay 50 USD…because my trek involves 12 days in the area, the permit alone is 600 USD. The government is doing this to preserve the region’s culture, which I totally get. Beyond that, because it is a restricted area, guides are also mandatory, which also jacks up the cost…my total trip was well over 1k USD.
So Nepal has actually recently legally required that all foreign trekkers need a guide, which I think is ridiculous since every single Nepal trekking trail can be done solo if you are good trekker. This is especially true with offline maps, and even moreso considering that you stay in village guesthouses every night for every single tourist trek in the country. I totally get the need for a guide when camping and preparing food (like all of the treks in India). This basically adds like a minimum of 500 USD to every trek, so I honestly don’t think I will be back in Nepal to trek after this unless I am doing a technical climb, in which case you obviously must go with a guide for safety. But for just hiking for a week-plus, they’re definitely going to lose a good chunk of backpacker business.
The trek was a decent mix of walking alongside a new China-funded road and proper trails (I would say about 60% trail and 40% road), but that didn’t subtract from the experience at all for me. Apparently 10 years ago there were no roads, but due to China’s Belt and Road initiative that has changed (as has the constant presence of strong 4G signal). Small rant here, but I hate how westerners always speak of development as a bad way when it “impacts local culture”…raising the standard of living is *always* a good thing, and I feel like many westerners view these exotic cultures like something that should be kept static and in a zoo, when in reality no culture is ever static. If Upper Mustang loses some of its’ Tibetan charm in the next 20 years but everyone is more well off, that is objectively a good thing. Likewise, I also hate how many in the west constantly view the Belt and Road as some terrible thing. There is a reason developing countries are going to China. To quote a famous twitter exchange…a sub-Saharan African official tweeted that “when the West comes we get lectures, when the Chinese come we get hospitals”. Then a UK academic responded “Yes, but who pays for the hospital?”. And then some random person responds “Here comes the lecture”. If you really want to curb China, find out why countries are going to them and then try to top that, instead of just whining and being self-righteous about it.
The first day was about 9 hours of driving north of Pokhara. We crossed over the Himalayas and entered the Tibetan Plateau, to the village of Kagbeni. The landscapes were very reminiscent of Ladakh and Lahaul&Spiti in India, and even bits of Tajikistan (which is, to be fair, on the western edge of the plateau. Though obviously it is not culturally Tibetan at all). Just rested after getting to Kagbeni, and the next day we did all the formal permit checks before beginning the trek. It was about 15km from Kagbeni to the village (village is a strong word, it was like <10 buildings) of Chelle…we went up about 300m of elevation so it was a nice and easy day, which took about 4.5 hours. Seemingly over half the elevation game was in the final 500 meters or so of the hike so that was a fun last push before getting to the guesthouse for the day. The landscapes here were like a mix of the vast, dried out river valleys of Tajikistan or of the Spiti Valley in India. And the distant view of rolling, lifeless, arid brown hills with towering 7000+ meter peaks behind them was reminiscent of the grander vistas of Lahaul&Spiti, or of Ladakh. Again, Tibetan Plateau, so the Ladakh and Spiti comparisons make sense, as do the Tajikistan ones. Absolutely beautiful landscapes. And this was my first time trekking on the Tibetan Plateau…I did roadtrips with *minor* hikes in Ladakh, Tajkistan, and Lahaul & Spiti, so it was a different take on what is by far my single favorite landscape…I think that the Tibetan Plateau is my alltime favorite travel spot, and Tajikistan still my single favorite trip, so I really am a sucker for high altitude alpine deserts.
It was also great to be back in the mountains. I don’t know, there’s a certain feeling of “home” that I get specifically in the Himalayas when I go high up (I loved the Andes but did not get this same feeling there). You start getting the light body aches and shortness of breath, but then you feel amazing a day or two later after full acclimatization. Everyone looks more attractive after going a week+ without showering and covered in mountain dust…guys (no homo) and especially the girls alike. Sort of like how that grimy, rugged look makes everyone look more attractive in Burning Man. I actually got a super late grad school offer from Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore (same two year MPP), full rent and tuition and a stipend, so I will probably wind up reneging on Hertie in Berlin to take this, as long as I get the free housing (application is a lottery, but if I get it, it is free). The only thing is I would wind up focusing more on international development than pure humanitarian aid now because of LKY’s program strengths, but I really am interested in doing some sort of local economic work that is related to climate change, and I genuinely think the Himalayas is a great potential spot for that. I have like the next 6 months to figure out what I want to do though, so no rush.
It was also cool wandering through the small Tibetan villages scattered about on this trek. Very reminiscent of the villages in Ladakh and Spiti, and also in the PS3 game Uncharted 2 as well (honestly like a top 3 game for me and I think that is what started my love for all things Tibet). Just the eggwhite square blocks, wood on top, all in a crazy harsh landscape…just such a cool vibe. I do think that the villages here were cooler than the ones in Ladakh or Spiti. Overall, I would say that Ladakh has the edge for pure natural beauty and landscapes, Spiti for the monasteries, and here for the Tibetan culture. But all three are absolutely amazing locations.
After a long day of reading/chilling/rest, the following day of the trek was a bit more exciting, going to the settlement of Syangbochem – there are like 4 buildings there. This was certainly a fun day, moreso because I was lugging my ~11kg+ backpack the entire trip so this day specifically had a bit more oomph. We went up from 3100m to 3600m over about 7km in about 2.5 hours and stopped for an early lunch, as that was the last village before Syangbochem. We then went down 200m and then up 400m to 3800m in elevation for a beautiful view of the rolling arid brown hills with the towering snow capped peaks behind. And then we dipped 400m again to a valley. Took a slight detour and went up 100m to see this really cool 1000+ year old Buddhist monastery cave, the Chungsi cave. The remoteness makes it all the more beautiful. From there, dipped 100m again, and then went up 400m again, back to 3800m, to Syangbochem. The total down and up and down and up distance from lunch to the guesthouse was about 10km, and took 5 hours(!!!) with the cave detour. But yea, fun day.
The next day was like day 1, super easy. Went a little over 10km in distance to the town of Ghami, and covered it in about 4.5 hours. We went down from 3800m to 3600m, then up to 4000m to another beautiful pass viewpoint, and then down to 3500m to Ghami. The landscapes here were more rocky than before…almost got vibes of the American southwest, the Andes, or even Afghanistan – red rocks for the SW, just rolling high altitude hills with scrub like the Andes, and the painting-like stark brown of Afghanistan.
Ghami was one of the coolest villages of the entire trek. Proper Tibetan feel with narrow stone alleyways, colorful stupas and buildings galore, prayer wheels everywhere. There was also a nifty little monastery here that was “only” about 600 years old – pretty cool, but definitely paled in comparison to the ones in Spiti. And the food during this entire trek was all (I think) authentic Tibetan food…certainly not the best, but very wholesome and filling. Thenduk was a personal favorite – thick flat noodles, meat, and vegetables in a hot soup that was a great dinner dish. Other memorable dishes were a Tingmo momo, which was just these pieces of doughy bread that you would dip into a curry (pretty sure I had the same dish in Spiti, under a different name), and a handful of dishes that were some sort of mix of dough and yak butter and yak cheese which was awesome. And I also had Tibetan tea on this trip! Same as Ladakh and Spiti, basically a salty buttery soup that is an acquired taste, to put it mildly. Of course there was also Nepali food as well (this might be the Tibetan Plateau but it is still within Nepal. Like how Ladakh and Spiti also had Indian food). Nepali food for me is basically like a worse version of generic pan-Indian food…lentils and veggies and rice was the go-to dish that was wholesome and filling.
On day 4, we spent about 4 hours to go ~600m uphill to 4100m, and then downhill a further 200m to go to the Ghar Ghompa (Ghompa means monastery)…this was also over around 8km of distance. This was a pretty neat monastery with super cool artwork inside (no pics allowed of course)…the dancing demons that are my favorite Tibetan Buddhist motif were plastered all over on the inside. It was quite a small monastery, though it is apparently the oldest in the Mustang region. I will say that this still fell a bit short of the Tibetan monasteries we saw in Spiti, but it was my favorite one of this trip. After lunch here, we walked about 2 hours, going downhill ~300m over another 8km to the town of Charang. The main things to see in Charang was the monastery. It is the second oldest monastery in Mustang after Ghar Ghompa, and the exterior was certainly much more impressive, especially as it was perched on a hill with the beautiful landscapes behind it. But the interior to me was not as cool – it was too bright and felt “new”. And the wall paintings themselves were cooler in Ghar Ghompa for me. This day was also a very diverse day in terms of the hike. We had the sort of dry brown hills that look like paintings overlooking small towns in the valley below, a lot like Tajikistan. And at the top of the pass there was the same gorgeous view of the rippling brown hills with the towering Himalayas behind them, and then you also had vivid red rock formations and stark white rock formations as well. Just super cool stuff. And a lot of these steep cliffs had Buddhist caves (that we obviously couldn’t access), much like what I saw in Bamyan in Afghanistan.
The next day was a nice and easy walk along the road for 15km to Lo Manthang, where I would spend 3 nights to see the area and catch the Tiji Festival, which is a local festival dating from back when this was the Kingdom of Lo. This was the only mixed bag of what was otherwise a fantastic trip…excellent highs and some real lows as well, among the lowest I’ve had in four years. But, Upper Mustang still slots up there with Ladakh and Lahaul&Spiti for me as an absolute top-of-the-line destination…the Tibetan Plateau is just awesome. So anyways, this should have been an easy ~3.5 hour hike, but instead took just over 4 hours. This was because there were literally *over 100* 4WD cars that we counted driving past us to Lo Manthang, kicking up dust. Turns out that the geriatric European and American tourists turned up en masse for this festival, and instead of trekking, they just drove in (on the Chinese developed road)…easily over 500 tourists were in Lo Manthang for the festival. This was definitely good money (every single foreigner paid 500USD a pop for the same restricted area permit I paid for), but the raw number of people stretched the town’s resources thin…the 4G was crawling unless you woke up at 5am (much like in Patagonia, or even Desert Trip, the dad rock concert I went to with my dad back in 2016 in SoCal), and the WiFi in the town crashed as well.
I’ll start with the bad first. The festival, especially in days 1 and 3, gave me strong Varanasi vibes. Rich white people coming over to ogle at exotic foreigners and their mysterious ways. You had all these old farts walking up to locals, not ask for permission, and then zoom in and take a photo of them to get a pic of a nice old Tibetan lady or a nice Tibetan child. Just really awful stuff that made me despise the whole thing. And on days 1 and 3 of the festival, the ratio of foreigners to locals was like 80:20, so I actually left like 20 minutes in on both days because I couldn’t take it. The bright side was that I was able to walk around an abandoned town and explore for a bit. Typical Tibetan architecture – eggwhite mud walls, wood stacked on the roofs, colorful doors and windows, narrow stone alleys…it was like a larger version of Ghami. Cool little town.
But it was during these down times that I got to interact a bit with the locals who were not attending the festival, and also get to see the three ancient monasteries pretty much by myself. Tibetans are super nice people, and they all spoke very basic English. I got to talk to a monk who mentioned that over 200 people who were originally from Upper Mustang now live in Jackson Heights, Queens (the single most diverse place in the world), so we got to talk about that for a while since that was my parents stomping grounds back when they first immigrated to the US in the 80s. He also mentioned how Upper Mustang is predominantly a sect of Tibetan Buddhism that we in the west call red-hat, so they have a different leader than the Dalai Lama (who is the leader of the yellow-hat sect). This leader funnily enough resides in Dehradun, in the foothills of the Himalayas in India. I also got a couple of gift shop items. One was a thangka for my parents – this is a Buddhist drawing that is hung in monasteries – which was of the super cool protector diety. The entire piece is like the size of my chest, and the artist is actually working to restore paintings in one of the monasteries in Lo Manthang, which I thought was legit. Very cool and detailed drawing that they’ll hang up somewhere in the living room. But I am a big fan of those protector deities…very reminiscent of the Nataraja, or dancing Shiva, in Hinduism (another obvious similarity with Hinduism is the omnipresence of the Garuda figure here). Also a lot of motifs about death and destruction, which is quite common in both tantric Buddhism (ie Tibetan and Japanese), as well as in tantric Hinduism as well (Shiva, Kali, demon-like protectors in Temples, etc.). I think the reason I specifically really find Tibetan Buddhism cool and not Southeast Asian Buddhism is because of how Tibetan Buddhism is tantric, so the art style and motifs are just fascinating for me. Sort of like how the most fascinating Christian artwork for me is also all the Hell and death related stuff. Japan was obviously very similar, but the austere landscapes of Tibet make the Buddhism here resonate more. Other similarities with Japan include the gutteral chanting that you get in Tibet (between Lo Manthang, Ladakh, and Spiti where I have been lucky enough to sit in on chanting prayers). The other gift that I got was for myself, and is the first (and last) gift that I have purchased for myself during this entire retirement run. It was a cool phurba, which is this Tibetan ritualistic dagger. Beyond the badass design (skulls, skull necklaces, the whole shebang), the main reason I got it was because a phurba is one of the most important recurring items in Uncharted 2, which is the game that got me into Tibet in the first place.
Anyways, the Tiji Festival. Day 2 was not so bad, because this was the one day where the locals actually outnumbered the tourists. The entire square was jam-packed and I was lucky to have gotten there early for a good spot…my guide said that day 2 was the “most exciting” and also the one with the most locals, so I actually had expectations for this day vs the first and third days (which somehow went below my already low expectations given what my guide told me beforehand). But there was tons of cool dancing by all these masked figures. The masks were honestly awesome, and it was pretty legit to see the entire day *with locals* and not feel like some sort of zoo spectator. You had these dragon-mask creatures dancing and fighting, these demon-figures whirling around and threatening to stab the crowd, and my personal favorite, these grinning skeletal-like figures that honestly looked very Day of the Dead esque, doing this weirdly drunk feminine dance before killing a demon and running away. Honestly, the sort of staggered motion dancing these skeletal dudes did weirdly reminded me A TON of the dancing I saw in the Tajik wedding that I was invited to during my roadtrip there almost two years back. Weird, but yea.
I also had time while in Lo Manthang to take a quick hiking trip north to the village of Chosser. This was about 8km each way and roughly the same elevation…each direction took only about 90 minutes of walking. We got up close with the cliff caves and were able to crawl around in them, which was quite cool. Also a few nifty monasteries, but these were less impressive than Lo Manthang for me. One interesting thing here was we did see ton of Tibetan Buddhist books here, like what I saw in one of the Spiti monasteries. The books are gorgeously designed – rectangular blocks with intricately carved wooden covers, and then the pages inbetween with the writing done in literal gold. But there is no binding for the pages, which makes these books aesthetically very pleasing but functionally quite useless I feel. The walk to and from Chosser was also cool because there were tons of destroyed fort ruins on the various nearby hilltops…this was the border area between the Kingdom of Lo and the various Tibetan kingdoms that existed, so these hill fortress locations make sense.
After three days in Lo Manthang, it was time to trek back south. Took a different path south than the one we took north, along what is known as the eastern path. The first day was about 15km southeast to the town of Yara Gara. This was a pleasantly easy walk…we went up about 300m over 10km in roughly 3 hours, then dropped a steep 800m over the km in about one hour (I was going super slow here because it was all loose rock). Stopped at a guesthouse in the village of Dhi for lunch before continuing for another hour, going up 300m again over like 3km, so nice and steady, before getting to Yara Gara. Nestled at 3600m, it was a relatively forgettable town by the standards of the places that I had seen so far in Upper Mustang. The highlight of this day was actually some of the trekkers that I met. There was a group of 4 from Utah who work for a non-profit that serves to empower women by having them become mountain bike guides. They all live in Moab (arguably my favorite American town!) and their non-profit runs in Nepal, Lesotho, Botswana, Guatemala, and Peru (I believe, I might have mixed up some of the south African countries). But they were actually here mountain biking the very same trail I was trekking, and they were led by a Nepali woman who was one of the benefactors of their organization. Honestly super cool stuff. I also met an older California couple (late 50s/early 60s, my parents age) who are legit serious climbers. They both climbed one of the three Bhagarati sisters (the mountains I saw on my Gaumukh Tapovan trek) like 30 years ago, and are shooting to climb up Shivling in the next year or so…for them, this Upper Mustang trek must have been a literal piece of cake. But speaking of Shivling…the Gaumukh Tapovan trek is still by far the best trek I have ever done for big mountain views. The only real negative (which is sizeable) for that trek was that it was *too* easy so I wasn’t really pushed at all. And the campsite by Shivling is probably the coolest campsite I will ever sleep at in my life, bar none.
The next day was an awesome day of hiking. Really hit the sweet spot of challenging but not too difficult, all while having the typical gorgeous scenery of Upper Mustang. We spent about 2 hours doing a loooong up and down walk, rising up to 3800m but eventually falling back to 3600m, before a steep 400m drop over half an hour. This was about 7km in distance. The next 90 minutes was a steep 600m ascent over 2km up to 3800m, which was tough but so much fun, before then dropping 600m over 6km to the town of Thangey, in just under 2 hours. This was a nice picturesque town, nestled by a dried out riverbed, with cool stupas scattered around. One thing that I really like about Tibetan Buddhism is how all these stupas have loose pieces of stone hanging around, all with Tibetan script on them that I assume are some type of prayer.
Even more than the 2nd day (the big up and down one), the next one was the toughest trekking day. We left Thangey and walked for about an hour, like 2.5km, up and down 100m or so until dipping down to a riverbed at around 3100m. We then climbed up 1000m over about 4km, which took 3 hours. From this pass at 4100m, we basically walked for 14km while maintaining elevation, but constantly dropping and rising up to 200m at a time, which honestly left me quite tired after the steep ascent to start the day. This took another 4 hours as I was sort of dawdling along (the 12kg+ backpack didn’t help, but it’s all a part of the fun). We then had a steeeeeeep descent of about 1200m over 4.5km to the town of Chuksang…we had basically completed a loop, as we passed this town on the first day going from Kagbeni to Chele. The descent was especially fun as it was all loose rocks and pebbles.
That was technically the end of the Upper Mustang trek, but I decided to add an addendum day and hike over to Muktinath the following day. This is outside of the Tibetan Plateau, and culturally *very* Hindu as it is one of the holiest Vishnu temples in the subcontinent. This was actually the highest elevation gain of the entire trip…took about 5 hours to hike 8km, going from 2800km to the pass at 4100m. Then it was a nice and easy, slow and steady descent for 90 minutes, over 7km down to 3600m. Crossed a suspension bridge (one of many this trip…these bridges are shockingly difficult, I was always gassed after getting off. I think it’s because of the bounce with each step), and then trudged up 100m before walking 40(!!!) minutes through the sprawling town of Muktinath. Muktinath itself was like any other Indian hill station town, though this was actually high up at 3700-ish meters as opposed to a typical hill station town of <2000 meters. Attractive from a distance but quite ugly once you actually walk through it. I thought I would hate it, but like the Gangotri temple that I saw after my Gaumukh Tapovan trek, the relative lack of crowds meant that this was a holy site that didn’t suck. The temple was surprisingly small, and the most interesting thing about it was the idol…the Vishnu idol clearly had Buddhist influences, from the eyes and top half of the face to especially the hanging earlobes. Definitely have never seen a Hindu idol like that ever in India. After Muktinath was a fun 10 hour bus ride back to Pokhara…went through Kagbeni and then Jomsom and the same way I took in, but because it had apparently rained here during my trek the mountain roads were godawful and the drive was nice and bumpy. Spent a day chilling in Pokhara, and will take a fullday bus back to Kathmandu and spend a night there before flying back to Chennai to return my rental hiking backpack.
Overall, the trek was fairly easy. Two genuinely tough days (the 2nd day to Syangbochem and the 2nd-to-last day to Chuksang), two moderate “tough-but-fun” days (the 3rd-to-last day and the last day), and the rest were honestly easy but still tough enough to not be boring. One big factor for the lack of difficulty was that I was basically getting a sound 10 hours of sleep a night, from 8pm to 6am. But because of this, I was not able to see any potential night sky as at 8pm the stars were only just coming out. There were a handful of trekkers in their early 30s who were all carrying their backpacks like me, but most of the trekkers were in their 50s and 60s which I thought was awesome. Obviously could not fault them for using porters given their age, and I honestly hope I am in that shape when I’m that age. But obviously, the trekking was almost incidental for this trip, as I really came to see some of Tibet. I would say that both Ladakh and Spiti were more beautiful than Upper Mustang, though Upper Mustang was still obviously gorgeous. But Upper Mustang is further south than either Spiti or especially Ladakh, so it makes sense that it wasn’t *quite* as magnificent. But while Ladakh and Spiti have sort of become more and more pan-Indian by the passing day (it is still predominantly culturally Tibetan!), Upper Mustang really is almost purely Tibetan. The only Nepali influence is the language (which they only use to speak with the trek guides and porters, if people use porters), and dhal bhat as a food served to tourists. And I do anticipate that Chinese Tibet will be similar to Ladakh and Spiti where a pan-Chinese culture will have made heavy inroads, so it was very cool to experience an almost untouched Tibetan culture here. As I mentioned earlier, while the landscapes in Ladakh take the cake and the monasteries in Spiti were the best, both were still very cool here. I particularly liked all the pastel colored stupas that littered the harsh landscape that you would always see while walking about. And the villages were just amazing. Really atmospheric to walk through all of these eggwhite mudbrick, wood-on-the-roofs, narrow alleyway settlements. Honestly, this trip has cemented the Tibetan Plateau as my favorite place on Earth, so I am naturally very excited to see Chinese Tibet next month.
So yea, China up next for my final month of retirement. Time really does fly by. Few days in Chennai before leaving on the night of May 31, and I will land in Beijing in the morning/afternoon of June 1. Pretty stoked for China.