Trekking and Tours Nepal

The Mustang trekking is also called the upper Mustang trekking, is an exotic tour to unspoiled Tibetan villages on the other side of Nepalese Himalaya bordering with Tibet. The main highlights of Mustang trekking are antique Tibetan villages, rare medieval Buddhist arts, the exotic culture and the unique beauty of the Himalayan desert. The medieval settlement of Upper Mustang and its capital Lo Manthang lie in the remote Himalayan desert behind the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna mountains.

Foreigners were not allowed to enter Upper Mustang until 1992. Upper Mustang is not much in contact with rest of Nepal, and keeps an aura of a remote, mysterious and unusual land, which is one of the unique charms of the Mustang trekking. Geographically the land is an extension of the Tibetan plateau, characterized by windy and dry valleys, eroded canyons and unique stratified rock formations .The people in Upper Mustang are of Tibetan origin, migrated from Tibet centuries ago, and belong to Bhotias and Loba communities. They practice Sakyapa school of Tibetan Buddhism. Upper Mustang is perhaps the only place to see Tibetan culture in completely undisturbed state. The houses and monasteries in here have medieval look and unique local architecture. Mostly they are built with stone and sun baked mud bricks. People mostly grow potatoes, buck wheat and barley. It is a land covering about 2600 sq km in area and 6000 people.

Upper Mustang consists of two distinct regions: the south region with five villages inhabited by people related to the Managis; and the northern region (the ancient kingdom of Lo), where the language, culture and traditions are almost purely Tibetan, the capital of Lo is named manthang, which translates from the Tibetan as ‘plain of aspiration’ many texts refer to the capital as Lo Manthang, but this is not strictly correct, Other texts spell the name of the kingdom as Lho, but this is a transliteration of the Tibetan word for ‘south’ and is also incorrect. Thus the portion of the upper Mustang district north of Samar is Lo and its capital is Mustang the king of Lo is the Lo Gyelbu, though I use the Nepali term raja here. To avoid total confusion with existing Maps and texts, I also refer to the capital of Lo as ‘Lo Manthang’.