Upper Mustang is mostly a high altitude desert--an expansive, endless sea of land at roughly 12,000 feet. Dendritic canyons fan out across miles. Plateaus with scrub brush end abruptly in fluted columns eroded by weather and time. Caves are everywhere--some ancient...
The culture of Mustang revealed itself not only in monasteries and spiritual places, but also in women weaving, in men galloping horses across the plateau, in friendly faces peeking out doorways and windows, in children saying "Namaste!" on their way home from school....
Early one morning in Lo Manthang, the walled fortress-like capital of Mustang, we visit the monastery to receive blessing from an old monk. He has spent more than 40 years in the monastery and is master of an ancient Tantric rite, one that derives directly from the...
Once part of western Tibet and later subsumed by Nepal, Mustang is an ancient kingdom on the cusp of change. Tantric Buddhism still thrives, yet the first coffee shops have sprung up. Most people are busy with the grain harvest, but many young people have left the...
Day in Pokhara: trek group with Ngawang, a Tibetan guerrilla fighter based in Mustang in the 1960's, and his son Oangdi, our local guide. Our journey began in Pokhara, a lakeside town with sweeping views of the Annapurna range, where we had the rare opportunity to...