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.(nytimes.com)
Comments