Ascent: Following the Kali Gandaki to the Roof of the World

A s c e nt Following the Kali Gandaki to the Roof of the World

Dane Carlson Penny White Travel Fund Report 2014

“... painted yellow and ochre, a succession of countless barren, wind-eroded crags overlooking deep gorges and canyons cutting across an inferno of parched soil.�

Michel Peissel Mustang, the Forbidden Kingdom: Exploring a Lost Himalayan Land

My route (white) overlaid on map of Himalayan exploration routes

Tra d e & Movem ent

The Kali Gandaki is the longest transverse valley in the Himalaya, cutting a gorge perpendicular to the mountain massif.

It bridges the otherwise impassable frontier between India, Nepal, and Tibet, facilitating the exchange of peoples, goods, and ideas between its extreme ends. Even until the last decade, the route through Upper Mustang was still plied by donkey trains bringing goods from high Mustang. Closure of Tibetan/ Chinese borders, however, eliminated the historic extent of this trade in the middle of the 20th century.

Trade continues to play a major role here, although perhaps not to the same extent or in the same way it had previously. Trade within, rather than through, Mustang is the dominant form of exchange, bringing goods into the district south from Tibet and north from inner Nepal.

This trade proved to be quite lucrative for the inhabitants of the Kali Gandaki valley, many of whom

established toll houses and forts along its length to control, monitor, and tax trade in their territory, including many of the forts of Upper Mustang.

My route followed this trade route, perhaps to an extent more thorough than originally intended or realized. One source indicates that at least one branch of the trade route moved westward from Pokhara, my point of origin in inner Nepal, and into the Kali Gandaki river valley near my point of entry into the same valley. The route certainly followed the river itself through Thamang Thakali, the homeland of the Thakali who for many years acted as merchant middlemen between Tibet and Nepal/India, and into the smaller enclaves within Mustang, including Panchgaon, Baragaon, and the Shoyul, and into the Kingdom of Lo before reaching Tibet.

Athough the road has largely replaced the historic pack-animal route, some of the original sections and infrastructures remain intact.

Stat ic / Dy na m ic

The former kingdom of Lo is a land of contradictions: dense poplar groves dot the landscape surrounded by barren desert, jeeps laden with supplies run the road past primeval mud-built temples, and the ancient walled city of Lo Manthang is filled with handicraft shops. Much of this is, of course, a result of continually increasing influence from beyond the borders of Upper Mustang.

Kagbeni and Lo Manthang, due to their proximities to these borders, are littered with concrete construction, new lodges, and other new infrastructures while every other settlement has only one or two lodges and refitted irrigation channels. Some villages, such as Ghyakar, lie completely off the tourist trek route (in the case of Ghyakar across a 150-meter deep gorge), and as a result of minimal foreign presence are almost completely devoid of modern infrastructure.

Tangbe is a small village along the principal route, but located halfway between Kagbeni and Chhushang is not an overnight stop for trekkers. As a result, the village’s modern development is largely limited to irrigation and electricity infrastructure, including a refitted irrigation concrete and steel pipe irrigation junction.

While the footprint of Tangbe has remained almost the same since the opening of Mustang’s borders, no place has changed more than Lo Manthang.

The once imposing red wall (some 10m in height) is now almost completely obscured by illegal buildings around a new ring path. Built as a fortress in this historically highly volatile region, the walls are now hardly more than an ornament.

The systems of movement that have fueled this dramatic and vastly unequal development pattern have some relation to historical narratives, but are largely dominated by new economies.

Ta ng be

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L o Ma nt ha ng

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Shoy Thaksatse / Thamang Thakali

Panchgaon

Baragaon

yul Lo

Tibet

ULLERI 2060m D ay 4

I begin my trek at Naya Pul with a guide who will stay with me for six days.

As it is the point of origin for many treks into Mustang, Naya Pul is little more than a series of roadside stands with snacks, soft drinks, and booths where myriad officials check several of the required trekking permits.

As we leave Naya Pul, we cross a small river and make our way slowly uphill into a long, narrow valley; the end is obscured by cloud cover, but I know that behind it rises the Annapurna massif. Following the river, we pass a buffalo being butchered by a group of men in preparation for a wedding.

As we continue to climb in elevation, we progress deeper into the land of the Thakali, whose homes are set apart from those of their neighbors in Upper Mustang by stone walls and sloping slate and corrugated metal roofs. Rice paddies are plentiful at the beginning of the day, but millet, corn, and eventually potatoes become more prevalent. Papaya, oranges, and bananas grow here, although only papaya continues to be viable in higher elevations. The heat is intense, and water seems to be ever-present: trickling across the walkway, flowing through the valley, dripping from epiphytes, and hanging heavily in the air.

The construction of new lodges increases significantly as we come closer to the head of the valley, all having been built with supplies brought in on the newlyconstructed road along which we have been walking. Blue corrugated sheet is the uniformly-applied roofing material, and piles of gravel and rebar lie all over the road and roadside. As we climb, small hamlets and individual farmsteads begin to pepper the steep, green hillsides across the valley.

Tikkedhunga, meaning ‘jagged rock,’ is the first point at which we stop, and lies at the head of the valley on the uppermost accessible reaches of the river which we

have followed. From this low point, we ascend upward for the next four hours on what my guide claims to be 3000 stairs rising over one kilometer.

The stair is peppered by public concrete fountains, benches, and small shrines, and is made of a continual cascade of large stones. Each tread seems to be a single piece of stone, although there is only a loose consistency in tread height and slope of each stair. Hamlets lie scattered along its length, although the only village is Ulleri, our destination, located almost at the top of the stair. A large festival is taking place here amongst the blue-corrugated roofed buildings.

G H OR E PANI 2880m D ay 5

Leaving Ulleri, we finally come to the top of the stair, which gradually transforms into a relatively level path along the face of the mountain.

Continuing to follow the contour along which we have been walking, the path leads up slightly and dives into dark, dense rhododendron forest. Although the trees are not in bloom (apparently this happens in March and April), the trees are magnificient, draped in epiphytes and mosses. While we are here, it rains heavily and the path becomes precariously slippery as we walk along. Leeches also make themselves known. For most of the day, we hike through this forest, although the rain stops after an hour or so. Several incredibly isolated houses (perhaps huts

is the more appropriate term) are scattered along the path through the dense, primeval forest. The first seems to sell only cigarettes, and is found immediately after a small steel bridge crossing a swollen river and waterfall. This river flows in the opposite direction from that which we followed previously; we have unwittingly crossed the watershed dividing the Kali Gandaki (below us now) and the river which runs near Naya Pul whose name I do not know.

We pass through a small village, again with roofs of blue corrugated sheet metal, with a small store supremely well stocked in all necessary trekking supples: cigarettes, beer, candy, soft drinks, water,

and toilet paper. That all of these buildings are covered in corrugated metal is amazing to me; it is either brought on foot from Ulleri via Tikkedhunga or from the valley of the Kali Gandaki below, although I doubt this as there is a significant peak still separating us from the path down into the river valley proper.

After the village, we pass another more isolated hut as the sun begins to set.

This building has a slate tile roof, which seems to indicate that these supplies come from Ulleri and are carried by foot up the path toward Ghorepani, although they have not yet reached this isolated

spot. Cigarettes again seem to be the primary commodtiy here.

As darkness begins to blanket the mountains, we reach Ghorepani.

According to my guide, there are over 2,000 lodge-beds in this ‘village,’ which at this point exists almost entirely of lodges and stores with trekking gear.

This place reminds me of stories I have read about another trekking town called Namche Bazaar, which has become so filled with lodges (and the toilets/sewage which accompany them) that the highmountain streams of this village are no longer suitable for drinking.

S H IK H A 1990m D ay 5

A rough, rock-strewn road leads down from Ghorepani towards Shikha.

This entire day was spent walking downhill, with a total of more than 1.5 kilometers of descent. In Ghorepani, cool temperatures and corn-fields accompany the heavy-hanging mist. The lodgetown lies at the head of a valley which eventually opens into the Kali Gandaki, and the change in landscape from 2800m to 1300m is nothing short of astonishing.

Approaching the bottom of the valley, the sweltering heat returns and is accompanied by flooded rice paddies, water buffalo, and an entirely different grouping of ethnicities.

Shikha lies in the middle of this valley, and is the typical stopping point for lunch during the trekking day. My guide and I stop for a plate of ubiquitous dhal bat, and are joined in the restaurant by a Hindu holy man who the Buddhist proprietor seems to refuse to feed for free.

TATOPANI 1250m D ay 5

Finally, mercifully, we reach the end of the valley which begins at Ghorepani. The final stretch of the path leading to the river gorge is another steep stair, this spanning no more than 200m in elevation. It is largely constructed of gigantic pale stones, and we pass several elderly women climbing slowly with large loads on their backs.

The stair eventually reaches a small road along the river, although the main road lies on the other bank. We cross the steel cable bridge spanning the Kali Gandaki, which at this point is an intimidating, sediment-laden gray torrent at least 50 feet below the swinging

bridge. The water is particularly high now as high temperatures melt the glaciers of the high mountains, and glacial meltwater is the exclusive source of this mighty river.

We walk the rest of the distance to Tatopani along the road, and arriving it becomes apparent that Tatopani is a lodge-town much like Ghorepani, although lying at a significantly lower elevation and constrained to development through the narrow gorge. The road also passes through here, and many trucks, busses, and motorbikes pass us as we approach the town.

GHASA 2110m D ay 6

Ghasa seems to be no more than a bus stop, although perhaps the most scenic bus stop in the world. It also lies at the bottom of the deep gorge of the Kali Gandaki (at one point along its length the deepest in the world), which at this point is over 1km deep from the visible peaks in the photography to the river bottom.

The much higher Annapurna massif looms behind, here obscured by clouds.

This is the point at which the transition in vegetation from Tatopani to Jomsom begins to become apparent; what appear to be conifers lie in small groupings on the steep slopes, their pyramidal forms not something I have

yet seen on the trek.

The road here seems particularly perilous, and from what I have heard is highly vulnerable to landscapes and rockfall. The road, during much of the distance in which it traverses this section of the gorge, lies at least 100m above the riverbed, if not more, and crosses several streams which look able to wash away the precariously perched roadbed at any moment. At one point, the bus driver asks us to get off of the bus at one of these crossings, concerned that the extra weight might cause the bus to loose its footing on the soaking wet ground.

MAR P H A 2690m D ay 7

The image above shows the distinct vegetal transition from low elevation to high (in addition to the changing amounts of rain received, as the portion of the Kali Gandaki valley behind the Annapurna massif lies in the rain shadow of the high mountains while the lowlands recieve some seasonal rain).

From left to right, conifers and understory plants fade into small scrub and the occasional conifer; the beginning of the barren, windswept slopes signal arrival into the territory of Upper Mustang.

Several small villages lie on the riverbank between Jomsom and Tukuche, the first village along the river

constructed in the Tibetan vernacular style. One of these is Marpha, known locally for the production of apple brandy and other apple products. The trees seen in the right-middle of the photograph are apple trees, and the government agricultural station in Marpha seems to be responsible for the propagation and growth of apple production in Upper Mustang.

The village itself lies above the Kali Gandaki at the foot of the cliff rising behind the village, and the village fields spread across the alluvial plain alongside the Kali Gandaki.

JOM SOM, TH INI, & MAR P H A 2850m D ay 7

Marpha, Jomsom, and Thini in many ways form a buffer between the lowland reaches of the Kali Gandaki river valley and the entrance into Upper Mustang, which lies upriver at Kagbeni.

Here, the mountains are still peppered with varying amounts of vegetation which is sometimes quite dense. The trails which lead up tree and scrubcovered mountain faces show the extent of firewood gathering practices, and one wonders what effects another hundred years of firewood gathering from these dry slopes will have on various parts of local ecologies and cultural practices.

Thini is a small village lying above

Jomsom, here visible at the center-right of the photography perched on a small rise above the Kali Gandaki. Like Marpha, the village core of Thini lies high above the river while fields step down in terraces to the bottom of the gorge. Jomsom is substantially different in form and function from the other two settlements: it functions largely as an administrative center for the district of Mustang, and at this point is almost entirely constructed of concrete, stone, and corrugated metal.

J OMS OM 2750m D ay 7

The extent of new construction can be seen here. Offices and shops are scattered along the main street, lying in between restaurants and lodges. Jomsom is also home to a military base and regional airport.

The nearby shrine at Muktinath is the primary tourist draw, and visitors to this shrine are all funnelled at some point through Jomsom. Many arrive from Nepal and India through the airport (via Pokhara), while smaller numbers arrive by bus, and even smaller numbers by foot. From the jeep terminal at the northern end of town, one can hire a jeep to Ranipauwa, from which Muktinath

can be accessed directly.

Jomsom follows, like many other settlements along the lower Kali Gandaki, the curve of the river and the shallow gorge which it occupies at this point. Several bridges cross the river and lead into adjacent fields, although I am unsure if these belong to Thini or Jomsom. The local headquarters of the Annapurna Conservation Area Project are located here, and we pay a short visit to the office and are given an explanation of some of the programs and research being conducted by the organization.

R ANIPAU WA 3670m D ay 8

If Jomsom is the gateway to Muktinath, Ranipauwa is its doorstep.

Many new lodges have been built here, some subtle and some not (such as the Hotel Bob Marley). We take a jeep from Jomsom to Ranipauwa in slightly more than an hour, a climb of over 1 kilometer which would have taken many hours on foot. At the Ranipauwa jeep terminal, a large pile of rebar indicates some future development.

Many fields, stone walls, tree groves, and irrigation canals lie in Ranipauwa and several smaller settlements which lie on the road upward, and it is only at the uppermost point of

Ranipauwa that lodges become prevalent.

Jeep drivers hurtle through the villages, seemingly oblivious of people and their livestock which litter the streets as we progress upward. This type of travel, quite new to these villages, seems to have a distinctly negative impact on all those who live along the route once travelled by pilgrims on foot.

From the jeep terminal, ‘pilgrims’ can reach the shrine on the back of a motorbike rather than on foot; the entire pilgrimage can be undertaken in a day and a night.

Thorong La, the pass to Manang in the East, lies above Ranipauwa.

MU KTINATH 3770m D ay 8

Muktinath is an ancient Hindu shrine mentioned in the Vedas, and is still primarily a point of Hindu pilgrimage, although several small Buddhist shrines lie nearby. Like many Hindu sacred places, including Damodar Kund which lies high in the mountains above Muktinath, has an intimate connection with water, in this case a spring which supplies 108 fountains. These fountains, seen here in a semi-circle around the central shrine, are meant to be bathed in by walking along the walkway underneath them, ideally 108 times, each cycle followed by submergence in a series of pools in front of the shrine.

The shrine itself seems curiously misplaced, and appears to have been transported directly from the Kathmandu

Valley in which many of these Newari pagodas can be seen. I bathe once in the fountains, not having the time or devotional presence of mind needed for 108 circuits.

We also visit a small Buddhist shrine adjacent to the fountains in which a small flame burns under an altar, and supposedly arises from beneath a flowing stream. The sacred significances of this place are beyond my area of specific knowledge, but the impact which these shrines have had in Upper Mustang through the past and present is nothing less than profound.

K AG B E NI 2850m D ay 9

Kagbeni is the entry point into Upper Mustang, and lies at the confluence (Nepali: beni) of the Jhong and Kali Gandaki rivers. It is also a gateway to the ancient Hindu and Buddhist shrines at Muktinath, although many now access the shrine by vehicle from Jomsom downriver.

Although directly adjacent to the Kali Gandaki, the village has amost no formal relationship to the river other than avoidance. All irrigation is taken from the Jhong, which bifurcates the

village.

On an early morning before 6 am, we came across several Hindu Gurung innkeepers bathing in the Kali Gandaki, which even at Kagbeni flows incredibly quickly (historically, the Loba considered a bath-less life to be clean and pure). The new and growing presence of Mustang as a trekking destinaiton, and the relaxation of a previously tightly controlled amount of permits given to foreigners, have led to an influx of nonBuddhist, non-Tibetan peoples into

Jomsom and Kagbeni.

in the region.

Kagbeni is largely aggregated into a single settlement at the confluence, unusual in its location directly adjacent to the river rather than slightly upland.

Many terraced fields fill the rest of this glacial sediment delta, and were all filled with barley as I walked through them.

Many villages have seen an increased presence of apples as a cash crop, however, and Kagbeni is no exception.

The relatively recent construction of a road has allowed for export of cash crops, and Nepali government station in Marpha downriver has facilitated the

Kagbeni has in the past been physically dominated by the gompa (painted ubiquitous bright crimson) and a ruined fortress, but several new buildings are now just as large and imposing. Like many villages here, and indeed the entire Kingdom of Lo, Kagbeni was heavily influence by the presence of trans-Himalayan salt trade until the past century. Fortification was a necessary part of settlements which protected these trade routes and the toll houses along the route from which revenues were taken.

JH ONG K H OL A Ka g beni

TANG B E 3030m D ay 9

Tangbe follows Kagbeni along both the trekking and ancient trade routes, and lies relatively close to the river itself, although perched a hundred or more feet on a bluff above the riverbed.

Before reaching Tangbe, the route passes a new innovation: the Tangbe sustainable apple farm. Built on a plain high above the river, and even the village itself, there is no vegetation other than thorny scrub in the vicinity of this farm. Electric pumps and chemical fertilizer allow this sustainable operation to function, and show the hand of modern infrastructures

in Mustang’s continual change. No apple trees were visible, however.

To approach Tangbe from this plain, it is necessary to descend at least 100 meters into a gorge and then climb up again on the other side. The road approaches Tangbe framed by the Three Protectors, a fixture of Mustangi sacred infrastructure intimately tied to both the practices of Buddhism and Bon as well as perceptions of landscape in cosmologies and everyday life. Of course, directly above these sacred symbols run the

powerlines which feed Tangbe from the south.

Tangbe was the first village we passed through with surprisingly large trees, although this would become a common sight as time went on. They appeared to be apricot trees, although I’m not certain that this was the case. The presence of large trees in Mustang was not remotely within my realm of expectation due to high elevations and the scarcity of water in arid Mustang.

The village proper is nucleated in a single grouping, not bifurcated by a smaller river as is the case in Kagbeni.

Also unlike Kagbeni, the village lies on the high ground while the fields spread out on the bluff approaching the river.

Tangbe is perhaps the most poignant example of the inefficiency of traditional irrigation systems: in the photo above, the existing canal stretches across the middle of the photo, running right to left.

These canals and channels are traditionally lined only by indigenous materials, which are quite porous, and as such typically support relatively lush vegetation due to unintended infiltration into this coarse soil.

CH H U S H ANG 2960m D ay 10

The path from Tangbe leads along a road cut high into the mountainside overlooking the Kali Gandaki. This was also the path used for the now-defunct salt trade route, and winds through the first of many wind-carven sedimentary pinnacles.

Placed on a deltaic formation similarly to Kagbeni, Chhushang is separated into three smaller enclaves unlike the earlier village. Arrival in the village leads us to the first enclave, a singular mass of traditional Tibetan architecture several stories in height separated by narrow passageways.

Women weave their way through these

passages laden with sheaves of barley.

Although I didn’t yet know when we first arrived, these women and several men were ferrying this barley across the small, swift-flowing river bisecting the village on foot, sometimes up to their knees in opaque, sediment-heavy glacial runoff.

This khola, as in every village of Upper Mustang, provides a valuable resource but also presen ts a formidable boundary.

The second built enclave, across the river from the first, appears ancient and primordial, defined by another abandoned and decaying adobe fortress.

The third lies much nearer the Kali Gandaki, and contains a guest house and

several traditional buildings. The only concrete building in the village seems to be the Nepali police station near a substantial suspension bridge crossing the khola, while even our guest house (complete with refrigerator and large glass windows) is adobe.

Underneath the windows of the guesthouse, a large paved platform acts as a winnowing ground: men and women use wooden flails to separate the chaff from the grain, while others use fans to winnow the barley grains. Despite the influx of new goods into Upper Mustang, much of life is still as it has been for hundreds of years, particularly the practice of subsistence agriculture in every single village in the Kali Gandaki river valley of Mustang.

Upriver from Chhushang lies Tetang, locally called Te, the subject of study for much of celebrated anthropologist and Tibetologist Charles Ramble. Much of his work, particularly ‘The Navel of the Demoness’ has focused on the practice of civil religion in Tibet and highland Nepal, and has included much documentation of the architecture, landscape, and the sacred.

The Three P rotec tors

C hhusha ng For t

CH E L E 3060m D ay 10

The path from Chhushang leads along the banks of the Kali Gandaki; more precisely, along the top of a built embankment likely created for the establishment of the seasonal road. By Chhushang, the river flows in a series of broad, gray strands across the wide riverbed. Tractors come up and down the riverbed, apparently a more efficient road than the road itself, bringing goods from Jomsom to be transported into Lo Manthang.

causes between two distinct areas of settlement through which I was to walk.

Before and including Chhushang, the Tibetan villages of Mustang are low and near the river, lying at the bottom of the valley at points of confluence between the Kali Gandaki and its tributaries. Chele is raised over 100m above the riverbed, and this is only the beginning of a significant upward climb to the next village, some 500m above.

Nearing Chele, the valley becomes a shear gorge, the river running out from the earth and ochre crevice which leads, in winter, into Upper Mustang. This gorge has proven to be a significant obstacle in transportation through Upper Mustang, and is significant in the bifurcation it

A bridge links the east riverbank to the west, and is dwarfed by the cliffs looming behind, their deep ochre color one of the most common symbols in Mustang.

They are peppered with caves, at least

25m above the ground, which have been historically inhabited by monks, religious communities, or people seeking refuge from the political turmoil of the Himalayan region and Kali Gandaki river valley. Thousands of these caves are scattered throughout Mustang, many including stupas and Buddhist paintings, and some thought to house local deities.

ascend the steep, zig-zagging path up the slope to Chele. The pony driver always seem to take the steepest and most difficult terrain, and this is no exception; the slope is severe and the soil loose. The Three Protectors again greet us at the entrance of Chele; red, white, and black sentinels guarding the territory of the village.

As the tractors bring goods up the eastern riverbank (PVC pipe seems to be a hot commodity), they are unloaded manually and brought by foot across the bridge.

From here they are loaded onto ‘jeeps’ (Mahindra-brand trucks) and taken up the winding road north to Lo Manthang and villages in between.

Chele is small, and has no gompa (temple). The village is again separated from the fields, although most notable here as a new apple grove similar to the ‘sustainable’ apple farm near Tangbe. I would also discover later that a significant retention basin has been built in concrete above the village to supply it with water when the khola runs dry.

After crossing the river ourselves, we

MAN I WAL L & P R AYE R WH E E L S C hel e

SAMAR 3610m D ay 11

The path from Chele to Samar runs along the road and its concrete drainage channels for half an hour or so, after which we depart from the road.

The path here is a small ledge cut into steep cliffs, many times augmented by timber and stone retention structures, which is the original trade route used by salt traders from Tibet and their donkey trains. The road departs from the trail at times, such as this, when the topography becomes impassible for vehicles. It is in this way that the infrastructures of the ancient route have been sporadically preserved, and the rugged terrain of Upper Mustang forces the road to depart from the path often.

The village of Ghyakar lies on the other side of the gorge opposite part of this path, and appears to be (from bird’s eye view) without any concrete buildings other than a newly built school. Accessed by a narrow steel cable bridge spanning the gorge, which seems at least 150m deep, Ghyakar is another village lying in the vicinity of the trekking route but which is fundamentally disconnected from it and its travellers.

The Three Protectors greet us outside of Samar, and the road leads past hillsides heavily grazed by goats as evidenced by the labyrinthine grazing paths cut through the brambles by livestock traffic.

Samar is the first village with large poplar trees, and seems to have a great abundance of these at least 1m in diameter and larger.

Many trees here have recently been harvested for poles, which lie on the ground in piles freshly stripped of their bark.

The fields of Samar follow several winding depressions down the valley, one of which seems to be abandoned or in the process of being so. This village is entirely unique in its spatial formation, although the building cluster itself is traditionally nucleated. The gompa is a new building located upslope of the rest of the settlement, unusual in its separation from the built core of the village.

A path from the village, which leads

outward past the mani wall and prayer wheels, leads to a promontory with bright ochre soil and a gathering of prayer flags sending prayers to the sky.

A large gate separates Samar proper from the gorge adjacent, and we follow a steep switchback to the bottom of the gorge and promptly climb another switchback to reach the same grade on the other side.

The fields here seem to be abandoned, and have not been planted with barley this year. Halfway across the plateau, the Three Protectors signal the end of the village territory. Crossing another gorge, we walk past a goatherd’s pens up to a high pass, the highest yet, where Tashi lights a sprig of juniper and tosses a pale stone on the mound while uttering incantation to invoke deific protection.

Fo l l ow i ng I r r igat ion Wor ks (Sa m a r)

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JUN IP ER & S TONE S AT SAMAR L A Sa m a r

SYANG B OCH E 3780m D ay 11

Syangboche (also known as Shangboche, Shangmochen, Sianmochen, or any other number of Tibetan-English transliterations) is more of a rest stop than village, and cannot have more than 6 buildings. It is strategically located after one of the most difficult stretches of walking on the trek, and provides several restaurants and accomodations for weary travellers. It is also the point at which the road and trade route merge; the road disappearing into the highlands and the trade route closely following the contours of the river valley.

There is also a cave here which Guru Rinpoche, also known as

Padmasambhava, is supposed to have visited on his way through Mustang to introduce Buddhism to Tibet. The cave is filled with statuary which forms itself from the rock rather than being carved, and also houses a large chhorten, potentially with a relic of the saint. Caves here have a deep sacred significance, and this one moreso than any other, although it is also incredibly difficult to reach.

The lodges in Syangboche are undergoing new construction, particularly the addition of new stories, likely to accomodate beds and space for new customers. Here, we eat a meal of dal bhat and climb the pass to Ghiling.

G H IL ING 3550m D ay 12

Ghiling has historically straddled the border between Panchgaon and the Shoyul to the south and Upper Lo to the north. Its physical layout is very distinct, as is its level of field abandonment. In the photo, the extent of this abandonment is made plain on the left; it seems that somewhere near half of the terraced land surrounding this village is abandoned.

Even more telling are the ruins of a fort and another building, perhaps a gompa, perched on hilltops amid these stretches of fallow ground. The causes of this seem to be two-fold in potential: dramatic reductions in water availability or the departure of Mustangis from traditionally cultivated lands. The former has caused

at least one village in Mustang to be completely abandoned and relocated recently, although the retreat of glaciers seems to have increased the flow levels in almost every khola we have seen. Our guide tells us that many people have left Mustang, going to places like New York City or Pokhara, and their fields are left to fallow.

Ghiling is unique in its cultural, historical narrative and also its spatial distribution. The gompa is separated from the settlement, similarly to Samar, and located on the side of the bluff above.

It seems that this location was at some point guarded by a wall, whether or not it

was meant to protect the gompa, and still exists in fragments between village cluster and gompa.

Much of the village consists of individually constructed dwellings with a small village core near the gompa. The interstitial ground is watered by springs, which cause grass to thrive throughout the center of Ghiling. The presence of greenery outside of tightly controlled irrigation schemes is highly unusual here and is, to my knowledge, only seen in Dhakmar, Ghiling, and the plain of prayer above Lo Manthang. Ghiling is also the only village in which I noticed horses roam and graze, despite the fame and renown of Mustangi horsemanship.

There is in Ghiling a feeling of the encroachment of the dry surrounds, which at some point will likely completely overtake the village and its terraces.

Leaving the village leads uphill through more vast stretches of abandoned terraces, which seem to be ancient archaeological remnants although the howling wind which whips through the valley for half of every day is notorious for its ability to rapidly erode the loose soil of Upper Mustang.

The road crowns the pass, but again we take the trade route up a steep and narrow switchback en route to Ghami.

A b a n doned a nd C ul t ivated Fiel ds

A b a n d o n e d For t ress G ate a nd C hhor ten

G H AMI 3560m D ay 12

Ghami is the first of several large villages that we encounter along the route; although Ghiling seems to have shrunken considerably, Ghami still boasts a considerable area of cultivation.

This village seems to have been disproportionately impacted by foreign (Japanese) development, which includes a school, medical clinic, and apple grove.

It is also the location of the longest mani wall in Mustang. Mani walls are constructed from stones engraved with Buddhist mantra, some in Tibetan and others in Sanskrit. Some of the stones in this particular wall are also engraved with mandalas and other sacred symbols. This mani wall is the intestine of a demon killed by Padmasambhava during his journey through the valley,

and the blood of the demon stains red cliffs in nearby Dhakmar. Like many other elements of this landscape, the mani wall not only represents a physical sacred infrastructure but also occupies a significant place in the conceptual complexities of the region, primarily the spread of Buddhism and triumph over pre-Buddhist shamanism (which, if you’ve been paying attention, never really went anywhere).

Despite its profusion of cultivated land, Ghami is another village which typically does not function as an overnight stop on the trekking route, at least on the way to Lo Manthang. Indeed,

we stopped in Ghami for dal bhat and continued onward. One of the village’s residents, a persistent businessman-like purveyor of medicinal herbs, noted that development in other villages comes more quickly due to the need for an overnight stop (lodges and associated infrastructure).

In the photo, the clustered dwellings of Ghami can be seen in the middle, seeming to be on the brink of sliding down the gravel face to the khola.

The partial ruins of a building (either fortress or gompa) indicate that this has happened in the past, the other part of the building having fallen the cliff as it gave way underneath. Ghami also has some buildings removed from the village core, although not to the extent seen in

Ghiling.

On the outskirts of the village lie a series of irrigated walled enclosures filled with poplar trees and blanketed by a groundcover of mustang greens, a motif that was also apparent throughout the next two villages. Although not matured to the same point as those in Samar, the poplar tree seems to be rapidly embedding itself as an integral part of water resource allocation in traditionally water-poor Upper Mustang. Although I have seen many of the poles harvested from these trees used as roof beams in adobe houses, I am unsure as to the extent of a diversification in use. The Japanese tree plantation can be seen on the left; a gridded installation in a land of contours and terracing.

CH AR ANG 3580m D ay 13

Charang is Upper Mustang’s second city (more appropriately, second village). We approach the village on the road, which enters the village in a broad sweeping arc toward the largest chhorten I have ever seen. Presumably due to preservation concerns, it is surrounded by a fence. Thus this piece of sacred infrastructure, traditionally a gateway under which one must pass to enter the village, is removed from the progression of entrance into, and movement through, the village.

Below the gateway, fields and dispersed households are scattered through the plain of Charang. Similar to Ghami and

Ghiling in its occupation of a long, narrow valley and bordered by a significant gorge on the north, a nucleated core forms the village center. Narrow alleyways, sometimes covered, run throughout the village and appear to increase in frequency and size as one moves farther from the core. These alleys act as infrastructural conduits, often hosting irrigation canals and acting as highways for the hundreds if not thousands of goats in Charang. The walls containing these alleys belong to a dense and seemingly random warren of houses, gardens, groves, and livestock pens. The canals in this portion of the village are not concrete, and run through the pebble and soil paving underfoot,

finding their way into gardens and groves through openings at the foot of the continuously changing wall.

At the center of the village, or perhaps adjacent to but practically separate from it, lie both the fort (also abandoned) and a large monastery. According to the monk who shows us the fort, someone has proposed making it into a bed and breakfast for trekkers; a seemingly dubious destiny for an outpost which once guarded the vital salt trade route, although without any intervention of this kind (and certainly no resources exist for a non-privately funded intervention), the fort will soon be nothing more than a pile of mud and logs. The fort contains an immense abundance of Buddhist and shamanist artifacts in addition to

periodic original wall paintings. At the monastery, the Three Protectors again signal the end of the village, although I failed to notice their counterparts at our entrance to the village. The monastery and fort are built on the edge of the gorge which holds the khola, and a garbagestrewn stream lined with poplars runs down to meet it.

On the other side of the village, I walk through the fields and houses which have been built relatively recently; some adjacent to a new concrete irrigation channel. I pass a house with Hindu yogins gathered in front; an unexpected sight, although I suspect that they may be pilgrims en route to Damodar Kund, a complex of sacred lakes above 5000m on the other side of the Kali Gandaki valley.

GATE WAY CH H ORTE N C ha ra ng

Ch h o r te n wit h Eig ht-Spoked W heel M ot if

C h a rang M ona ster y & R ooftops

L O MANTH ANG 3830m D ay 14- 17

The approach to Lo Manthang is appropriate to the grandeur of the city: after a long and uneventful walk from Charang, we crest a pass and the whole of Lo Manthang, including the ruined hilltop fortress of Upper Mustang’s first king Ame Pal, is spread out before us on the Plain of Prayer. As it is after noon, the wind whips across the top of the pass, carrying both dust and prayers written on prayer flags from the terrestrial realm to the heavens.

No buildings lie on the path until we reach the city itself (city being, of course, a relative term; several sources indicate that it has a population of around 800), where a significant amount of new development, albeit in adobe rather than concrete, has recently sprung up outside

the famed city wall. In many places, it is no longer visible due to the close-pack of the buildings surrounding and within it.

Our guesthouse is an illegal building (as all of those outside the wall are, as all land is owned by the royal family) abutting the wall and on a wide street full of horses and goats. There is even a tractor which runs up and down this street in the mornings to collect garbage from each house, and new garbage receptacles installed by the Annapurna Conservation Area Project, although where this trash is then dumped remains unclear.

I spend several days wandering the warrens of the city, visiting several

gompas, the large monastery, and accessible portions of the ramparts which afford a view of the entire city and its surrounds.

Inside the walls, there is almost no open ground other than pathways; two large plazas are found in front of the palace and within the monastery gate, and a small field owned by the monastery is also found nearby. The city is completely unlike any other settlement in Mustang, and historically acted as the capital of the now-defunct (since 2006) Kingdom of Lo and lynchpin of regional control of trans-Himalayan trade. In the gorge below the city, where again runs a strongflowing khola, the low-caste settlement where artisans, such as butchers and blacksmiths, have historically

historically made their home spreads loosely along the khola through dense groves of poplar.

The city has been the object of much study and scholarship, and there has been recent concern over the continuing structural stability of its adobe structures due to apparently significant seismic resonance from traffic on the road. There is also a massive hotel being built by the crown prince, which supposedly lacks the water to flush its many toilets.

The fields of the city are abuzz as I walk along the canals which weave through them; the barley harvest here has ended and wheat is being sown or tended.

Go m pa & Pl a st ic G ut ters

R ooftops & P rayer F l a g s

Tra dit iona l I nfra st r uc t ures

Spread throughout Lo Manthang is much of the traditional infrastructure found in previous settlements; shamanic talismans above doorways, prayer wheels at kiosks in the streets, stoops for drying dung in the sunlight, chhortens, small canals, and prayer flags flying on corners of houses facing the gompa. Many of these seem as if they have existed for centuries; prayer wheels are beaten and battered, and ever piece of wood used as a ladder or gutter appears to be at the tail end of a thousand years of wear and tear, ready to disintegrate.

Of course, the presence of timber here, especially substantial timber, is a relative rarity. It seems likely that the profusion of poplar, especially those unguarded by walls, within the settlements of Mustang is a relatively recent introduction. So the inability of the landscape to produce timber in any significant quantities has had, perhaps quite obviously, significant effects in the way that it is utilized as a material and the things for which it is used. The palace and temples provide the most striking exceptions: part of the front facade of the palace is an elaborate four-storey timber latticework, and the interior of Thubchen gompa is supported by massive timber pillars at least 10m in height. Only timber allows for the intricacy and spatial continuity provided by these pillars and lattices, as stone is not available in any great quantitity due to the

incredible looseness of the soil which comprises the rugged terrain of Upper Mustang.

Despite the introduction of new materials from China to the north and Jomsom/Nepal to the south, many of these traditional infrastructures retain their relevance and necessity, particularly those associated with the sacred. Even the presence of dung-drying stoops remains necessary to ensure a continual fuel supply in a region which is becoming increasingly devoid of woody matter which can be used to burn. In our pony driver’s house, the bottom story serves as stable and warehouse, including storerooms almost completely full of separated types of dung (goat and sheep, in this case). One of the most notable features of Tibetan vernacular architecture in Upper Mustang is the ring of firewood around the roof of each home; as we have gone up in elevation, the pieces of firewood have decreased steadily in size. Now in Lo Manthang, the firewood appears to be all harvested from small, woody scrub. It remains to be seen whether or not the need to gather this material, which grows so slowly here, in addition to the profusion of goat-grazing, will completely exhaust the capability of the soil to support any kind of life or even be held in place in the presence of continual and dramatic aeolian erosion.

New I nfra st r uc t ures

Plastic and concrete have, however, slowly begun to pervade the interior of the city, and are ubiquitous outside its wall. Landscape materials, particularly firewood and timber, which have for so long been integral to the functioning of place but ultimately rare commodities are now being supplemented. Many roofs have solar water heaters, now used in lieu of firewood, and plastic piping has mostly replaced wooden gutters, and can be seen throughout the city extending far into each street in an effort to move water as far away from the vulnerable adobe as possible. Although it barely ever rains, the winter sees significant amounts of snow (during which many leave the area entirely and retreat south).

All of the plastic and concrete seen here is brought from Jomsom and below, carried across the Kali Gandaki at Chele from tractors on the east bank to jeeps on the west. Although the rugged terrain of Mustang has long been a limiting factor in movement through the valley, it is possible that the creation of a substantial bridge across the river at this point of transfer will allow for a more significant flow of goods into the highlands of Upper Mustang.

The Annapurna Conservation Area Project, within which all of Mustang district is located, is Nepal’s largest conservation area and has been responsible for several small-scale development projects within Upper Mustang. These include the concrete fountains that are ubiquitous throughout the distrct, and which I first saw near the beginning of my route between Tikkedhunga and Ulleri. Due to the historical stigma related to washing with water among the Loba (historical photos show many women with hands stained black from many years of work), one might assume that either these fountains have responded to, or been some cause of, changing attitudes toward the use of water within the communities of Upper Mustang. ACAP is also responsible for a trash-collection scheme that only seems particularly evident in Lo Manthang. A giant cascade of rubbish on the border of Charang indicates that there is no such program in this village. In Lo Manthang, wicker trash bins are held on the street by welded steel frames and emptied on a regular basis. One morning during our stay in Lo Manthang, a tractor slowly rumbled down the street around the city walls collecting trash from these baskets and households.

DH AK MAR 3800m D ay 17

Dhakmar (also transliterated as Trangmar) is the final village on the trek before final arrival in Ghami, after which a jeep takes me to Jomsom for an early morning flight to Pokhara. The cliffs of Dhakmar are perhaps its most well-known attribute; wind-carven and bright red, they rise above the village on one side and are peppered by ancient manmade caves. The caves, like the nearby mani wall of Ghami, occupy a place in the sacred landscape narrative of Upper Mustang: Padmasambhava, after killing a demon during his quest to spread Buddhism, caused the demon’s blood to color the cliffs while the large intestine transformed into the mani wall

of Ghami. Many of these embedded landscape narratives, for example the presence of village protector deities and invocations of these deities when crossing a pass between two villages, are all deeply rooted in the sacred.

The descent into the village is a steep switchback which falls onto the plain of Dhakmar from the north.

The village seems quite small relative to the significant extent of the fields surrounding it, and is formed into two small aggregated clumps. It is possible that these are actually two distinct villages, but I am unsure. There seems to be a profusion of springs, or some source

of groundwater, surrounding the village, as the path along which we walk is flanked by a carpets of green grass.

This is exceedingly unusual in Upper Mustang, and the only place that I have seen a similar phenomenon is within the village of Ghiling, although to a smaller extent. The village itself is on the other side of the khola from the path, so my observations of Dhakmar proper are kept to a minimum as we walk.

Many caves flank us on the left, piercing the red cliffs. Our pony driver says that many are used as retreats for Buddhist pilgrims or clergy, and some are accompanied by stairs or painted stripes in colors representing the Three Protectors (red, white, and black).

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of

Dhakmar’s physical layout is the adjacency of much of the village its fields to the small khola; while many other settlements here are separated from their khola by many meters of elevation, this is not the case in Dhakmar. The khola flows in the midst of fields, groves, and the village.

L a rg e S ketc hbook

L a rg e S ketc hbook

Sm a l l S ketc hbook I

Sm a l l S ketc hbook I I