Upper Mustang - Bistari, Bistari

A few years ago little sister Kerrie visited Nepal and loved the place. Seeing the details of the trip, big brother Colin wanted to visit, except none of these soft cushy trips, it was time to do some serious trekking. Well, serious by our standards anyway. Come 2013, and Kerrie decided that she had time before she started uni on 10th March 2014 to fit in a trip. And so we worked out an itinerary which got her back on the 9th March (nothing like cutting it fine). Having decided to trek Nepal, the question became where in Nepal and who with? A friend at work recommended Raj Nepal who he had trekked with a few times, so that solved the who. Getting in contact with Raj, he gave us three options based on our criteria of a scenic trip, seeing the local culture, and not wanting to be in a rush just to get somewhere. After researching each of the options, we chose Upper Mustang as our destination. In the past it was the Kingdom of Lo, with the trail following the ancient salt caravan routes from Tibet. Until 1992 it was forbidden for foreigners to enter Upper Mustang, and these days it requires a special $USD500 per person permit to enter for ten days, which means a limited number of trekkers. Unfortunately the next 3 to 4 years are likely to see a push to lower the fee, open up the area more, and in the process turn it more into a tourist destination than it is now. It's greatest appeal is its isolation and its links to its past, which may change as roads and power are taken further into the kingdom. So Raj took care of all the arrangements for us and we turned up and went for a bit of a stroll. Our guide for the trek was Hari, who is Raj's brother. He could find his way in the dark, in the snow, and could always find somewhere to stay with a nice warm fire, even if everything was closed. Our porter was Gonesh, who I fear Kerrie and I tried over loading with our over packing. Sorry Gonesh. I couldn't imagine doing a trek as part of a large group like some treks are. With just the four of us, we could set our own pace, we could stop/start whenever it suited us, and totally change the itinerary if we wanted to (or in this case needed to). These are the stories of that trip, or at least whatever an old man like me can remember a couple of weeks on (or a few months in some cases with how long it's taken to finish). We managed to learn a few words of Nepalese along the way, the most important for us were of course "Bistari, bistari". Of course I may not have learned to spell, but in theory it means "Slowly, slowly". A motto we stuck to for two key reasons; one was because we were in constant awe of the country and had to keep stopping to take photos, and secondly because we were so fit that we just had to keep stopping. Slow and steady wins the race as they say... it worked for us!!

Planned Dates

Feb 19, 2014 to Mar 09, 2014

Countries

1