Nepal
Where the land meets the sky and the deep blue of the heavens weds the Annapurna range, Nepal keeps its best-kept secret: the Forbidden Kingdom of Mustang. Reaching the gates of a kingdom has to be earned, and the road runs first through Kathmandu — loud, teeming, grimy at first glance — then across seven hours of winding bus rides to Pokhara, where the oared Doonga boats glide over Phewa Tal Lake as the sun goes down. What remains is the little eighteen-seat Fokker: a twenty-five-minute hop that takes you from 2,700 to 9,200 feet, nose pressed to the window, facing Nilgiri and its legendary peaks. To keep this journal going, wander toward more Asian journeys.
Mustang is above all a mineral desert carved by the wind — the kind that, they say around here, dehorns the dzos. Your gaze gets lost in ridges veined with gray, ocher, and red, like the red cliffs of Dakhmar, red with the blood of the demon slain by Guru Rimpoche. You follow the course of the Kali Gandaki, born in Tibet, and cross passes marked by prayer flags snapping in the wind, the promise of another valley ahead. To be among the few granted permission to walk these arid steppes feels like holding a rare key.
In this dry, windswept climate, the sight of a village always stops you: whitewashed houses with tiny windows framed in black, narrow lanes, prayer wheels you turn clockwise while repeating Om Mani Padme Hum. All around, the terraces of rice, buckwheat, wheat, and barley spread out like a many-colored patchwork, edged with willows and poplars. In October, harvest season, the women fill their doko with cut grass — a basket whose whole weight rests on the back of the neck, and that an outsider can barely hold for five seconds.
Day after day, you walk to the wonderful rhythm of happy wanderers, going up, going down, rarely anything in between. All the way to Lo Mantang, the capital, where you trade your shoes for those stocky little Nepalese horses that climb anywhere — a rough day on the backside, but what a way to feel the heart of Mustang beat.
Stories and tips from my travels in Nepal
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NepalFrom terra firma to the land of the dzos
Namaste, Breathing the scents of Asia, exploring a region of the world where the mountains flirt with the sky… Are you ready to explore a country where the earth greets the sky and where the blue azure of the heavens blends perfectly with the highest mountain peaks of Annapurna and Dhaulagir? Welcome to the “Forbidden…
31 8 min read
Frequently asked questions about traveling in Nepal
One trek holds the whole Nepal of this blog, and it has to be earned: Mustang sits behind a capped permit, a twenty-five minute flight and five hours of walking on the very first stage. The answers below say how you get in and what you find there.
Do you need a special permit to enter Mustang in Nepal?
Yes, and it is capped at 2000 visitors. Mustang is a Tibetan enclave inside Nepal, and access stays tied to that particular authorisation. In practice it is in the village of Kagbeni that trekkers collect their permit before carrying on north, the opening stage of this trek to the land of dzos. I still remember what went through my head at that moment: what a joy to be one of the 2000 lucky ones. The quota changes the whole feel of the trail, since you meet few people and the villages do not run on the rhythm of tour groups. The rest of the region is in my travels in Asia and the Middle East.
How do you reach Jomsom from Kathmandu for the Mustang trek?
A bus to Pokhara, then a 25-minute flight. The so-called tourist bus between Kathmandu and Pokhara takes 7 hours, and I experienced it as one long shaking. Pokhara is bordered to the south-west by Phewa Tal lake and faces the Annapurna range, including the summit of Nilgiri. From there a Fokker with 18 seats links Pokhara, at 820 metres, to Jomsom, at 2800 metres, and that is where my route towards Lo Mantang begins. I spent the flight with my nose glued to the window. After that the Kali Gandaki river, which rises in Tibet, works as the guiding thread. The neighbour to the south is crossed in a wholly different way, as my Indian travel stories show.
How long does the trek to Lo Mantang actually take?
Five hours on the very first stage, to Chele. The pace is set at once, and it does not ease off much afterwards. Once in Lo Mantang, the capital of Mustang, we took what was called a rest day, and we filled it with a 4-hour ride on horseback. Nepalese horses, small and stocky, remain the favoured way of getting about in this region, and after a few days on the trail I understand why. Rest, here, happens in the saddle. Elsewhere in Asia I climbed a ramp on the back of an elephant rather than a horse, as my climb to the Amber fort recounts. The traditions of the big neighbour to the north sit in my Chinese travel stories.
What is a dzo and what do people carry in a doko?
The dzo is the pack animal of Mustang, and the doko is the basket carried on the back. I wanted to try it: fill one with goat dung or grass, the first seconds feel easy, and you will have carried the doko for five seconds at most. Local people mainly raise long-haired goats, grow rice, buckwheat, wheat, barley and potatoes, and line their irrigation channels with willows and poplars. At the other end of the continent, eighteen supertrees grow in the middle of a city, as the gardens by the bay show. The rest of that city is walked in Singapore, district after district.
What is the best season to walk in Mustang, Nepal?
October, at harvest time. That is when my trek took place, and the fields carried the signs of it all along the way. The route crosses the red cliffs of Dakhmar and passes the Ghar Gompa, presented as the oldest Buddhist monastery in Nepal, where the chortens are so many that your eyes move from one to the next, counting them silently. In Lo Mantang I attended a religious ceremony at the monastery: even with different beliefs, you feel a certain spell. One custom worth keeping: you turn the prayer wheels clockwise. On Indian roads, courtesy runs through the horn instead, as my drives between Delhi and Agra recount. The forts of the Gulf are visited in my escapes across the Sultanate of Oman.
The countries of Asia and Middle East I have travelled
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China
From the Hakka earth houses to Shanghai's lit-up skyscrapers, Fujian gave me Oolong tea, rice paddies, and a sense of time frozen for centuries. -
India
I went to meet the Taj Mahal in an orange sari, a star for a day. In India you don't visit: you get seized, caught between splendor and dust. -
Singapore
In Singapore, I traded the skyscrapers of Marina Bay for the spices of Little India and the lanterns of Chinatown. A city-state where nature slips all the way up onto the rooftops. -
Sultanate of Oman
Land of frankincense and Sinbad the Sailor, the Sultanate of Oman blends shifting deserts, dizzying canyons and sand-colored forts. I found deep quiet in its wadis, far from the Gulf's obsession with scale.
Nepal is a land of mountains, silence and spirit. From the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the remote valleys of Mustang, from ancient monasteries perched on rugged hillsides to prayer flags dancing in the wind, every journey invites me to slow down and embrace the present moment.
What moves me most is the sense of serenity that accompanies these landscapes. Here, the mountains dominate the horizon, while centuries-old traditions remain woven into everyday life. A solitary chorten along a mountain trail, the sound of a prayer wheel turning in the breeze or the first light touching the Annapurna range are moments that stay with me long after the journey has ended.
Photography has become my way of preserving these fleeting impressions. The warm colours of the red cliffs of Mustang, the silhouette of a monastery against a vast Himalayan sky or a dzo walking along a high-altitude trail often capture the spirit of Nepal better than words.
With camera in hand, I invite you to explore Nepal through its landscapes, its traditions and the sense of wonder it inspires.
Every journey is far more than a destination. It is a collection of encounters, light and emotions that I am delighted to share through my photographs and travel stories.
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