Jomsom, Marpha and Lubra

Fly north from Pokhara for twenty minutes and the landscape changes completely. The Kali Gandaki cuts between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna (both over eight thousand metres, eight kilometres apart, with the river running between them) and once you are through the gap you are behind the Himalaya in the rain shadow, on the Tibetan plateau’s southern edge. Brown, dry, wind-scoured, and utterly unlike the green hills an hour to the south.

The valley wind is the defining fact of daily life here. It builds through the morning and blows hard up the gorge from late morning until evening. Flights only operate early because of it, and walking north in the afternoon means walking into sand.

Jomsom

The administrative centre of Mustang and the airstrip, at 2,700 metres, strung along both banks of the river. It is a place to arrive at and pass through rather than to stay in, and most people give it one night. There is a small mountaineering museum, an army post and a bridge.

Marpha

Twenty minutes south of Jomsom and the reason to come down the valley rather than straight up it. A Thakali village of whitewashed stone houses with flat roofs stacked with firewood, flagstone lanes with a covered channel running down the middle, and a monastery on the slope above with a view over all of it.

Marpha is apple country. The orchards were established here in the twentieth century and the village produces apples, dried apples, apple brandy and cider. The brandy is strong and locally taken seriously.

The Thakali are the traders of this valley, and Thakali dal bhat is the version of the national dish that gets recommended across the whole country. Eating it here, at source, is not a gimmick.

Lubra

A short walk up a side valley from the road between Jomsom and Kagbeni, on the Panda Khola. Lubra is one of very few Bon villages in Nepal, Bon being the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet, still practised, with its own monasteries, its own texts and, visibly, its circumambulation done anticlockwise rather than clockwise.

It is a small settlement, perhaps a dozen households, founded in the twelfth century. There is a temple with old wall paintings. Access depends on someone being there and willing, and it should be arranged rather than turned up to.

If you visit Lubra, walk anticlockwise around the chortens. Doing it the Buddhist way is the obvious mistake and everyone notices.

Kagbeni and Muktinath

Kagbeni, at 2,800 metres, sits at the junction where the trail to Upper Mustang begins. It is a medieval-looking village of mud-brick alleys and covered passages with a red gompa above it. Beyond it you need a restricted-area permit and a licensed guide.

Muktinath, at 3,760 metres up the side valley, is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Nepal for both Hindus and Buddhists, 108 water spouts around the temple, a natural gas flame burning above water inside the Jwala Mai shrine, and pilgrims from all over India. There is now a road to it, which has changed the character of the visit considerably.

Fossils

The Kali Gandaki bed is full of ammonites, shaligram, which are Vishnu to Hindus and marine fossils to geologists, and both facts are true. They are found in the riverbed north of Kagbeni. Collecting and exporting them is restricted; buying them from a stall is not the same thing as finding one.

Practical things

• Flights cancel. Pokhara to Jomsom is short, cheap and weather-dependent. Do not plan an international connection within two days of it.
• The road now runs the length of the valley and up to Muktinath. It has made the classic Annapurna Circuit descent much less pleasant to walk and much easier to reach.
• Wind. Walk in the morning. Everything here is arranged around that.
• Sun. The air is thin and dry and there is no shade. Sunburn at 2,700 metres here is common.
• It is cold at night year round.