In the remote Mustang region of north-central Nepal, a newly restyled lodge provides a luxurious gateway to the cultural and natural wonders that surround it.

Photographs by Christopher P. Hill

Overlooking Kagbeni, an ancient village at the doorstep of Upper Mustang.

Huffing my way up a yak trail through a sparse forest of juniper and pine, I hear the throbbing tum-tum-tum of a drum. Or so I think. Stopping to catch my breath, it dawns on me that the sound is coming from inside my head: the reverberating beat of my heart working overtime in the thin Himalayan air. “Sorry Sangrit,” I say to my wispily goateed Nepalese guide, who’s barely broken a sweat. “It’s been a while since I hiked up a mountain.”

Sangrit gives me a look. “This is not a mountain, Ong Chris. It is a hill.” Gesturing behind us to the distant cloud-scarfed snowcap of Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh-highest peak, he adds with winking solemnity, “That is a mountain.”

Point taken. An hour later, we finally arrive at a small jade-green lake just below the tree line, where a picnic lunch has been arranged for me. The elevation is 3,800 meters and the vista is epic. Beyond a swath of alpine pastureland, the flanks of the Nilgiri Himal rise up and up to the range’s triple summits, their frosted white peaks glistening in the bright October sun. I’m almost too distracted to notice the bottle of rosé and spread of curried vegetables and local cheeses that awaits me. Then, over the trill of crickets and the sound of prayer flags fluttering in the breeze, I hear the rumble of thunder. Or so I think. Squinting in the direction of Nilgiri’s central peak, I see a rush of snow billowing down its face.

“Avalanche,” Sangrit says nonchalantly. “Just the mountains saying hello.”

Hiking a yak trail in the hills above the Kali Gandaki and a yak herder saddling up in Jharkot for a journey to his alpine pastureland. — *Left to right:* Hiking a yak trail in the hills above the Kali Gandaki; a yak herder saddling up in Jharkot for a journey to his alpine pastureland.

The Dhaulagiri and Annapurna massifs that gird Mustang once made this remote corner of north-central Nepal all but impenetrable to outsiders. The only way in or out was (and remains) via the rugged Kali Gandaki Valley, which cuts right across the Nepalese Himalayas to the borderlands of Tibet. For centuries, the Kali Gandaki—which in the lower reaches of Mustang forms the world’s deepest river gorge—was an important trade route between the Tibetan Plateau and the Indian subcontinent, traversed by pack trains loaded with rock salt and other goods. The former Buddhist kingdom of Lo, which established rule over what is now known as Upper Mustang in the 14th century, grew rich on this commerce, only to become a dependency of Nepal in 1795. Off-limits to foreigners as recently as the 1990s and even now requiring a Restricted Area Permit to enter, it survived as a semiautonomous realm until 2008, when Nepal abolished its own monarchy and declared itself a republic.

Lower Mustang, by contrast, is a more familiar territory for trekkers and pilgrims, especially since the completion of the road—unpaved but motorable, in a spine-jarring sort of way—through the Kali Gandaki 14 years ago. Jomsom, the district’s dusty main town, is also home to the only airport in Mustang, with a short runway that services morning flights to and from the lakeside city of Pokhara, weather permitting. The 20-seat Twin Otter that I flew in on was crammed with Indian and Nepali devotees on pilgrimage to Muktinath Temple, plus a group of German hikers bound for the legendary Annapurna Circuit. Yet this starkly beautiful land has never been a lure for more luxury-minded travelers—until now, that is.

I’ve come here to stay at Shinta Mani Mustang, Nepal’s most buzzed-about new hotel. Perched on a steep-edged plateau 150 meters above the Jomsom airstrip, the low-slung, stone-faced structure—from a distance almost indistinguishable from the barren hills behind it—is actually a redevelopment of an earlier hotel, Moksha Mustang, built in 2017 by the accomplished Nepali architect Prabal Thapa. It’s a modestly handsome building that nods to the vernacular architecture of the indigenous Thakali people, with two parallel guest wings enclosing a long grassy courtyard that provides shelter from the fierce winds that stream down the Kali Gandaki Valley. Complete with a spa, a lodge-like lounge, and 29 cozy rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows that give way to killer views of the Nilgiri range, its original iteration should have been a sure-fire hit. But as a hospitality concept, it didn’t quite click. “There wasn’t enough here to keep guests for more than a night,” explains general manager Pradyot Rana, who came on board in July following a stint with pioneering Nepalese lodge operator Tiger Tops. “Moksha became sort of an airport hotel, not a place you would linger.” The pandemic didn’t help matters. And so, in 2022, its owners, the family-run Sherpa Hospitality Group, turned to the Shinta Mani hotel brand to recast the underutilized property as a luxury boutique resort.

The courtyard of Shinta Mani Mustang and a monk in the courtyard of Kagbeni’s old monastery. — *Left to right:* The courtyard of Shinta Mani Mustang; a monk in the courtyard of Kagbeni’s old monastery.

A staff member in Shinta Mani Mustang’s lobby lounge and yak tails adorn the guest room doors at Shinta Mani Mustang. — *Left to right:* A staff member in Shinta Mani Mustang’s lobby lounge; yak tails adorn the guest room doors at the hotel.

A welcome drink of local apple cider and a room at Shinta Mani. — *Left to right:* A welcome drink of local apple cider; a room at Shinta Mani.

The resulting makeover is the work of Shinta Mani co-owner Bill Bensley, whose prolific Bangkok-based architecture and design studio is responsible for some of Asia’s most eye-catching hotels. Rooms have been enlivened by color and whimsy, accented with bric-a-brac and upcycled woodwork sourced from local antiques shops and junkyards. Intricate depictions of Mustang architecture by the late Australian painter Robert Powell, who spent three decades of his life in Kathmandu, hang on the walls; felt blankets and handmade wool rugs with playful tiger motifs add pops of orange. Yak hair makes an appearance too, from pelt-topped bamboo stools to the shaggy white yak tails that adorn the doors.

Beyond its new look, the biggest change to the hotel is that it now operates as an all-inclusive experience, with a minimum stay of five nights. Apart from all meals, drinks, and spa treatments, the room rate also covers one guided excursion per day. It’s a smart move that should establish Shinta Mani Mustang as both a bona fide destination hotel and a luxurious base camp for exploring the natural and cultural heritage of its surrounds.

My first outing is to Marpha, five jouncing kilometers down-river from Jomsom. Set at the foot of a cliff, the village is a maze of tidy passageways and whitewashed dry-stone houses, their flat mud roofs edged with stacks of split firewood, like parapets. Burnished gray by the sharp Mustang winds, the wood looks as though it’s been there for ages. And so it has. “The Thakali don’t actually burn this wood,” Sangrit tells me. “It’s there for decoration, and for status. If you have a lot of wood on your roof, it means you’re rich.” The stacks are like heirlooms, passed down through generations.

Tourism has helped bring a more modern measure of wealth to Marpha, as witnessed by the string of hostelries and trinket shops along its slate-flagged main street. In a way, this is not a new thing: Marpha was once a rest stop on the Kali Gandaki trade route. And then there’s the story of the Japanese monk Ekai Kawaguchi, who at the end of the 19th century lingered here for three months on his way to Tibet. The house in which he lodged is now a small museum. It contains some of his left-behind belongings as well as the chapel where he studied sacred texts while waiting for the snow to melt.

“I wake up each morning to a perfectly framed view of the Nilgiri Himal. Even at night, the peaks remain a looming presence, their icy contours phantasmal in the starlight.”

Marpha is renowned, too, for its apples, said to be the tastiest in all of Nepal. Much of the harvest is trucked to markets in Pokhara or Kathmandu, or mashed to make jams, pickles, and juice. Local distillers also make a potent apple brandy, which I sample at the Apple Paradise Tea & Coffee Shop.

The village’s name means “hardworking people,” and perhaps none of its 1,600 residents is as industrious as Kamala Lalchan. Apart from being the proprietor of Apple Paradise, the ebullient apple farmer is a chef, a civic leader, and the chairperson of an agricultural cooperative focused on empowering women producers. She is, in fact, on her way out to a meeting when I arrive, stopping just long enough to pour me a glass of brandy and direct me downstairs, where the crew of her little kitchen whips up a home-style Thakali thali of curried chicken, dal, pickles, rice, and fresh yogurt right in front of me.

Decorative conch shells serve as handles on Shinta Mani Mustang’s minibar cabinets and the old monastery at Kagbeni. — *Left to right:* Decorative conch shells serve as handles on Shinta Mani Mustang’s minibar cabinets; the old monastery at Kagbeni.

*Left to right:* A water-powered prayer wheel; crossing a footbridge above the Panda Khola River en route to the Bon village of Lubra.

Owing to the length of these daily excursions—most clock in at about seven hours—lunches take place outside the hotel. Some, like my lakeside picnic, are prepared on-site by Shinta Mani staff; others are local affairs. In Kagbeni, an hour’s drive up the valley at the threshold of Upper Mustang, we brave the village’s mud-strewn streets (the consequence of a recent flash flood) to grab lunch at the fabulously named Yak Donalds. A Happy Meal at this homey trekkers’ hangout gets you a juicy yak burger, organic fries, and sea buckthorn juice.

Another day, another village. This time it’s Lubra, a community of 14 households huddled in the gorge of the Panda Khola river, a tributary of the Kali Gandaki. To get there, we cross a suspended metal footbridge and hike the rest of the way. Our path affords dramatic views of the opposite side of the canyon, where fluted sandstone cliffs are pocked with “sky caves” bored out by early inhabitants for use as meditation chambers and burial sites. Halfway along, Sangrit stoops to pick up a stone. It bears the faint imprint of an ammonite, a prehistoric marine creature with a spiral shell. “From when the Himalayas were a seabed, millions of years ago,” Sangrit says. It’s a heady thought. These mountains seem so eternal, unmovable, and yet they began on the floor of a primordial ocean, pushed ever upward by the collision of tectonic plates. Even now, they continue to rise by an average of two centimeters each year.

The people of Lubra are among Nepal’s last adherents of Bon, an ancient religion practiced by Tibetans before the arrival of Buddhism, though the two faiths have many similarities. The village traces its founding back to the 12th century, when a Bon lama named Tashi Gyaltsen ventured here from Tibet and sub-dued the unruly local spirits. The cave in which he meditated lies high in the hills above Lubra. To get there, we follow a trail that takes us past fields of pink-flowered buckwheat and apple orchards and the ruins of an ancient watchtower. A monastery has been built around the site, its interior walls brightly frescoed with Tashi Gyaltsen’s life story. The cave itself is little more than a hole in the bedrock; it’s miracle enough that the lama could squeeze in there at all, never mind leave an impression of his footprint behind on a stone at its entrance.

Lubra could use a miracle itself these days. At his newly built teahouse on the slopes above the original settlement, Palsang Gurung tells me (via translation by Sangrit) that the sediment left behind each year by increasingly intense monsoonal flood-waters is threatening to swallow the village. Like some of his neighbors, he’s already abandoned his ancestral rammed-earth dwelling on the riverbank and moved to higher ground. But he still uses the house for storage and, when Shinta Mani guests come calling, as a rooftop lunch patio. Sitting at a low wooden table, I tuck into starchy fried potatoes, dal spiced with timur (a cousin of Sichuan pepper), and dhindo, or mashed buckwheat. On one side of me is the rocky riverbed of the Panda Khola, its flow reduced to a few braids at the start of Mustang’s long dry season. On the other is a wizened walnut tree, 800 years old, said to have been planted by Tashi Gyaltsen himself. “As long as the walnut tree is here, we still have hope,” Palsang says.

(Shinta Mani Mustang, it must be said, has the most thought ful turndown amenities. One day it’s a gleaming brass prayer bell; another, an embossed copper incense case. But the one I cherish the most awaits me after dinner that night: a silk-lined box containing three little walnuts, a gift—perhaps even a blessing—from the people of Lubra.)

A fresco at a prayer room in Marpha and a farmhouse in Lubra. — *Left to right:* A fresco at a prayer room in Marpha; a farmhouse in Lubra.

A sculpture of an ammonite fossil in Shinta Mani Mustang’s Aara Bar and the central peak of the Nilgiri range, as seen from the resort. — *Left to right:* A sculpture of an ammonite fossil in Shinta Mani Mustang’s Aara Bar; the central peak of the Nilgiri range, as seen from the resort.

In between excursions, I pass my time at Shinta Mani Mustang contemplating the day’s encounters and the grand vista spread out before me. I wake up each morning to a perfectly framed view of the Nilgiri Himal—the housekeeping staff have been trained to leave the window curtains open unless otherwise requested—and the snow-capped range is there again at breakfast on the hotel’s flagstone terrace, seemingly close enough to touch but also impossibly out of reach. Even at night, the peaks remain a looming presence, their icy contours phantasmal in the starlight.

Dinners take place in the Nilgiri Restaurant, and there are mountains here too, in the form of a vivid mural of the Mustang landscape. Against this backdrop, Krishna Subedi, a promising young chef from Kathmandu, serves up a roster of themed five-course meals assembled from seasonal native produce. On one evening it’s Farmers and Forging Night, headlined by steamed trout and wild-picked mushroom risotto; on another, it’s Momo Night, which puts a gourmet spin on the humble Himalayan dumpling, right through to chocolate-filled momos for dessert. But after sunset, my favorite spot is the Aara Bar, a welcoming space dominated by a wall sculpture of a giant black ammonite fossil. Here, I get to chat with barmen like Suman Kafle as they pour creative cocktails (such as the Lo Man Tai, a muddle of Khukri rum, sea buckthorn, Cointreau, and pomegranate) or introduce me to more folksy Himalayan intoxicants like raksi and tongba—one, a barley wine, the other, fermented millet.

While Suman is from eastern Nepal, most of Shinta Mani’s 80-strong staff have been recruited from within a 10-kilometer radius. (Among them is Alish Thakali, my quietly efficient young butler, who grew up across the river in the hamlet of Thini.) The hotel’s commitment to bolstering the local economy extends to its support of the Pasang Lhamu Foundation. Named for the first Nepali woman to summit Mount Everest, the NGO is dedicated to helping marginalized women and children in the country’s highlands. Revenue from Shinta Mani will enable an extension of its projects into Mustang.

Chef Krishna Subedi and beetroot momos at Shinta Mani Mustang’s Nilgiri Restaurant. — *Left to right:* Chef Krishna Subedi; beetroot momos at Shinta Mani Mustang’s Nilgiri Restaurant.

The hotel has also added to the busy schedule of Tsewang Gyurme Gurung, an 11th-generation amchi (traditional healer) who now divides his time between his clinic in Jomsom and Shinta Mani’s wellness center. My session with him begins with a pulse reading and an examination of my eyes and ears before he declares that my small intestines are too “hot.” As a result, we spend an hour together in a treatment room, where he intones mantras while working on my back and stomach with sesame- scented oil and a series of cupping tools, including a small cow’s horn. By the end, I look like I’ve been cuddling with an octopus. Yet there’s no denying I feel lighter, more energetic.

Good thing, too, because there’s one last adventure before I leave. Early the next morning, we climb back into one of the hotel’s 4x4s and drive up the valley again toward Kagbeni, where a turnoff takes us into the hills. Suddenly, mercifully, the ride is smooth—we’re on the only paved road in Mustang, bound for the Vishnu temple of Muktinath. The scenery shifts almost as abruptly. As we near the pretty village of Jharkot, Mustang’s arid palette of browns and grays gives way to a broad, bucolic valley of terraced fields and apple orchards. Farther on, the road ends at Ranipauwa, a lively one-street town on the doorstep of Muktinath, which is revered by Hindus and Buddhists alike. Pilgrims from both camps are out in force, as are trekkers—Ranipauwa is the closest town to Thorong La, at 5,416 meters the highest pass on the Annapurna Circuit.

After a quick stop at the sandalwood-scented Hotel Bob Marley for tea and apple pie, we join a throng of devotees on the march up to Muktinath. This involves negotiating a flight of 300 steps, though for the infirm (or just plain lazy), ponies and palanquins are on hand to aid their ascent. The temple itself is a bit of an anticlimax. Set in a poplar grove, the small three-tiered pagoda is not nearly as atmospheric as the faded-red Tibetan-Buddhist gompa (monasteries) we have visited else- where in Mustang. Of more interest are the 108 bull-faced waterspouts that line a curving stone wall in its courtyard. As we arrive, a group of men stripped down to their shorts run under the spouts, sputtering in the frigid cascades before plunging into one of two holy pools to wash away any remaining sins. Sangrit, himself a Hindu, is content with cupping the water in his hands and wetting his hair. He performs this ritual at each spout.

In the valley below, we drive to the monastery at the village of Jhong, where Alish and some of Shinta Mani’s kitchen crew have prepared lunch on the roof of the monks’ dormitory. It’s a remarkable setting. From the towering breach of Thorong La to the east, the panorama sweeps over Ranipauwa and the verdant fields of Jharkot down toward the Kali Gandaki, where the pure blue sky is serrated by the white peaks and ridges of another Himalayan range. It feels like the rooftop of the world.

A roof with a view above the dormitory of the Jhong monastery.

WHERE TO STAY

Doubles at Shinta Mani Mustang – A Bensley Collection (from US$1,800) per night for a minimum five-night stay, inclusive of all meals, drinks, spa treatments, and daily guided excursions.

This article originally appeared in the December 2023/February 2024 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Higher Ground”).

Himalayan Dreaming with Shinta Mani Mustang