Mustang is the closest thing left to a journey into old Tibet. North of the Himalaya, in its rain shadow, lies a desert plateau of eroded canyons, mountains in impossible colours, cliffs riddled with thousands of caves and mud-brick villages where prayer flags flutter in the wind. For centuries it was an independent Buddhist kingdom, the kingdom of Lo, with its walled capital at Lo Manthang. For decades it was quite literally 'the forbidden kingdom', closed to outsiders until 1992. Even today you have to pay for a special permit to enter, and you can't go without a guide.
Its remoteness and protected status are exactly what make it a treasure. Mustang preserves a living Tibetan culture of centuries-old monasteries with extraordinary frescoes, chortens, mani walls and festivals such as Tiji. In Tibet itself, after the Chinese occupation, much of that culture has been lost. You'll travel its dusty, windswept tracks, enter the walled city of Lo Manthang, gaze up at the mysterious sky caves carved into the cliffs and sleep in mud-brick villages. It's one of the most unusual and evocative experiences in all of Nepal.
This guide covers the essentials for planning Mustang. You'll find the special restricted-area permit and what it costs, the mandatory guide and minimum group size, and when to go (it's one of the few places you can visit during the monsoon). It also explains how to get there from Jomsom on foot or by jeep and what to see in and around Lo Manthang. It isn't a cheap destination or an easy one to organise, but it's an exceptional trip: a step back in time to a high-altitude kingdom where Tibetan Buddhism is still alive among clay mountains and vast skies.
Mustang was the kingdom of Lo, an independent Buddhist state founded in 1380 by Ame Pal, a warrior who built the walled city of Lo Manthang. The capital has barely changed since then. Thanks to its strategic position in the Kali Gandaki valley, Lo controlled the salt trade between Tibet and India for centuries. It flourished as a centre of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, and its monasteries hold some of the most valuable frescoes in Himalayan art. In the late 18th century it came under the unified kingdom of Nepal, but it kept its king (raja or gyelpo) and broad cultural autonomy. The monarchy survived in symbolic form until 2008, when Nepal abolished all royal titles. The last king, Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista, died in 2016. Mustang was closed to foreigners until 1992 and is still protected by a special permit, so it has preserved its Tibetan culture like few places on earth. Our history page tells its story, from the kingdom of Lo to the present day.
Read the full history ↓The Nepal of lakes and high mountains: Pokhara at the foot of the Annapurnas, the Kali Gandaki gorge and, to the north, the old Buddhist kingdom of Lo in Mustang.
Read the history of Annapurna region and Pokhara (lakes and trekking) →They depart from Pokhara, 108 km away. If you book from this link we earn a commission and you pay no more.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
The history of Mustang is the history of a kingdom that time almost forgot. In 1380, a warrior named Ame Pal founded the Buddhist kingdom of Lo on this remote high plateau north of the Himalayas, and had its capital built: Lo Manthang, a walled adobe city in the middle of a high-altitude desert. Those walls, that four-storey palace and those monasteries have barely changed in appearance in the more than six centuries since, which makes Lo Manthang one of the best-preserved medieval cities in Asia.
The kingdom of Lo (Mustang is the corruption of 'Lo Manthang' that stuck on the maps) was born in Tibet's cultural orbit, sharing its language, religion and way of life. Its people, the Loba, were Buddhists of the Sakya school, farmers and herders in an arid, cold land, and seasoned traders. Ame Pal and his successors built the great monasteries of the capital, which became an important centre of Tibetan Buddhism and a hub of art, with frescoes and sculptures of extraordinary quality.
That origin explains the essence of Mustang: a Tibetan kingdom in miniature, protected by mountains and distance, with its own king, its own court and its own culture. For centuries, Ame Pal's line ruled over Lo from the walled city, in an isolation that would be both its greatest economic weakness and the key to the astonishing preservation of its heritage.
The greatness of the kingdom of Lo was built on trade. Mustang lies in the valley of the Kali Gandaki river, one of the few corridors that cut through the wall of the Himalayas, and for centuries one of the great trade routes between Tibet and India ran along it. The key commodity was salt: salt and wool came down from Tibet; grain and manufactured goods came up from India. Sitting astride that route, the kingdom of Lo controlled and taxed the traffic, and from it drew the wealth of its golden age between the 15th and 17th centuries.
With that prosperity, the kings of Lo funded the building and decoration of the great monasteries of Lo Manthang (Jampa, Thupchen, Chode) and of other temples in the region, which filled up with murals and sculptures of incalculable value. Mustang became a thriving centre of Tibetan Buddhism and sacred art, drawing masters and artists. Those frescoes, protected by the dry climate and by isolation, are today some of the finest surviving examples of Himalayan Buddhist art from that period.
Decline came when the salt trade lost importance (as sea salt from India became cheaper) and when new borders reduced the role of the route. The kingdom of Lo grew poorer and ever more isolated and marginal. But that same economic decline, which froze the region's development, is what preserved its city, its monasteries and its culture just as they were, saving them from the transformations that swept away so many other places.
In the late 18th century, when King Prithvi Narayan Shah and his successors unified Nepal by absorbing the mountain kingdoms, the kingdom of Lo was also incorporated into the new Nepali state, around 1795, as a dependency. Unlike other kingdoms, however, Lo kept its own king (the raja or gyelpo) and broad cultural and religious autonomy. The local monarchy carried on, respected by Kathmandu, and life in Mustang continued on its Tibetan course, largely untouched by the changes in the rest of the country.
Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Mustang remained a remote, forgotten region. Its position on the border with Tibet, however, put it at the centre of geopolitical events. In the 1960s, after the Chinese occupation of Tibet, Mustang became a base for the Tibetan guerrillas (the Khampa) who, with outside support, resisted China from Nepali territory. That activity, and the sensitivity of the border, led the Nepali government to close the region completely to foreigners for decades.
That is how the legend of Mustang as 'the forbidden kingdom' was born: a mythical place, closed to the world, from which barely any news emerged, where a Tibetan culture survived intact while in Tibet itself it was being devastated by the Cultural Revolution. That aura of a forbidden, inaccessible land, which lasted until the end of the 20th century, fuelled the fascination of explorers, scholars and travellers, and helped Mustang preserve its heritage like a true time capsule.
For almost six centuries, the kingdom of Lo had its own line of kings, descendants of Ame Pal, who lived in the palace of Lo Manthang. The last of them was Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista, born in 1930, a king who became an almost legendary figure: the monarch of a Tibetan kingdom lost among the mountains, respected by his people as both spiritual and temporal leader, who rode across his land on horseback and kept the traditions of his ancestors alive.
The end of the monarchy came with Nepal's own transformation. In 2008, after years of conflict and a peace process, Nepal abolished its own monarchy and declared itself a republic, and with it all royal titles in the country were officially extinguished, including that of the king of Lo. Jigme Dorje Palbar Bista thus ceased to be officially recognised as king, although many people in Mustang continued to revere him as their sovereign until his death in 2016. With him ended a dynasty that stretched back, unbroken, to the founder of the kingdom in 1380.
The end of the monarchy has not, however, erased Mustang's identity. The royal palace of Lo Manthang still stands, the monasteries are still active, festivals such as Tiji are still celebrated and Loba culture is still alive. The region keeps a strong sense of its history and its uniqueness, and the kings of Lo live on in collective memory and in every stone of the walled city that Ame Pal built more than six hundred years ago.
Mustang began to open up to the world in 1992, when Nepal allowed a limited number of foreigners into Upper Mustang for the first time, always with an expensive special permit and under strict conditions. That controlled opening aimed to balance tourism with the protection of a fragile culture and a unique heritage. Even today, to visit Upper Mustang you have to pay for a special restricted-area permit, always be accompanied by a guide and travel in a group of at least two people: restrictions meant to limit the impact and preserve the character of the place.
In recent decades, Mustang has gone through deep changes. The arrival of a dirt road linking the valley with Lo Manthang has broken its age-old isolation: it has made access, trade and services easier, but it has also brought the emigration of many young Loba to the cities and the risk that the old traditions will fade. At the same time, major international conservation projects have restored the frescoes and monasteries of Lo Manthang, saving an art that was being lost.
And yet Mustang remains one of the most extraordinary places in Nepal and in the Tibetan world. In its walled city, in its monasteries with centuries-old frescoes, in its adobe villages and in festivals such as Tiji, a living Tibetan culture beats on, preserved here as in few other places thanks to centuries of isolation. Travelling to Mustang today, crossing its high-altitude desert and walking through the gate of Lo Manthang, is a glimpse into a kingdom that time almost stopped: the last forbidden kingdom of the Himalayas, holding on to its history among clay mountains and immense skies.
