Mustang Journey - Between a Landslide and a Hard Place : Pokhara to Jomsom

It is a 15 minute journey from Pokhara to Jomsom by twin otter plane flying past Niligiri mountain.  We were all set and ready to head to restricted and mysterious upper Mustang. Sophie wanted to investigate the horse culture in the region surrounding the Yarthung festivals in Lo Manthang and then Muktinath – (a separate project to the film we are making in Jumla).

Our small team waited hopefully at Pokhara airport on the balcony overlooking the runway. The previous three days no flights had gone and the airport was teeming with disgruntled travellers and piles of luggage that were yet to be checked in. So we weren’t sure of our chances, but the alternative was a long journey overland. 

airport skies not looking hopeful             photo: RK

The flights are all scheduled early because by the afternoon it is too windy for the little planes to manage the landing in Jomsom.  We were reserved on the third flight and by 10am, with the first flight still not going, we resigned ourselves to the reality that we would not be boarding a plane that day.  We could either wait until tomorrow and hope to get on a flight – after the people scheduled for that day got their flights, or go by land.

In my initial research and planning I had been told the journey by jeep was between Rs 40-60,000 ($400-$600) – considerably more than the cost of four flights (two foreigners and two Nepali – it is cheaper for locals). But apparently there was an issue on the road so we could not get one jeep straight through and would have to make multiple changes, which didn’t sound too appealing, but how bad could it be?

We had driven from Kathmandu in a private jeep the previous day and had told the company that if we could not get on the flight, we would use them to transport us on the first leg of our journey. The jeep was conveniently waiting for us outside the airport as they clearly suspected our fate before we were prepared to give up hope.

We negotiated the price from Pokhara to Tiplyang (Rs 15,000) where we were told we would have to walk for a stretch before picking up another jeep. We were reassured that there would be transportation there. 

our first jeep and excited to be on our way

So we set off, in relative comfort, excited that at least, we were on our way. And it was a gorgeous winding drive west of Pokhara through the post-monsoon, lush, green hillsides alongside the Kali Gandaki river roaring through the valley at an impressive force. Thin waterfalls cascaded down from the cliffs as we wove our way round hairpin bends, snaking up the river valley.

Not far outside of Beni, a little more than halfway to Tip-lyang (where we had paid up to), the road stopped. Or the road was no longer passable due to a landslide, which had apparently only happened that morning. It was a short walk around the gaping hole in the road, but with our ridiculous number of bags (nine bags between the four of us, ranging from precious camera bags, to an enormous heavy duffle bag with two tripods in it, to a small, but heavy, hard case full of electronic equipment), it was a small mission lugging it all to the vehicles waiting on the other side. 

There were two taxis who it appeared were stranded in the 4 km stretch of road between this landslide and some other as yet unknown blockage. Luckily, one of them was bigger than the standard Nepali taxi as we would not have all fit with our plethora of luggage otherwise. I’m not quite sure how we did all fit in one taxi but we managed to squeeze in and off we went for all of ten minutes before the driver stopped and told us it was a minute walk to the next point.

It certainly felt like more than a minute carrying multiple bags as we negotiated the landslide, water-ridden road. There was no jeep or bus waiting, at the next spot, so there we were with a pile of luggage wondering what to do next. 

Sophie still looking chipper and fresh at beginning of journey    photo: RK

We had too much stuff to keep walking. Nisha and I left Sophie and Rajan with the bags and walked on to the next village to find out about transport. About ten minutes walk up the road was a village with restaurants. We couldn’t seem to get a straight answer out anyone other than a nod that some form of transport would come. I thought it would be better if we moved all our stuff to the village so we could at least sit and have a drink or snack in the shade, so we enlisted the help of a couple of villagers to bring the bags. But as we approached the spot we had left, a jeep came whizzing past us. We paid off the people for their trouble and hurried back to the others who were now in the company of a Belgian family and their guide. It was not long before all ten of us were piled into the jeep with all the bags bound to the roof. 

third vehicle of day after short hike across waterfall      photo: RK

This jeep (our third vehicle of the day) dropped us off about 45 minutes further, where conveniently, there were groups of men waiting around to help people transport themselves and their belongings. We piled various bags onto ourselves and porters and started hiking up the road. As we approached the river, a group of Chinese tourists stopped us to warn us of the hazard ahead, showing photos of a gushing river that we were supposedly about to cross. Not sure what to make of it, we carried on and as we first approached the river, both Sophie and I were aghast at the sheer force of the flowing water ahead thinking there was no way we could be so foolhardy as to even try this crossing. On closer inspection, it was up the river that we had to wade, not across. A dam, that usually holds the waters back leaving a pathway, had burst, so we had to wade, knee deep along a stretch of river with the main river gushing alongside at full force – with all our gear! Those porters certainly knew their use as we could not have managed without them, steadying us along the way as well as liberating us from unnecessary luggage. I think somewhere at that point, both Sophie and I wondered to ourselves what we had gotten ourselves into, but when you are knee deep halfway through a current, you can only keep putting one unsteady foot in front of the other.

wading through Kali Gandaki River with the help of porters       photo: RK

Once back on dry, if a bit soggy land, we had a short hike up a hill to the next spot where a hut and some vehicles were situated. We were trying to work out how far the next jeep or bus would take us as we weren’t even sure exactly where we were. The Belgian family (who I think were pretty shaken by the river escapade) piled into the only jeep and set off without so much as an au revoir. This left the bus. Bags on board and squeezed into our seats, we waited for the bus to fill to take us as far as we could go. It was getting late in the day and it wasn’t clear how much further we could make it that day but we figured, just go as far as we can and see from there. It was at this point that Sophie said she had never ridden on a Nepali bus. She certainly made up for it in the days to come!

squeezed onto the bus - vehicle 4          photo: RK

We set off down the rugged road, hugging the cliff, jerking and bouncing along. I was by the window, and decided it best not to point out to Sophie, how precariously close to the precipice above the river the bus seemed to lurch. 

flat tyre as dusk falls         photo: RK

Following a short delay while the driver changed the tyre, ‘as far as we could go’ turned out to be the side of the road somewhere past Tatopani with nothing of note seemingly within sight. Now it really was dark and the four of us and our multitude of luggage were left behind as the bus did a precarious three point turn and chugged off.

There was nothing for it but to somehow move on. I don’t know quite how we managed but between the four of us, we picked up all of our bags and headed up the road in the dark.

At the first village we came to, we dumped all our stuff into a pile to catch our breath and figure out what to do. Nisha went off into the darkness to find out if another bus was coming. Rajan, Sophie and I sat on a bench outside a house and waited. We were soon joined by the mother of the house, who seemed to be merrily drunk and very excited to tell us about her time in Korea visiting one of her children. Nearly an hour passed and we were starting to worry about Nisha, so Rajan set off with the drunk woman’s son to see where she had gone and find out where the nearest lodge was. Within a few minutes they were back. It turned out the next guest house was only a further five minute walk up the road but Nisha had been trying to organise a bus and hadn’t thought to come back to tell us that we were so close to a place we could rest our weary heads for the night. It was too late to travel further anyway and by then, all we could think about was food and sleep. With the help of some of the family, we again picked up all our stuff and trudged into the darkness to the lodge in a place called Guithe. The rooms were pretty basic, but at least had mosquito nets. We quickly settled in, glad to know we were at least done for the night. According to Nisha (who is sitting next to me as I type) the dal bhat dinner “wasn’t very delicious but it was quite good”, however, to me, it was much appreciated, tasty home-cooked food at the end of an unexpectedly long day. And we were still a long way to Jomsom.

In the morning, we decided to walk the hour to Dana, as the bus wasn’t leaving yet and the road was broken somewhere along the way, so we would still have to walk part of it anyway. We arranged porters from the guest house and I thought the older man and another young man were going to be accompanying us until I saw the two young boys excitedly strapping bags. With a large green rucksack on one back and the cumbersome hard purple case lodged in a basket (dhoka) with a strap to the head of another, these two tiny boys set off. I watched their figures disappear up the road with a mixture of awe, amusement and guilt. Surely this was not right. But I rationalised that aside from the income for the family, these youngsters were accustomed to carrying such loads and they certainly seemed quite keen to accompany us.

An impromptu stall had been set up selling snacks (and impressively, hosting a basket for recycling) at the place in Dana where the jeeps came. After paying the family and buying the boys a juice and packet of biscuits each, we settled down with our pile of luggage to await the next leg of the journey. 

waiting for the next jeep...   photo: RK

A jeep came along and we negotiated the price to Ghasa (Rs 6000) which was as far as he could take us as from there it was Mustang and another district so jeeps and buses were in a different jurisdiction. Again, we piled into the jeep with all our stuff in the back section with the sideways seats. We soon picked up a mother and son who were trying to get to Ghasa and after moving some of our stuff, they squeezed into the back with the bags.  That particular road wound upwards with stunning sights of waterfalls and landscape but it was also incredibly bumpy and muddy and the sheer drop into the still ferociously black frothy Kali Gandaki river below made our previous night’s lurches on the road’s edge seem tame. We couldn’t imagine how the buses managed. 

When we arrived at Ghasa we found that the bus apparently wasn’t leaving until noon. So we ordered breakfast at the restaurant there and watched as the area filled with tourists and locals who had clearly also just made the same journey by various means. The mother and son we had given the lift to ended up helping us with our stuff and said they would save us seats on the bus as soon as one seemed to be preparing to leave.

Somehow the plan didn’t quite work and just as we were eating (after waiting for over an hour for the food to come) there was a mad scramble as the bus that was leaving seemed to be full. Bags piled here and there, we boarded the bus to find the only seats left were the back row. Travelling on what can only loosely be called a road, at the very back of a bus that has never heard of suspension, it was not the most comfortable of journeys – aside from the fact that as both Sophie and myself are taller than your average Nepali man, we were unable to sit straight as we don’t actually fit in the gap between the seat in front.

Like all things, this journey eventually came to an end. The bus stopped and rapidly emptied as the passengers at the front and in the know, rushed to the next bus to secure the best seats. This journey was broken up, this time due to a broken bridge which made a change.

broken bridge/bus park

As we settled in to the 7^th vehicle of our journey from Pokhara to Jomsom, I wasn’t sure I believed it when we were told that this bus actually went all the way to Jomsom.  But it did, and we finally arrived in Jomsom around 2pm the following day, nearly 30 hours after we had left Pokhara.

Who wants a 15 minute flight when you can take a jeep, a taxi, another jeep, a bus, another jeep and then two more buses, not to mentioned wading through torrents and up mountains with over 100 kilos of stuff? That said, it was very pretty and it was something to write home about…

Mustang Journey: Part II – onward to Lo Manthang

If that sounds like a lot, that tale only takes us to where the flight was supposed to bring us, Jomsom and the gateway of Mustang. We still had to get to Lo Manthang in Upper Mustang, the forbidden kingdom and mystical high desert.

We continued on that very afternoon. And any hopes we had that the journey might get easier were quickly dashed.

We continued north by jeep, wading across another river, then another jeep, crossing another river (by bridge), then bus, tractor, and jeep to Samar where we spent the night. 

photo: SDP

The next day, another hike down and up the valley, fording yet another river (this journey saw our luggage travel on horseback). And then a few hours in the beating high altitude sun on the side of a road with no shade waiting for another jeep coming at some undisclosed time, that eventually arrived and took us to another broken bridge and our final jeep – our 14th vehicle in three days just from Pokhara. We arrived in Lo Manthang on the Sunday evening, four days of constant travel from Kathmandu, and for Sophie,  a week since she had left her home in Los Angeles.

Epic.

bumpy tractor rides make the buses seems pretty smooth - photo: RK

  photos by Rajan Khatet where indicated