Visiting the Lost Kingdom of Tibet

Lone Stupa In this photo, a stupa can be seen along a road that runs deep into Mustang, the Himalayan mountains looming in the background. Probably one of the more majestic sights I was able to capture from the whole trek. It's one of the few remaining places on Earth where you actually feel like you're in the middle of nowhere. Because you are.

Road Building I took this photograph of some kids I came across who were working on the road that will connect Lower Mustang all the way through Upper Mustang into China. A lot of the older people I spoke to seemed to be very concerned about the road and the access it will allow for modernity to flow through Mustang. The younger generation, though, were caught between the desires to be a part of the modernizing world and to preserve their Tibetan traditions.

Local Transport We passed a lot of local people on ponies, which made me think about all of the people who have ridden through these mountains for thousands of years. The ponies had bells on so you could hear them approaching. For this particular photograph, I saw a perfect opportunity to frame the riders as they approached a bend in the trail with the Himalayan mountains in the background.

Syangboche A mother and her daughter pose inside of their home (which is also an inn and restaurant) in the village of Syangboche. The food along the trek usually included dishes such as fried rice, noodles, pancakes, eggs, and of course the more popular local dish dhal bhat tarkari, which consists of rice, curried vegetables, and lentil soup.

At Elevation After hiking nearly 20km through steep terrain, Syangboche was a very welcome sight. I’ve experienced high-altitude hiking before when I summited Kilimanjaro, but in Mustang, with elevations reaching 15,000 feet, it was definitely a new and challenging experience. I often had to stop to catch my breath along the path.

Yam Bhadur Perhaps the most remarkable thing I saw throughout the whole trek was the ability of people to grow food in extremely arid conditions. Mustang doesn't get the Indian monsoon rains that most of Nepal does, so the people have designed a web of irrigation canals that catch water from the melting mountain snow. This man has just picked yam bhadur, a commonly grown vegetable in Mustang, and was preparing it for sale. Two pounds sells for about 50 cents.

Ancient Cliff Caves Hundreds of caves like these are found in the region, built thousands of years ago. In this particular photograph, the caves are easily accessible, but many are halfway up high cliffs. I thought of the wandering yogis who made their home for years inside and wondered how they managed to get down the cliffs and into them. Just recently, researchers have gone in to excavate some of the high caves, and many well-preserved ancient artifacts have been found.

Night Sky On my last night in Lo Manthang, I climbed to the roof of the inn we were staying at. When I looked up, this is what I saw. I've seen skies illuminated by thousands of stars in places such as Greenland and northern Canada, but never was the sky as impressive as it was here. I spent an hour or so shooting long exposures with a tripod.

Towards Tibet After all the trekking on foot, I was finally able to explore by pony on an off day I had in Lo Manthang. I took the pony north and in this photograph you can see a local pointing out the border with Tibet. I unfortunately wasn’t able to make it to the border, but I have been told it is guarded by a Chinese military base.