on top of the world

In central Nepal a sumptuous new hotel provides a gateway to the austere and once forbidden kingdom of Mustang

- Chandrahas Choudhury

a fierce diurnal wind is gusting up the Kali Gandaki valley in Mustang, an isolated region in central Nepal, suffusing the austere terrain with drama and motion. It whips the thousands of prayer flags into a frenzy and relieves unsuspecting visitors of their hats. The powerful wind is the breath of this land; its heart is the Kali Gandaki, the river that originates in the north, near the Tibetan border, and empties into the Ganges. Over centuries the wind and the river have carved this gorge out of the Annapurna range, part of a 500-mile band that contains some of the Himalayas' proudest peaks. But all are dwarfed by a single form looming 23,000 feet above, somehow both near and far: the triple-peaked, snowcapped Nilgiri Himal, which keeps watch over its dominion below.

I am struggling to make headway down a slope amid the feral gale. Abhishek Thakali, my guide and butler from Shinta Mani Mustang, a newly reimagined resort in the Nepali highlands, laughs at me. "Welcome to the windy valley, Ong Chandrahas," he says.

This is the gateway to the ancient "forbidden kingdom" of Mustang (pronounced "moos-taang"). It is a barren, stony, gray landscape of secrets and specificities, a consequence of its place in the rain shadow of two colossal massifs, the Annapurna and the Dhaulagiri, and its natural isolation from the rest of the world.