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Showing posts from March, 2013

BURIAL RITUALS OF LO MANTHANG (MUSTANG IN NEPAL)

Hidden inside a narrow cave of just five feet high and six feet deep in the Lo Manthang (Mustang) region was a tomb which was formed by digging a shaft into the ground and then expanding it into a chamber. Located at Samdzong in Upper Mustang , the shaft tomb was just one among many of such mortuary caves veiled in the mystical kingdom. In 1987, when a tunnel was being built for a small-scale hydroelectric project in Chokhopani in Mustang, a burial cave was exposed by accident. The project in fact led to a distinct discovery of 2,000 to 3,000-year-old human corpses. [Beak]In Embark of Lower Mustang, a corpse of a mother and an infant in a sleeping position that dated back to 450 BC was also revealed. The discovery was part of an excavation project by German researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany along with the Department of Archaeology (DoA) of Nepal. Human remains from Samdzon, Mustang. Anthropologist Mark Aldenderfer says that it was hard for his team to believ

Manaslu Circuit Trek

Updated November 2012 by Howard and Sue Dengate! These notes are freely downloadable here thanks to Howard and Sue Dengate! Since these track notes were first written in 2010 there have been huge changes on the Manaslu- Tsum trek. In season, it is now easily done as a 20-day lodge trek with accommodation available every night. More than 10,000 copies of these track notes have been downloaded so I have fully updated them following our latest visit. The Manaslu Valley Trek is more remote and spectacular than many, with rough steep tracks and less than luxurious accommodation. It is culturally fascinating with strong continuing links to Tibet in the upper Buri Gandaki (called Nupri ‘the western mountains’) and the Tsum Valley, and even has the Larkya La (5160m) as a challenge. The views of Mt Manaslu, eighth highest mountain in the world, are marvelous and close. The trek around Manaslu can be done as a lodge trek while even Tsum now has several lodges, good homestays an