Hidden Valley Of Nar

Hidden by swirls of mountain mist, ahead of us, the Kangla Pass at 5200m appears remote and forbidding. Our sturdy mountain ponies stop every few steps, their steaming sweat-soaked bodies heaving. Behind us, Hunde airport which we left behind early morning, is a tiny speck. Our destination is the Nar-Phu Valley, above the tree line on the upper limits of cultivation, in the very north of Manang district. It's taken us five hours to reach the Pass that links Nar with Manang and three other Bhotia villages in the Nyeshang Valley lower down.

A constant drizzle has intensified the cold. I huddle deeper into my down jacket as I guide Karma, my 20 year-old veteran ride, up the last couple of metres of the steep, loose, stony trail. At the top, there's barely space for the horses to stand and we descend on the other side, towards the raging river we have to cross on the way to Nar. Named after the blue-grey sheep that still roam the area, the village is a tightly-knit cluster of stone houses set amidst fertile terraces of land surrounded by steep mountains. "Legend has it that a hunter from the Nyeshang valley shot a nawar or blue sheep," explains Tashi, the local lama. "He followed the sheep up into the mountain, where he came upon a field. The hunter sowed some wheat, promising himself that if it turned a ripe harvest, he would stay." Today, Nar has a population of some 300 villagers who depend on livestock for their living. Unlike most Bhotia people, whose trading patterns drastically changed after the Nepali government closed borders with Tibet to appease the Chinese who took over Tibet in 1959, the people of Nar and Phu Valley, were least affected by the political upheaval. The tortuous path leading from the Valley into Tibet had never made them dependent on the salt trade and till today they largely depend on yak herding for their livelihood.