Pokhara & the Annapurna Region

The hills of Gandaki were once divided among small principalities, the Chaubisi or "twenty-four kingdoms", ruled by Thakuri, Khas and Magar dynasties over Gurung and Magar farming communities. The most ambitious of them was Gorkha. Prithvi Narayan Shah, born there in 1723, set out from its hilltop palace to conquer the Kathmandu Valley, and his dynasty ruled Nepal until 2008. Gorkha's name passed into English as "Gurkha", the soldiers recruited by Britain since the 19th century, many of them Gurung and Magar men from these hills.

North of the Himalaya the story was Tibetan. The kingdom of Lo, in Upper Mustang, was founded in the 14th century by Ame Pal and grew rich on the salt and grain trade along the Kali Gandaki, a major route through the range. Its rulers kept the title of king under Nepal until the monarchy was abolished in 2008. Further down the valley, the Thakali of Tukuche and Marpha were a people of traders.

Pokhara was a small bazaar on a trade route until the 1960s, when its first road, completed in 1968, turned it into a growing city and, from the 1970s, the base for trekking in the Annapurnas. The Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal's largest protected area, covers the high country. Road building has since pushed jeep tracks up the Kali Gandaki and Marsyangdi valleys and, in 2023, Pokhara's international airport opened.

The middle hills are Gurung and Magar country. The Gurung, who call themselves Tamu, keep their own language, a blend of Buddhist and shamanic religion and a strong military tradition; their Tamu Lhosar new year in December or January is a public holiday, and the rodhi, a village gathering house where young people sang and worked together, is remembered as their social institution. Ghandruk and Sikles are Gurung villages of slate-roofed stone houses. Magar villages dominate further west, and the Brahmin and Chhetri communities and Newar traders of towns such as Bandipur complete the mix.

Beyond the range the culture is Tibetan Buddhist. Manang and Mustang have monasteries, prayer walls and chorten gateways, and in Upper Mustang the Tiji festival brings three days of masked dancing by costumed lamas. The Thakali of the Kali Gandaki mix Buddhist and Hindu practice and run many of the region's lodges and restaurants.

Muktinath is shared ground, visited by Hindu pilgrims as one of the holiest Vishnu shrines and by Buddhists as a place blessed by Guru Rinpoche. Pokhara itself is a modern city of migrants from all these communities and a centre for Tibetan refugee settlements.

Pokhara, the provincial capital, has about 600,000 people within its metropolitan boundaries, making it Nepal's second-largest city after Kathmandu. Its lakeside quarter lives on tourism — hotels, trekking agencies, paragliding over Sarangkot, rafting on the Seti and Kali Gandaki — while the older town to the east runs on trade, government and education. Many families in the Pokhara area are supported by pensions from the British and Indian armies and by work in the Gulf.

In the hill districts of Syangja, Parbat, Baglung and Lamjung, most people farm terraces of rice, maize and millet, and villages have emptied as young people leave for towns or abroad. Damauli, Besisahar and Beni are market towns at the ends of trekking roads.

In Mustang and Manang, life follows a short farming season of barley, buckwheat and apples, and many residents spend the winter in Pokhara or Kathmandu. The jeep roads have brought cheaper goods and quicker rescue, but also changed the character of the Circuit, and villages now debate how to keep trekkers coming.

The region's best-known cooking is Thakali. The Thakali set is a refined daal bhaat: rice or buckwheat dhido, a lentil daal, spiced greens, pickles, potatoes and often mutton or dried meat, served on brass plates with generous refills. Thakali restaurants are now found across Nepal, but the originals are in Tukuche, Marpha and Jomsom.

Mustang and Manang grow apples, apricots and buckwheat, and Marpha is famous for its apple orchards, apple brandy and jams. Buckwheat pancakes, tsampa and yak meat appear on the upper trail, along with salty butter tea. Dried mountain meat, sukuti, is fried with chilli and onion as a snack.

In the Gurung hills, meals feature millet bread, gundruk, stinging-nettle soup (sisnu), and chicken or pork, with raksi and millet beer poured at gatherings. Pokhara's lakeside restaurants serve a traveller's menu from momos to wood-fired pizza, and fish from Phewa and Begnas lakes is fried in lakeside stalls.

Pokhara's Phewa lake is the centre of the region: boats cross to the Tal Barahi temple on its island, the World Peace Pagoda looks down from the southern ridge, and Sarangkot is the sunrise viewpoint and paragliding launch facing Machapuchare and the Annapurnas. Davis Falls, the Gupteshwor Mahadev cave, the International Mountain Museum and the quieter Begnas and Rupa lakes complete the city.

The Annapurna Base Camp trek climbs through Gurung villages such as Ghandruk and Chhomrong into the Annapurna Sanctuary, often combined with the Poon Hill sunrise above Ghorepani. The Annapurna Circuit follows the Marsyangdi to Manang, with side trips to Gangapurna and Tilicho lakes, crosses the Thorong La at about 5,400 metres and descends to Muktinath, Jomsom and Marpha in the Kali Gandaki gorge between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna. Upper Mustang, north of Kagbeni, holds the walled town of Lo Manthang, cave monasteries and red and ochre cliffs. The Manaslu Circuit, in the east of Gorkha district, is a restricted-area trek around the world's eighth-highest mountain.

Closer to the highway, Bandipur has a pedestrian bazaar of old Newar houses and short walks to the Siddha cave. Gorkha has the Gorkha Durbar palace-temple on the ridge above the town, where Prithvi Narayan Shah began his conquest, and the Manakamana temple, reached by cable car from the Trishuli valley.