There used to be a rule in Himalayan tourism. If you were rich and required pampering, you went to Bhutan for the luxury hotels. If you were poor and could rough it, you went to Nepal for the fiver-a-night teahouses. Bankers on the right, backpackers on the left. Now a dazzling new Nepali-owned hotel is upsetting that applecart.
Industry insiders say that Bhutan brought calamity on itself when the kingdom increased the sustainable development fee, which all tourists have to pay, from £51 a night to £158 in 2021. Bookings collapsed and within months tourism businesses were folding, starting a brain drain as young Bhutanese left the country. The fee has since been halved, but investors now see Nepal as a more dependable proposition and a new generation of tourism entrepreneurs is hauling the backpackers’ paradise upmarket.
From the reimagined luxury of Ang Tshering Lama’s Happy House in Phaplu (beyulexperiences.com) and Pawan Tuladhar’s boutique transformation of ancient houses in Patan (traditionalhomes.com.np) to Rajan Sakya’s February launch of Nepal’s first biennale at the Museum of Nepali Art (mona.com.np), the country is fast overtaking Bhutan — and the new Shinta Mani Mustang resort has shifted that effort up a gear.
Not that you can drive anywhere fast here. The road to the hotel that is transforming Nepalese tourism is a potholed track called the F042. It follows the valley of the Kali Gandaki, or the Black River: 500 miles of perfidious meltwater that flows from the Nhubine Himal glacier near the Tibetan border, cuts through the Himalayas like a cheese wire, and thunders south to join the Ganges east of Patna.
Creeping along ledges above the gorge that are routinely blocked by landslides, the F042 is occasionally alarming but, as it swerves between the avalanche-scarred slopes of Dhaulagiri (8,167m) on the left and the dazzling flanks of Annapurna (8,091m) on the right, it’s always pretty. You could take a helicopter from Pokhara, but you’ll be poorer for it financially — flights cost from £2,150pp return — and spiritually, because Mustang’s mystique is directly proportional to the effort expended in getting there.
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Beyond Lake Sekong, the outlook changes. You’ve left the Himalayas and entered an arid, windswept land, burnt umber beneath a black-blue sky. This is Mustang — the Kingdom of the North — and only accessible to foreigners since 1992.
Since then, the village of Jomsom — airstrip, coffeehouse and a handful of hostels — has become a stopover on the 160-mile Annapurna circuit. The views are mind-blowing but the footpaths are steep, the roads will loosen your fillings and the afternoon wind, arriving from the Indo-Gangetic Plain like a runaway train, can blow you off your feet. It’s one of the last places on earth you’d expect to find a fancy design hotel.
And yet here it is: the world’s poshest mountain hut, on a slope surrounded by apple trees. Across the Kali Gandaki stands Nilgiri Himal, 7,061m high and so massive, so beautiful, that no human endeavour could upstage it. So the Nepali architect Prabal Thapa hasn’t tried. Instead, he has used polished wood and Baglung stone, like the locals, to build a hotel that seems to vanish into the hillside.
Inside, though, the American designer Bill Bensley has had a ball, using found objects, architectural antiques, Tibetan rugs, thangka paintings and yak skins to create what is effectively an art museum in a space painted in cloud grey, wheaten yellow and terracotta, colours said to represent purity, prosperity and and longevity. When it rains — an increasingly rare event here — the exterior stripes are washed away and need repainting; a deliberate reminder of the impermanence of things.
My room is one of 29. It comes with handwoven blankets of Mongolian cashmere, bathside bricks of pink Himalayan salt and a floor-to-ceiling window. Nilgiri is six miles away but fills the view so completely that I have to crane my neck to see the summit. My butler, Dawa Sangpo, is explaining the excursion schedule, the spa, electric mountain bikes and sunrise yoga, but I’m not really listening. I’m watching the mountain morph from gold to rose, the spindrift streaming eastwards from the summit, the night creeping skywards from the forest on its flanks. Sunset at Shinta Mani is peak viewing time, and I’m awestruck.
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Such awe doesn’t come cheap — the minimum five-night stay costs from about £720pp per night, based on two sharing. But that includes your food — buckwheat pancakes for breakfast and Mustang-themed tasting menus every night — drinks, guiding, permits and excursions, much as you’d expect from the most luxurious African safari camps, but with decent cocktails. And the days out — Mustang sallies — are extraordinary.
Day one: a hike through Nilgiri’s pine and juniper to the turquoise Chhama Lake at 3,659m, the shreds of prayer flags above and the mountain reflected in the still waters below. On the shore, a bottle of chilled rosé and a table laid for a four-course lunch.
Day two: A Buddhist (Dawa), a Hindu (my guide, Krishna Mohan Nepali) and an atheist set off on a religious tour of Upper Mustang’s Muktinath Valley, climbing up through copper-coloured hills that could be New Mexico were it not for the stupas.
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It’s mid-January and there should be snow, but none has fallen for three years. The day before, a mob of indignant Thakali women had stormed a local monastery to order the monks to start praying for blizzards. “Without snow there is no meltwater,” Krishna says. “Without meltwater, there’s no irrigation and no hydroelectricity, and without those, no crops or light.”
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At the Buddhist monastery at Jharkot, a monk leads us into a phone-lit cellar where, in a scene straight out of Indiana Jones, he shows a 14th-century prayer book, its handwritten words too sacred to speak aloud. As we leave, Dawa asks me where atheists go after death. Same place as Buddhists, Hindus and Christians, I reply. He gives me a pitying look.
We continue to the Vishnu temple at Muktinath, where Hindus come for purification of mind and soul. Achieving that involves passing beneath 108 spouts of gushing ice water, then submerging oneself first in a pool to wash away evil and then in another to absorb righteousness.
As we follow the sacred stream down the valley, I ask Krishna why only men emerge from the final pool with their eyes shut. “If the first thing you see after leaving the water is the scantily clad lady who went before you, you will have impure thoughts and have to go around again,” he replies. “So they keep their eyes shut until it’s safe.” Not all of them, I notice.
We arrive at the Dzong monastery, an Escher-like 16th-century confusion of stairways and ladders. On the roof, with Tibet to the north, the Annapurnas to the south and bearded vultures soaring overhead … yep, a table set up for a four-course lunch.
And then day three, when Krishna leads me across a rope bridge to the riverside village of Lubra, its roofs stacked with the firewood that is a symbol of wealth in this ethnically Tibetan community. High above sits the only monastery in Nepal dedicated to Bon, a pre-Buddhist religion from Tibet derived, some say, from Zoroastrianism.
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It’s another splendid adventure involving a hidden key, mysterious rock paintings, a cobweb-festooned cave and a Tibetan lunch cooked by a villager. Your excursions may differ: each is tailored to the fitness of the client but all include dining in glorious locations, followed by a dash back to Shinta Mani before the afternoon wind arrives.
The spa awaits, where each treatment room has a pool, steam bath and sauna. Therapies and a consultation with the traditional Tibetan healer Tsewang Gyurme Gurung, who offers advice, treatments and near telepathic insight, are included in the price, and suddenly, £720pp per night seems like very good value.
Chris Haslam was a guest of Steppes Travel, which has eight nights from £8,845pp, including five nights’ all-inclusive at Shinta Mani Mustang, one night’s B&B in Kathmandu; two nights’ half-board in Pokhara, transfers and flights (steppestravel.com)
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Nepalese high points
Dwarika’s Hotel, Kathmandu
On a cold morning in 1952, the Nepali visionary Dwarika Das Shrestha came across workmen chopping up a centuries-old pillar for firewood. Realising that he was seeing the destruction of his own patrimony, Dwarika intervened, sowing the seed of an obsession with Kathmandu’s architectural antiques that he used to build the eponymous wooden palace that is to Kathmandu what the Georges V is to Paris. The 80 rooms have handmade terracotta floor tiles and handwoven fabrics and the restaurants and bars are designed with carved dark woods. The food uses ingredients from the hotel’s organic farms. There’s also a courtyard, a spa and outdoor pool.
Details Room-only doubles from £275 (dwarikas.com)
Traditional Homes Swotha, Patan
When the entrepreneur Pawan Tuladhar saw historic buildings in Patan being knocked down to make way for flats, he followed Dwarika’s example and approached the home owners to suggest they preserved their cultural heritage by transforming old houses into tourist accommodation. Swotha was the first of the Traditional Homes to reopen in 2010 — a house belonging to Newari people repurposed as a guest house in the Unesco-listed district south of the capital where you will find Durbar Square. Upstairs, six bedrooms and an attic suite; downstairs is a hip café.
Details B&B doubles from £71 (traditionalhomes.com.np)
The Happy House, Phaplu
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This grand house in the mountain town of Phaplu, 170 miles east of Kathmandu and 2,413 metres up, was built by the Italian mountaineer Guido Monzino. Not a man to do anything by halves, his 1973 Everest expedition was supported by a retinue of 6,000 guides, porters, cooks and labourers, one of whom he co-opted into the construction of the house. The name was bestowed upon it by Edmund Hillary and until recently it was exclusively for mountaineers. Now, though, it’s run by Ang Tshering Lama — grandson of Monzino’s guide — and open to tourists who come for the hiking, the spirituality and the comfort. Those leather sofas, believe it or not, came from Monzino’s Everest base camp. There’s also a yoga centre, colourful firelit lounges and candlelit massages.
Details All-inclusive doubles from £944 (beyulexperiences.com)
Tiger Mountain Lodge, Pokhara
It gets chilly in the woods high above Pokhara at night, so there’s a log fire in the bar and a hot-water bottle in your bed. If you arrive at night you have no idea what awaits you at first light when the rising sun slowly lights up the Annapurnas, dominated by the pyramid peak of Machhapuchhre. Tiger Mountain Lodge offers yoga and trekking — both gentle and not-so-gentle — and brilliant bird-watching within the hotel grounds.
Details B&B doubles from £315 (tigermountainpokhara.com)
Barahi Jungle Lodge, Chitwan
There’s nothing boutique about this sprawling resort with 34 thatched suites set amid a regenerated forest, a huge pool area and a presidential complex. But they get things right here. The East Rapti River runs along the hotel frontage. Cross it and you’re amid the rhinos, elephants and tigers of Chitwan National Park. Staff will surprise you with bush picnics, cultural events and firelit banquets. And they look after their neighbourhood, sponsoring tiger-tracking teams, working with antipoaching initiatives and, in a culture where the boys catch all the breaks, donating bicycles to girls so they can get to school quicker.
Details B&B doubles from £180 (barahi.com)
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