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Building a road south from Marpha would be prohibitively expensive -- and probably impossible. The Kali Gandaki river valley is wild and narrow, and the monsoon rains would wreak havoc with any manmade earthworks. So the ethnic Thakali villagers (as well as some of the Lobas who actually live in Upper Mustang) have decided to build a road going north -- in the rain shadow of the Himalaya.

Present plans call for the route to begin in Lo Monthang, a four days' walk (by porters, not trekkers) from Marpha. It will enter occupied Tibet, and loop back down to Kathmandu on a pre-existing Chinese motorway. Eventually the route will reach all the way to Jomson itself, crossing all of Upper Mustang via Lo. The project will cost millions of dollars, but hey -- everybody loves apples.

Or do they? As the evening at Chimmey's wore on, I heard some strong arguments against the road -- and a fair amount of alarm concerning what it might portend. There have already been a few political bones-of-contention snafus, like whether Nepali drivers will be allowed to cross into China at all. The Annapurna Conservation Area Project (ACAP), which manages the area, wants an environmental impact report prepared -- but semantic loopholes (such as the fact that the project is simply called a "farm road") may nix this idea.

Today, with two miles of grading complete, Lo Monthang locals take it for granted that such a road will likely be of more benefit to Chinese truck drivers than to locals.

"When completed," a local development worker named Tenzing informed me, "the road will make it possible for supplies like rice, timber, kerosene and electrical goods to reach Lo Monthang from China, without high portage charges." But whether the prices of such trucked-in goods will be substantially cheaper than those carried by indigenous porters, he cannot say. The benefit to the locals? "Someday, somehow," he added as an afterthought, "the road may be used to ship wheat and fruit to China and Kathmandu."

But even this cynical assessment may be optimistic. A former ACAP advisor was quick to point out that, from the get-go, the chief purpose of the road will probably be to import alcohol and cigarettes -- and to hasten any plans the regional government may have for strip-mining.

The boisterous Tenzing, along with a doe-eyed local politician named Indra, ticked off the reasons for the controversy over the road. There is the possibility that the Mustang villagers will import more than they export, turning the project into a drain rather than a benefit. There's concern that the traditional trade for porters -- some of the poorest citizens in Nepal -- will be destroyed. There is general unease about the "unpredictable" Chinese having such easy access from the nearby Tibetan border. Finally, there is the very present fear that the beauty and culture of Lo Monthang -- certainly one of the most fascinating areas I've ever seen -- will be destroyed forever.

"If there was just one argument against the road, then OK, we'll build it," said Indra. "But four arguments? That's too much."

Still, it seems that even articulate and influential locals like Indra and Tenzing can do nothing to slow the juggernaut of development. The southern Thakalis are wealthy merchants, and they want to push this project through. Indeed, the project is well under way. The graded, two-mile section of roadway, cutting across a bare hillside, is already an eyesore to trekkers approaching Lo Monthang. By 2001 -- the road's possible completion -- fleets of diesel-belching trucks may completely change the cultural ecology of this lovely and remote Himalayan oasis.

When this happens, Upper Mustang's nascent opportunity to cultivate its sublime beauty and cultural heritage rather than its industry -- an opportunity already squandered by Kathmandu -- will be lost forever.

"Upper Mustang has no Mount Everest," says Indra, referring to the strictly protected status of Nepal's most famous national park. "We have no discos or big bazaar. All we have is our walled city, and tourists come to see it because it has been beautiful and interesting for so many years. When the road arrives, all that will be destroyed. And why should people come here then?"

Why indeed? One can only hope that an alternative plan -- shipping the apples by Russian helicopter rather than transporting them for four days through Tibet -- will grow some legs.

If not, grab your camera -- and get yourself to Upper Mustang as soon as possible. That moment of sacrifice may have arrived.
salon.com | Nov. 6, 1999

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