About the Mugu section of the Great Himalaya Trail
Mugu is the most remote and least visited of the regions on the Great Himalayan Trail. Nepal’s largest lake, Rara Lake and the Rara National Park are located in the southern section of the region and this area is reasonably well known to trekkers, however the higher reaches of the north are visited by very few travellers and remains little known to most foreigners in Nepal and even to many Nepali people. This area is the last developed in Nepal, with roads only accessed by three days walk (at the locals’ pace!) from the District Headquarters at Gamghadi.
Mugu was once part of the Malla Kingdom of the Karnali River basin which reigned in the 12th to 14th centuries. The region is literally scattered with artefacts of this kingdom, particularly along the old ‘royal highway’ from the Inner Terai, through Jumla and up into Tibet. You may see ancient shrines to the local deity ‘Masta’ as well as carved wooden effigies of spirits festooned with bells, flowers and cloth. At Rara Lake you can find ‘Malla stones’ which are pillars of rock with Devanagari inscriptions and figures of sun and moon.
As with the Dolpo region to the east and the Humla region to the west, northern Mugu lies in the vast rain shadow behind the Dhaulagiri and Annapurna Himal (ranges) and is arid, less intensively farmed and sparsely populated with people of Tibetan origin. The southern section has rugged ranges forested with ancient blue pine, spruce and cedar and villages of Chhetri, Brahmin and Thakuris, the high caste Hindus interspersed with Bhotias. A fascinating aspect of travel in this region is the ‘blurring’ between Hindu, Buddhist and ancient shamanic practices, styles of living as seen in dress, house styles and cultural practices.
The Mugu region is, like other regions in the rain shadow areas, a food deficit area. You must be highly self sufficient to travel in this region and food is often unavailable at any price so you must bring everything you need with you. Porters are also hard to find at the lower regions as the high caste Hindus are not particularly interested in working as porters, just as they are not keen on having casteless foreigners stay in their houses, although you may be able to sleep on the flat roof of their Tibetan style houses.
Hi to all of you. I am president of Mugum Buddhist Welfare Association. mugum mean(Mugu) The real historical name is (Mugum)which is took from Mugum Village. I want to say thank you very much for you gave information about Mugum village and district. I don’t say to-much you. Because you knew very thing about this remote area. But if you need any help from this community. we can help you. Because this Mugum Buddhist Welfare Association non profit organization for Mugu village and district. Please you may check our website, But right now I am in usa. if you need more information and suggestion, please openly send on my email address to me. I hope reply soon.
[Reply]
Comment by torch Lama — May 17, 2011 @ 6:40 am
email, Mugom_buddhist2007mg@yahoo.com.
website. http://www.mugumbuddhist.org
phone,00977-9841-263-796-or 9841-733-606
[Reply]
Comment by torch Lama — May 17, 2011 @ 6:44 am
very first I wish you all the best and thanks to the GHT whole team for the work what you all doing for eliminating poverty. Here I am writing some of my personal views on about the Rara,Mugu and Jumla Section of GHT websites because I think it is necessary and necesity to include the information about the Jumla too becaue if had just involve the information about the rara and mugu in this section. So that no one can get information of jumla from this section if you did not include the information.And I cant understand that how your team forget or hide the things oabout jumla which is important in many aspects such as we could propmote the Hidden trekking area such as Patarasi,Sinja the origin of nepali khas language ,Thakuyrgyu circuit etc and many other aspects of historical and cultural things could be include in this sites. So,do and give equil importance to all and again many many thanks to your whole team.
[Reply]
GHT Admin Reply:
October 9th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Very good idea – so why not send in lots of information via the contact form so that we can include it on the site. Or take it to NTB. Thanks Sovan.
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Comment by Sovan Shahi — October 9, 2011 @ 3:48 pm
I know this might not be your forte but.. I wanted some info about road transportaion facilities to Jumla from Surkhet. Are tehre regular buses plying or do we have to book jeeps??
[Reply]
Comment by Suvash — January 9, 2012 @ 8:45 pm