Mustang in north central Nepal has been named one of the
world's top 10 regions in Best in Travel 2013, published by Lonely Planet, the
largest travel guide book and digital media publisher in the world.
The guide book has described Mustang as being best for
activities, off the beaten track and culture. Mustang lies "behind the
Himalaya" and has been called "little Tibet" or "the last
forbidden kingdom". Though it is politically part of Nepal, in language,
culture, climate and geography, it is Tibet, the guide book says. It was opened
to tourism in 1992 with the number of visitors limited to a few hundred
annually.
KATHMANDU, JUN 10 - A Japanese woman who was lost in Nepal's mountains for nearly two weeks said Friday that she survived by eating grass, drinking river water, taking shelter in small caves and praying.
Makiko Iwafuchi, 49, of Chiba, said she left her hotel May 25 for a short stroll near the Goshainkunda lake. She left the main trail and could not find it again.She said she walked for days but was unable to find the trail or come in contact with any villagers until Tuesday, when she heard voices."I screamed, saying, 'Hello! Please help me!'" she told reporters after returning to Katmandu on Friday. "It was a miracle. I felt at ease and thanked God."
Aside from some visible insect bites, she appeared to be fine three days after her ordeal about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Katmandu, at an elevation of more than 14,000 feet (4,300 meters).Read more....
First Buddha Film from Nepal
Alarmed
by Bollywood training its lenses on the Buddha, Tulsi Ghimire is now
making the first Buddha film from the Himalayan republic to bolster its
claim to the founder of Buddhism.
Ghimire, who moved from
India’s hill town of Kalimpong to Mumbai first to learn acting and
film-making and then made Kathmandu his home, has begun making “Gautam
Buddha”, the first Buddha film from Nepal, the birthplace of the apostle
of peace.
The
60-year-old, who gave the Nepali film industry such hits as “Kusume
rumal” and “Balidaan”, says he was inspired to make the film after a
conversation with Buddhist monks from Sri Lanka and other places.
“First,
there was this Bollywood movie, ‘Chandni Chowk to China’, that claimed
the Buddha was born in Nepal,” Ghimire told IANS in an interview. “Then
there are reports of renowned Bollywood director Ashutosh Gowarikar
making an epic film on the Buddha.
“We
are concerned whether there isn’t some political motivation - to lay
claim to the Buddha. If Gowarikar builds the sets of Kapilavastu, the
kingdom in which the Buddha was born to its ruler King Shuddhodan, the
Indian state where it is erected may be regarded by many people as the
birthplace of the Buddha.
“Some
puzzled Sri Lankan monks actually asked me whether the Buddha was born
in India or Nepal. I told them, he was born in Kapilavastu, when neither
India nor Nepal existed. Archaeological ruins
prove
Kapilavastu was in southern Nepal. You can still see the remains of the
old palace and the garden where the Buddha was born.”
Read More.....
For many travellers, Nepal is paradise on earth, or at the very least Shangri-La. Wedged between the mountain wall of the Himalaya and the steamy jungles of the Indian plains, this is a land of yaks and yetis, monasteries and mantras, snow peaks and sherpas, temples and tigers, magic and mystery. Ever since Nepal first opened it borders to outsiders in the 1950s, this tiny mountain nation has had an almost mystical allure for travellers. Explorers and mountaineers came to conquer the highest peaks, trekkers came to test themselves against some of the most challenging trails on earth and hippies came to wander in a stoned daze through the temple-filled towns at the end of the overland trail. Read more.....
