The Hidden Kingdom
Reporter: Sonia Kruger
Producer: Dale Paget
Paul Rafael: For centuries there was talk about this Kingdom that nobody knew where it was. It is the last place on earth where you have pure Tibetan culture.
SONIA KRUGER: Shielded by the tallest mountains on earth is a tiny hidden kingdom.
Is Mustang Shangri La?
Prince: Yeah, some people say Mustang is like the Shangri La, some people say it is like another planet.
SONIA KRUGER: These are the Himalayas, I’m standing in Nepal. Chinese ruled Tibet is that way, and India is over there but sandwich right in the middle. Here on the roof top of the world is the ancient and mysterious place known as Mustang.
Where priceless treasures are hidden in crumbling temples, and people live in fear of demons. It’s a lost horizon all but sealed off from the modern world.
Paul Rafael: It’s time travel, we go back to the past, and we are seeing something that is several hundred years ago, what a privilege.
SONIA KRUGER: It is hard to imagine that people actually live in such a barren and inhospitable part of the world, the people of Mustang do and it is just over there.
We arrive to the warmest of welcomes, Prince Raja Bista is our host and first stop is his home village.
Gemi is a time capsule of the Middle Ages, cobblestone alleyways, homes made of mud and straw, and peak hour is a gridlock of livestock.
Paul Rafael: For more then six hundred years this place was forbidden to the world.
SONIA KRUGER: Also with me is adventure correspondent Paul Rafael one of the first western journalists to reach Mustang two decades ago.
How old is the village?
Prince Raja Bista: It is more then five hundred years old.
SONIA KRUGER: But even older is the custom he wants me to see, one that has never been filmed before; a joint Mustang wedding.
Both these brothers are getting married today, to the same woman.
Can you ask what they are most excited about, what they are looking forward too about the wedding?
Did he say the wedding night?
Prince Raja Bista: Yeah he can’t wait for the wedding night.
SONIA: Okay, okay
And this is the lucky bride, 25 year old Karma. A lot of work with two husbands. In Australia we would say that. Is she a hard worker?
Prince Raja Bista: Yes she is a very hard worker.
SONIA KRUGER: Because Mustang is so tiny just 80ilometres long and 45 kilometres wide, grubbers marry one wife to keep family owned land from being divided up.
Paul Rafael: If each son got a bit they would end up owning about that much of land and so they have this tradition where by the brothers get together, get a bride and that’s it. And they live happily ever after. And they do too, could you believe it or not, they do too!
SONIA KRUGER: And this is official, the moment where they become men and wife. Karma will spend the first three nights with the oldest brother and then the younger brother has the next three nights with their bride and so it goes for the rest of their married life.
The next morning, I am on my way to my next destination, Mustangs capital a two day trek by pony.
It is a harsh, dry, brutal landscape but it has this majestic, powerful quality that begs you to stop and just take it all in.
The land is so dry because the Himalayas create a rain shadow over the Kingdom, and for millennia there has also been a natural barrier to the outside world. Foreigners enter the high terrain at their peril.
We are now at 3,400 kilometres, which is very high and altitude sickness can be a problem. We think that’s what our soundy John is struggling with at the moment. So we are giving him some oxygen and hopefully he will come good.
When John is well enough we continue to the capital Lo Manthang. A walled city, home to 1,200 people and Mustangs revered Royal Family.
The king of Mustang hasn’t been well, he is 78 years old, he is rarely seen in public and he rarely grants interviews but today we have been summoned to the palace.
His palace is the tallest building in the capital, its four stories.
Good morning, Namasti.
With the king is his son the crowned prince, the next in line for the throne. There is a shrine to the Dali Lama and the King has a dog, a Pekingese.
And what’s his name?
Prince Raja Bista: Bak-to.
SONIA KRUGER: How important is Mustang to the rest of the world?
Prince Raja Bista: (on behalf of his father) It is very important, we are culturally the same as Tibet and as with Tibet there is now a lot of modern influence so I think it is very important.
SONIA KRUGER: Mustang is an undisturbed sanctuary for Buddhist monks and their religion. When China invaded neighbouring Tibet 60 years ago, Buddhist temples were the first to be hit and the suppression and the attacks continued.
Paul Rafael: Mustang for a long time has been a thorn in the side of China. The Dalai Lama escaped through here, when the Dalai Lama troops were fighting back, Mustang was their base. From Mustang they went into China on guerrilla raids for something like ten years before it was stopped. Here it is just across their border. They’d like to come across, if they could to smash it and trash it.
SONIA KRUGER: In a land where believing in evil spirits is common place, old ways remain a way of dealing with modern threats. The people of Mustang believe without this ceremony, they will find hardship and pain in the year to come. But the dancing drives out ghosts and demons that have invaded not only Mustang but the rest of the world. What we are witnessing is a medieval exorcism. This is the Teeji festival, the Kingdom’s most important ceremony. It lasts for three days as masked monks perform a battle between good and evil.
Paul Rafael: They have community, they have community spirit. We can see this in the festival of Teeji. They celebrate together not individually like we do in our separate little homes and so on, they celebrate together.
Prince Raja Bista: Because of the influence of the foreigner, we should not lose our culture, religion and tradition.
SONIA KRUGER: It is very important to limit the western influence in Mustang?
Prince Raja Bista: (on behalf of the King) He is a little bit worried but at the same time he is telling me that we try our best to keep our cultural life.
SONIA KRUGER: The King only lets in a thousand foreigners a year. But no matter how hard they try, the western world is creeping in. Traditionally wealth here has been measured by the amount of firewood on your roof but now other signs of prosperity are popping up; solar panels, satellite dishes, 4WD on a brand new road though it won’t
start and there is no mechanic in town, and a motorbike.
SONIA KRUGER: What are some of the western influences that threaten your culture?
Prince Raja Bista: (mobile phone rings) I’m sorry.
SONIA KRUGER: Is that your phone?
Prince Raja Bista: Yeah.
SONIA KRUGER: Is that your wife calling?
Prince Raja Bista: No!
SONIA KRUGER: In Mustang there is a tricky balance under way between the new and the old, and on the final day of Teeji, blasts from antique muskets to signal the death of the demons.
SONIA KRUGER: Holy Moly!
But in the long run the fire power may be no match for the changes that are only now reaching this most remote corner of the world.
Incredibly Mustang has been able to hang onto this rich, ancient culture from the fourteenth century but with the western world gradually making inroads, the question is for how much longer?
