File:Kagbeni Checkpoint Mustang.jpg

English: Now you are entering the restricted area of “Upper Mustang”. It is not allowed to proceed further from here without holding special trekking permit issues by the department of immigration, Kathmandu. You must have to register yourself at ACAP’S check-post and visitor’s information centre. Illegal entry to Upper Mustang will be illegal. Thank you. -- NTNC/ACAPPrior to the 1990’s, less than a dozen visitors from the West knew what lay concealed behind the barrier of the 8000m high Annapurnas and Dhaulagiri. The best-known amongst these are probably Toni Hagen, a Swiss, who worked for the Nepalese government in the 1950’s as a geologist, Guiseppe Tucci, who travelled in Nepal in the late 1940’s, Herbert Tichy, who was the first European to succeed in crossing western Nepal in 1953 and the Frenchman Michel Peissel, who visited this region in 1964. The Tibetan kingdom of Mustang has belonged to Nepal since 1950, and after China finally absorbed Tibet in 1959, Khampas, with the support of the CIA, conducted a guerrilla war from here against the occupiers of Tibet. Since access to the region is very easy to control, the Nepalese government kept the kingdom hermetically sealed. Since the summer of 1992, Mustang has been opened up to so-called “gentle tourism”. After paying quite a substantial daily charge, visitors can travel through Mustang with guides from a trekking agency licensed by the government. -- Jaroslav Poncar, Himalayan Kingdoms