Information about Humla district, Nepal

Humla is considered one of the most remote and isolated regions in Nepal, reachable only by foot or small aircrafts which are irregularly landing in the district head quarter, Simikot. It is situated high in the Himalaya, in the Karnali Zone, North-western Nepal, bordering the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Humla has two distinct faces. Both of the faces will take your breath away. On the one hand, Humla is a unique and beautiful place where the nature's true gifts are still intact. Its icy cold water is rich in minerals, the fresh air is free from carbon monoxide, its mesmerizing landscape full of known and unknown herbs and vegetations, and food grown in the region is 100% organic. But on the other hand, its isolation has pushed Humla far behind from the rest of the world. Isolation and poverty in these beautiful yet harsh Trans Himalayan mountains deprive people of all but their bare life. This trek takes you the strangest place in the world. Beautiful, bitter, joyous, and holy, it is Humla, an ancient territory at the edge of Nepal. Bordering Tibet, hidden in the Himalayas. The vistas captures in yours photographs are both limitless and intimate; here is a land of eternally snow-capped mountains and sweeping valleys, eerie, forbidding as the landscape of some distant moon, its people all but forgotten by the rest of the world. Their lives are struggle—the alpine soil metes out sustenance grudgingly; trade with distant neighbors means days of driving stubborn yaks over perilous mountain trails; disease is a constant companion (the average woman bears eight children, of whom six may live to adulthood); and the long winter threatens to banish the warmth of life forever. Yet these lives yield untold riches. As if the splendid isolation and sheer altitude of the hidden Himalayas bring their inhabitants closer to the gods, the Hindu Chhetri and Thakuri and Buddhist Bhotia people of this land are possessed of spirituality few Westerners will ever know. In Humla, the gods are everywhere—in the clouds, in the mountains, in the very dung with which the soil is fertilized.