Pawan Bhattarai · Updated on October 8, 2026

Marpha and Kagbeni, Nepal: Lower Mustang’s Two Villages

Marpha and Kagbeni are the two villages that give Lower Mustang its character, and both are reached and returned from Jomsom inside a day. Neither needs a restricted area permit. The short answer on what they are now: Marpha is still the apple capital of Nepal, though the crop that defines it is climbing north up the valley, and Kagbeni is still repairing itself after a flood took part of the village in 2023.

Neither fact appears in most descriptions of them. Both change what you see.

Who this guide is for: travellers deciding what to do with their days in Lower Mustang, and anyone who wants the valley as it is rather than as it photographs. For the region as a whole, start with our guide to Mustang, Nepal, and for the base itself see Jomsom.

• Best for: planning day trips from a single base, and knowing what you are looking at.
• When to use it: once the approach is settled, when the days themselves are being shaped.
• Less useful if: you are heading north of Kagbeni, where Upper Mustang and its permit take over.

Key takeaways

• No restricted permit. Both villages sit south of the line. The Annapurna conservation permit that everyone entering the area needs is enough.
• Marpha is the apple capital. The Kathmandu Post gives it that title, and it holds the government Temperate Horticulture Development Center.
• The apple belt is moving north. Warming has pushed orchards out of the lower villages and growers are now trying them as far up as Lo Manthang, at 3,840m.
• Kagbeni flooded in August 2023. The Kag river was dammed by a landslide upstream, then burst. It took 29 houses and damaged 13 more.
• Rebuilding has been slow. Damage was assessed at about one billion rupees, and by May 2024 the promised embankment had still not been built.

Marpha, and why it looks the way it does

In short, Marpha is built against the wind. Flat roofs, whitewashed walls and narrow lanes set below the line of the gale, on the old salt road between Nepal and Tibet. It is the tidiest village in the valley and the one most people photograph.

It is also a working agricultural centre rather than a museum. The Kathmandu Post calls Marpha the apple capital of Nepal, and the government’s Temperate Horticulture Development Center sits there. Apples, dried apples and apple brandy are what the village sells.

The apples are climbing the valley

This is the part worth knowing before you taste anything.

Warming has not destroyed Mustang’s apples. It has moved them. In 2015 the District Agricultural Development Office reported that Lete and Kunzjo had stopped producing apples altogether, with Marpha, Tukuche, Jomsom and Kagbeni named as the main growing zones instead. A senior officer put it plainly at the time: apple trees were vanishing in the lowlands and fruiting in the highlands.

By 2019 the line had moved again. Three decades of rising temperatures had made the north more hospitable, and growers were trying orchards as far up as Lo Manthang at 3,840m, once considered too cold and dry for the fruit. Mustang produced more than 5,300 metric tonnes that year.

So the orchard belt is walking north up the Kali Gandaki, one village at a time. Marpha still holds the name. The frontier has moved past it.

Kagbeni, and the line it marks

Kagbeni sits where the Jhong valley meets the Kali Gandaki, and it is the last open village before the restricted zone. Everything north of it needs a permit and an escort. That single administrative fact has shaped the place for decades, because it is where one kind of journey stops and another begins.

The old village is mud brick and tunnel like, with the remains of a fort above it. It is a pilgrimage stop as well as a trekking one.

What the 2023 flood did

The short answer: a landslide dammed the Kag river upstream, the dam burst, and the water took part of the village on the evening of 13 August 2023.

The figures come from The Kathmandu Post and from the disaster management committee of Baragung Muktikshetra Rural Municipality, reported by The Annapurna Express. It happened in the evening, which is why the district officer said people got out.

Recovery has been slow. In May 2024 residents were repairing their own houses without help, the embankment the government had promised had not been built, and silt had raised the river bed above its old level. That report is more than two years old now, so confirm the current state before you plan around it.

What this means for a visit is simple. Kagbeni is open and people are working, but you will see construction, raw riverbank and gaps where buildings were. Arriving expecting an untouched medieval village is the mistake.

Both villages in one day from Jomsom

They sit on opposite sides of Jomsom, which is the argument for basing there rather than moving each night. Our guide to Nepal trekking permits covers the conservation permit both need.

When to go

Autumn is apple season, which is the obvious time for Marpha and the one week the village smells of fruit rather than dust. Spring is quieter and the light is longer. Mustang sits in the rain shadow, so the monsoon works here when the rest of Nepal is under cloud, although that is also when the rivers carry the most and when the 2023 flood happened.

Our guide to the best time to trek in Nepal sets out the wider calendar.

In our experience

Two things change how these days feel.

The first is direction. Because Marpha is downhill and Kagbeni is uphill from Jomsom, we send guests north early, while the wind is still low, and south later. Doing it the other way round means walking into the gale in the afternoon, which is the single most common way a pleasant day becomes a tolerated one.

The second is knowing what you are looking at. For example, a guest who has been told about the flood reads Kagbeni’s bare riverbank as recent history rather than neglect, and usually ends up talking to somebody about it. In our experience that conversation is the thing they remember, not the fort.

What it asks of you

Neither village asks for much. Both are low by Nepali standards, both are short days, and neither needs a permit beyond the one everyone carries. What they ask is that you arrive knowing the valley is in motion, in the orchards and in the riverbed both.

Far Ridge Collective is a Nepali owned luxury tour operator in the Nepal travel industry, running private guided journeys in Mustang and the wider Himalaya, capped at five guests. Our Kingdom of Mustang journey is based in this valley and reaches both villages as day trips.

Apple figures, flood figures and recovery status were checked against The Kathmandu Post, The Annapurna Express and The Himalayan Times in September 2026. Conditions in Kagbeni change with each monsoon, so confirm before you travel.

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Author

Pawan Bhattarai

Pawan Bhattarai co-founded Far Ridge Collective, a Nepal-only operator of private treks, tours and wellness journeys. He has five years of experience in trekking and tour operations in Nepal, and he has walked the routes he writes about rather than researching them from a desk.He also comes from technology and content, which shows in how the guides on this site are put together. Where a figure appears, it has been traced back to the Nepal Tourism Board, the National Trust for Nature Conservation or another primary source. On the ground, journeys are led by Far Ridge's expert guides.