Mustang. As soon as you hear the name Marfa of Mustang, there is an apple orchard. Old and ancient houses. Narrow streets inside the village and more than a dozen branch alleys as you wander inside it. Marfa of Mustang is full of the same biological and cultural diversity.
Incorporating this background, the late Basanti Lalchan, a creator born in the same village, composed the song ‘Kya Jaara Sya Bari Marfa Gawai’ three decades ago. The same song, sung by Jyoti Gurung, resonated with Marfa throughout Nepal, after which even those who did not come to Marfa of Mustang came to know that there is a Marfa village in Mustang. Nowadays, with the road network becoming easier, there is no tourist who does not visit Marfa village in Mustang.
Tourists spend hours stopping their vehicles on the road to observe the hidden physical and cultural heritage of Marfa village. What a beautiful apple orchard in Marfa village As the song says, now you can’t see apples in the apple orchards of Marfa village. The apple orchards here, which are managed in the months of Poush and Magh, are preparing to bloom. Every year, after the apple orchards are ‘post-harvest’ in Asoj and Kartik, the apple orchards here become deserted.
Every year, tourists who come to Mustang from Bhadra to Asoj and Kartik can see apples blooming in abundance in the Marfa apple orchards of Mustang. With the end of winter and the arrival of spring, the presence of domestic tourists in the Marfa village of Mustang has increased. This will be an unforgettable moment for tourists who visit Marfa village, which is located near the national pride (Beni-Jomsom) road, to experience the old original art and culture, the structure of the ancient houses, and the narrow alleys inside the houses.
Marfa village in Mustang, located on a steep slope about two hundred meters west of the main road, is crowded with tourists every day from noon to evening. The upgrading and expansion of the road has made the tourism activities of Marfa village in Mustang even more vibrant. Tourists returning from Muktinath Darshan and Koralana do not miss a visit to Marfa village.
Balram Gautam, who came to Mustang with his family from Surya Binayak Municipality Bhaktapur to visit Muktinath, says that he was fascinated by the cultural heritage of Marfa village in Mustang. Gautam, who came to Mustang for the first time, said that he was very happy to see the traditional centuries-old houses of Marfa village, made of stone and mud, the firewood piles placed on the roofs of each house, and the narrow alleys inside the village. “The main feature of Marfa village is its ancient houses and narrow streets,” he said. “There are hotels and some shops in the narrow streets. It is also very easy to travel here as it is located on the road.”
There are more than a hundred households in Marfa village in Mustang. The locals are engaged in agriculture and tourism. The Marfa community, which earns a lot of income by producing crops including apples, has also been running the tourism business as its main income. With the increasing number of tourists every year, there has been a competition to build a concrete hotel on the Beni-Jomsom main road by destroying an apple orchard.
Mohan Singh Lalchan, Chairman of Gharpajhong Rural Municipality, says that the old physical structure of Marfa village should not be destroyed. Even if concrete houses are built on the road, the physical and cultural structure of Marfa’s ancient settlement is destroyed, says Rural Municipality Chairman Lalchan. After turning off the main road of Marfa, a tourist village in Mustang, and walking for about five hundred meters along a narrow lane, you can exit onto the main highway road to the north.
There are dozens of branch lanes inside the ancient houses that are tightly connected to each other on the steep surface there. Dozens of domestic and foreign films and music videos have been released in Marfa and its narrow streets. The films, music videos and scenes posted on social media that have been shot here have taken the tourism of Marfa village to a new height.
Suraj Kunwar, who came to Mustang for the first time from Pokhara, said that the cultural beauty of Marfa village is amazing. “We had not been able to see such cultural diversity in the market, which we were able to experience directly here,” Kunwar added, “Marfa village in Mustang truly saw the old Nepal with its old cultural diversity.” He said that although he had heard the song ‘Kya Jaara Sya Bari’ related to Marfa village when he was young, he had not been able to see the sight of apples growing because he came in the off-season. There are more than a dozen narrow branch streets in Marfa village. In order to further promote tourism in Marfa village, the streets there have been renamed in various ways recently. Some of the branch streets there are linked to the names of movies. Inside Marfa village, apple-shaped signboards have been put up to introduce the streets with various names including Jerry Street, Kabaddi Street, Tik Tok Street and Jhankri Street.
In Marfa village, arrangements have been made for tourists who want to visit the village to wear original costumes reflecting the local Thakali, Gurung and Tibetan culture and take photos and videos. In Marfa village, tourists are eager to take photos in original costumes in the evening. When tourists are bustling in the narrow streets, they end up bumping into each other. There is a Buddhist monastery in the village of Marfa in Mustang.
In the village, there is a five-hundred-year-old house where the Japanese monk Kawaguchi lived. Gharpajhong Rural Municipality has also built an Apple Park on a hill near the village. In the evening, the light of street lamps further highlights the beauty of Marfa village. You can visit the cave connected to the high mountain above Marfa village and observe the scenery there. There is a processing distillery in Marfa village that produces brandy made from half a dozen apples. There is an agricultural farm in Marfa called the Temperate Horticulture Development Center, owned by the Government of Nepal. It teaches Mustang farmers about agriculture and provides services by producing plants.
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