Kathmandu, May 14:

For centuries, the tiny former Buddhist kingdom of Mustang has been all but sealed, its ancient culture protected from outside influence, but now a new highway is threatening a major upheaval in the hidden Himalayan outpost.

King Jigme Palbar Bista of Mustang, who retains his title even though his realm became part of Nepal more than 200 years ago, welcomes the road as a vital link to goods and services such as health care that his 7,000 subjects have never had access to.

“The road would be very helpful to local people because all our supplies come from Tibet,” the 75-year-old monarch told AFP in a rare interview during his annual visit to Kathmandu.

But while Nepal’s government sees the highway as finally bringing modernity to one of the most remote areas of the world, some activists who say they have Mustang’s best interests at heart are strongly opposed to the project.

Plans for the 460-km highway are well advanced. It will traverse some of the most forbidding terrain on the planet, linking China and India through Nepal.

The 20-km section from the Chinese border to Lo Manthang, Mustang’s capital, was completed in 2001, opening up a route for Chinese goods, mostly construction materials, trucked in from the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, about 700 km distant, and the monastery town of Shigatse 500 km away.

Each year around 80 trucks make the journey from Tibet to Lo Mantang, and that number is expected to leap once the road opens all the way through to India.

Over the next two years, according to authorities in Nepal, the remaining 100 km of road will be completed to open up a route that currently is only passable on foot or horseback. Speaking via a translator, the king said the road would bring the benefits of modernity to his people. “Sometimes people get sick and die because they can’t get treatment in time, and the road might change this,” he said.

He did, however, express his fear that the road could bring some unwelcome consequences, notably damage to ancient monasteries and the myriad mud-and-straw Buddhist monuments called chortens that dot the former kingdom. “It has to be very carefully studied,” he said.