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We have this idea of this place, this paradise up in the mountains.

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What we call Shangri-La.

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Those are all caves.

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Yes, they are.

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All made by people.

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Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

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Be careful.

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It's very slippy and incredibly dangerous.

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It's not a cave, it's a city.

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Oh, word.

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The great western religions tell us that heaven doesn't have a physical address.

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You can't use Google Maps to calculate the route to paradise.

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But the legend of Shangri-La says differently.

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For hundreds of years, explorers, spiritualists, and, well, nutcases, have been lured to the

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Himalayas by the tantalizing promise of a mystical hidden valley, a real utopia.

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The residents there, they say, never age, and war and sickness are just distant memories.

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But surely the story of Shangri-La is just that, a story, a hopeful myth about a magical

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world.

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But maybe not.

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In the most remote reaches of Nepal near the border of Tibet is an area known as the Mustang,

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a region that has been closed off to the outside world and seemingly to the passage of time.

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But now, archaeologists have been granted access to explore this hidden realm.

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They've discovered thousands of so-called sky caves, man-made chambers carved into the sides

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of impossibly high cliffs, who made them, how, and what secrets are hiding inside.

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Several caves have already been explored and have yielded up incredible artifacts and

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manuscripts that may point to a real paradise.

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I plan to join a team of explorers near the roof of the world, seeking the truth behind

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the mythical kingdom of Shangri-La.

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The mission is dangerous, but the reward could be nothing short of heaven on earth.

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My name is Josh Gates, with a degree in archaeology and a passion for exploration.

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I have a tendency to end up in some very strange situations.

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My travels have taken me to the ends of the earth,

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as I investigate the greatest legends in history.

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This is Expedition Unknown.

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My expedition begins half a world away from the United States in the Himalayan nation of Nepal.

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Catmandu, a city of more than a million people perched at the intersection of faith and commerce.

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On every corner, sights and smells that boggle the mind.

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This is one of my absolute favorite places in the world, a city that crackles with human energy.

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You step off the curb here and you're swept up in a river of Buddhists and Hindus of touts

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and trekkers, all somehow blended together in a beautiful chaos.

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Catmandu has long been a destination for spiritual pilgrims and a magnet for daring climbers from

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around the world. And despite the never-ending influx of visitors, the locals have gained a

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reputation as some of the kindest and most hospitable hosts on earth.

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And perhaps nothing has tested the resilience of the Nepalese people, like the 7.8 earthquake that

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devastated parts of Catmandu in 2015. Stunning historic sites shattered, collapsed and ruined.

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But almost a year later, the cleanup is in full force and Catmandu is once again open for business.

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Inside one of the city's many bookshops, I even managed to learn my first lesson about Shangri-La.

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So we all know and use the term Shangri-La to describe anything that seems like a paradise on

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earth. But it turns out that the term itself isn't actually all that mysterious. It was

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first coined in 1933 by a British writer named James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon.

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And in the book, he uses it to describe this mystical valley in the Himalayas,

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a place of eternal happiness whose residents are nearly immortal. But it's a work and a word of fiction.

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So end of expedition? Hardly. Because it turns out that Hilton based the term Shangri-La on something

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much older. Shangri-La, or at least the inspiration for it, sprang from the Tibetan Buddhist culture

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that dominates Nepal to this day. To learn about the real origins of Shangri-La, I'm meeting a monk

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at Swayambunath Temple, otherwise known as Charlton Heston's worst nightmare.

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Monkeys, very cute, but they can be a bit moody and aggressive.

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These monkeys are considered holy, which means that nobody messes with them

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and they basically run the joint. Easy, easy. Taking one at a time, they may be cute,

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but as a group, these guys start to feel like some kind of a primate street gang.

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I think I could fight one monkey. A thousand of them, maybe not so much.

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I have no idea where all these monkeys are going. As soon as a

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matinee, King Kong screening happening up here.

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At the top of the temple, I emerge into another world, a realm of incense, of prayer wheels,

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and of sacred spaces. I must have come to the right place after all the llama that I'm meeting

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is named Buddha. Thank you very much for meeting with me. I appreciate it.

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I want to talk to you about Shangri-La, what we call Shangri-La. We have this idea of this place,

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this paradise up in the mountains. Is it based though on something real?

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Yeah, we don't call it Shangri-La. Traditionally we call it Shambhala.

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Shambhala. Right. And so what is Shambhala? Shambhala is a sacred land, pure land. It's a kind of

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physical place, but not for the mundane people like us. Right. You know, we can't go there with

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mortal body that we have now.

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Tibetan Buddhism teaches the pursuit of enlightenment, a mental state achieved through

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meditation, encapsulated by pure joy and a total release of a sense of self. Shambhala is the physical

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expression of this enlightenment. So it's a kind of otherworldly place? Yes, yes. That's the basic

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notion. If I go to Shambhala, all my suffering is gone. It's only bliss days, blissful world.

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Right. So how do I find Shambhala? How do I get to Shambhala? Very easy. You can go to Himalayas

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and meditate and then begin your journey. I see. So Shambhala is a state of being, but could it also

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be related to a real place? There's a team of archaeologists trying to figure that out right

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now in a remote ancient kingdom within Nepal known as the Mustang. They've recently begun to explore

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a valley filled with mysterious sky caves, trying to determine who built them, what happened to them,

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and whether this could have been a real life Shambhala. My mission is to join them and to find out.

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But before journeying into the Mustang, it's important that I get properly equipped.

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The markets here offer just about every piece of gear you can imagine. What would you put in here?

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What's an ashtray? Oh, lovely. I guess that is fitting. Smoking does kill kids.

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I have you on. You have what I want? Oh, yeah. What do I want? I want this is what I want? Yeah. A

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pornographic pipe. You know me too well. Yeah. It's your new cable connection? Yeah. Good luck with that.

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Looks like there shouldn't be any problems with that hookup. The vendors are always eager to make a

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sale. Some even claim to cater to celebrity clients. Marlon Brando was here a few weeks back. He came to

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my shop. Yeah. So that's a major news story. How did he look? Yeah, he's very handsome. Guys,

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I don't know how to tell you this. You know what? Forget it. It's fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it.

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But Kathmandu is also a staging area for the nearly 100,000 trekkers who pass through these

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crowded markets every year. Stores are filled with climbing gear for even the most hardcore expeditions.

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Sir, is it 100 degrees in here? I don't think it's going to be this cold. It's negative 40 degrees.

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Yes. You think I'm going to need all of this? Yes. Okay. If you say so. Get the expert. I just got to

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get my shoes on here. I'm close. I feel like I'm in a Christmas story right now. I got this, guys.

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Nobody jump in.

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By the light of a new day, my crew and I head to Kathmandu's airport. We're accompanied by our

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fixer and my dear friend Mahendra, one of my most trusted contacts in the region.

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To link up with the archaeologists investigating the sky caves of Mustang,

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I'll need to undertake one hell of a commute. First, we'll have to fly by plane from Kathmandu

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to the remote landing strip in Jomsam. From there, we'll take a convoy of 4x4s north into the Mustang

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Valley and the village of Chooksang. Unfortunately, my crew and I have arrived during a political

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firestorm. Tensions are brewing to the west and India has decided to shut off all fuel flowing

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into Nepal. The result? A crippling gasoline shortage that threatens to derail my entire expedition.

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Welcome to Nepal's domestic terminal.

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Thousands of people and tens of thousands of bags, all trying desperately to get out of the

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capital. With no fuel, a lot of people are stranded here, turning the domestic terminal here into

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a bedlam. Our flight to Jomsam is no different. Our fixer Mahendra talks to the pilot and brings

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back what I'm hoping is good news. What's the word? We supposed to have a travel flight?

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A charter flight, yeah. We cancelled? Charters cancelled. Yeah.

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My crew and I are trying to get out of Kathmandu airport to meet archaeologists working in the

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Himalayas investigating a real life Shangri-La but things aren't looking good.

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What's the word? We supposed to have a travel flight. A charter flight, yeah. We cancelled?

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Charters cancelled. Yeah. 100%? 100% yeah.

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There's no fuel, no gas. No gas, so they can't fuel the plane? Yeah. If we can't get enough gas to

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fly to the mountains, my search for Shangri-La ends right here. We can drive it, right? We can drive it.

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What's the drive time? Around 16 hours. And you've seen lines before waiting for hours?

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And there's no fuel to be added up? There's no fuel there. Okay. Now the jeeps that we're supposed

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to meet up there, they have fuel? They have fuel. Where'd that fuel come from? From Blackmagid.

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So we've got that part of the problem solved. Now we gotta figure out this problem. So how do we

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get to Jomsam? Maybe we talk to helicopter company. They have fuel? They have some fuel left.

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Well let's see if they can hook us up. Okay sir. Thanks. Mahendra goes to Wheel and Deal.

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And we wait. 20 minutes later, we get our answer. You got it? Yeah, we got him. Seriously? Yeah.

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So helicopter, yeah? Yep, so we'll take one helicopter and we're gonna shuttle people there,

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drop in Jomsam, unload all the gear, come back to Kathmandu, pick up the remainder of the people,

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and then I'll meet you there in Jomsam. Okay, so one helicopter, two flights? Correct. We have a

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limited window there, but we should be okay. It's good to know Mahendra. Let's do it. There's a

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catch though. The chopper will not only need to make two trips to ferry my team, but due to the

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altitude, we have to limit the weight of our gear and we can't go over by a single pound. 13.0.

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We frantically weigh everything, including ourselves. No, I am not showing you a number.

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Woo! I've been trying to work out. I've watched your car. 13.6. 13.6 plus. 5.5. 5.5 plus.

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16.3. 16.3. Hey, Andrew, what was your first estimate? My first estimate was a thousand and ten

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pounds. And we thought we had to cancel the flight. So we're at five seven nine pounds. What's our max

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weight? Eight hundred eighty pounds. Eight eighty, we're good, we're under. All right, everybody

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hit a salad for dinner last night? Yep. All right, we should be able to do this. Let's go.

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With our gear stripped down, we hit the runway.

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Due to its location, Catmandu Airport is socked in by fog nearly every morning,

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and all manner of aircraft have to wait for a window to punch through the mist. Incidents and

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accidents are common. The huge plane behind my helicopter recently skidded off the runway.

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I tried to put that out of my mind though as we climb aboard our modified high altitude chopper.

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Coordinates check. Seat belts check. Fuel sure.

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As we rise over Catmandu, the scope and scale of the city comes into view.

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And then we enter the clouds. This is in short some of the most stressful flying on earth.

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It doesn't matter how high the helicopter rises, because all around us are eight of the

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10 tallest mountains in the world. Everest is out there. The pilot flies blind and navigates

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through stomach churning wind shear. There you are here. Yeah, you can feel it. But then,

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fog looks like it's burning off.

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There is nothing in the world to which I can compare this view. No metaphor to do it justice.

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Beyond the glass, there is only the towering, snow-capped majesty of Himalaya.

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Is it any wonder that Buddhists consider this the home of the gods?

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But like any glimpse at heaven, this one is fleeting. Not much wiggle room in here.

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Yeah, I don't know. The pilot navigates between two soaring peaks,

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and while it seems like the absolute ends of the earth up here, I'm amazed to see a village

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and an airstrip below. Helps an airport, yeah?

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Fuel is running low, and we circle into land with nearly 50 mile an hour wind gusts.

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Not much of a runway. Short.

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Not that. There we go. Hey, great flying. Thank you.

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We offload our gear, resupply the chopper with black market fuel, and send it back to the capital.

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Two hours later, it returns with the remainder of my equipment, and more importantly, the rest of my crew.

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Hey, the gang's all here. Let's go find Shangri-La.

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Reunited, we suck in the thin, cool air and enter what feels like a waking dream,

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a picture-perfect village 8,800 feet above sea level.

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This is the village of Jomsom. It's a little more than a street with few little shops and

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guest houses for trekkers who make it up this high. For us, a staging area where we could begin

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prepping our vehicles for the road ahead. A convoy of jeeps and trucks are packed,

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and then we hit the road. And I do mean the road.

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There's only one here. This valley is the deepest in the world,

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flanked by the planet's seventh and tenth highest peaks. This is wild. We're really just driving

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in the bottom of the riverbed here. This is the road, and it's like this the whole way.

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Yeah, just letting that sink in.

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Here's the plan. From Jomsom, we'll follow the snaking canyon north to the town of Chuksang

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to meet the archaeologists. From there, our convoy will push further north to investigate

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the mysterious sky caves that could be the real-life Shangri-La.

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That is, assuming our vehicles survive the journey. So I just drive right through the

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river, Mahendra? Yeah. Just right through. Right through it.

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I have no idea how deep the water is, but there's not exactly a way around.

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Mahendra, I appear to be in the river. Here we go. We got it.

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Let's see how the rest of those guys fare.

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The rest of the convoy makes its way across, and for a change of pace, we meet up with an actual road.

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This road is very narrow. This is a two-way road? Yeah, there's two-way road here.

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And I'm technically driving on the left. No, no, right, right.

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But how do we let this guy pass? No, no. You have to stick this way, this way.

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Oh boy. Thank you.

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Yeah, I'm on the left. Yeah, yeah.

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Two hours later, we make it to the next village known as Cagbeni.

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While Mahendra hunts for more fuel, I take a moment to explore life at 10,000 feet.

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Being so far up, away from civilization, people in these high Himalayan towns have to get very

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creative. This is a solar oven. This is legit. This is essentially a big solar panel that is

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concentrating sunlight onto this pot, which is piping hot, and they are boiling water.

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Also, you can use this to search for extraterrestrials. So it's kind of a two-fer.

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One street over, we find a somewhat familiar place for lunch.

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The place really does have everything. They even have a Yak Donald's.

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Famous, of course, for the big Yak, which everyone knows, is two-wall Yak patties.

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Special sauce, cheese. They also have the Yak nuggets.

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And then, of course, they got a Yak email for the kids, which is...

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It's a bunch of Yak meat, just a smaller portion of it, really.

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Fed, fuel, and back on the road. A few miles north, we pass a faded sign.

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Rough translation, entering the Mustang region. No trespassing by outsiders.

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This is a world that was totally closed off to foreigners until the 1990s. Even today,

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entry permits like ours are extremely limited. The result? A place out of time, and nearly

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untouched by the modern world. It's almost night when we arrive at our destination.

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This is Chuk Sang? Yeah, this is Chuk Sang. We are staying tonight here. Here? Yeah.

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Welcome to Chuk Sang.

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So what is this place? Tea house. We have some good food, though.

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Do they have beer? Yeah, they have beer. That's it. We're here. We're never leaving.

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Okay, guys, let's grab the gear and get inside and get warm.

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Our hotel for the night isn't actually a hotel, or a motel, or an inn, or a B&B, or an air B&B.

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Here in Nepal, hospitality comes in the form of a tea house.

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You find these all over the Himalayas. They're basically very simple guest houses.

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It caters to a lot of trekkers. A family will run this place. They have food downstairs and

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and hot tea and coffee. They are very simple but essential accommodations. These are lifesavers

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up here. There is no heat here, or electricity at night. It doesn't look like, but that's okay,

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because, well, it's not outdoors. I mean, it's almost outdoors. It's really cold in this room.

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Home sweet home. For the sixth time today, the crew schleps hundreds of pounds of gear from point A

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to point B. Oh, and it's now about 38 degrees. The house behind there, the second door down,

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is the gear room. Yep, copy. We'll set up all our gear over there, our charging station.

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We charge batteries and bed down for the night. Tomorrow, we make the ascent into the mountains

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and possibly to the secret realm of Shangri-La.

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Real icy in here and wet and so much weight in the cargo vehicles that you just can't get through it.

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After spending the night in a tea house in the Himalayan mountains,

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dawn reveals our first look at the village of Chuxang, Nepal.

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This may as well be a set from Game of Thrones, mud brick complexes,

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earthen tunnels, and agricultural practices dating back hundreds of years. Back at the tea house,

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my crew and I get busy packing for the onward journey. And right on schedule is archaeologist

226
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Mark Aldenderfer and Mohan Singh Lama from Nepal's Archaeological Ministry.

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You're a hard man to reach. Well, you know, this is where we like it, you know,

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where we can't be found easily. This is your office. This is my office. That's right. What an

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office, huh? A good trip up. Little crisis with the fuel. Oh yeah, so we're sorry. But we, uh,

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Mahendra got us here and then a bumpy road, but we made it. Good. Well, it's good to see you guys.

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I'm glad you're here. Mark may look like the lost almond brother, but he happens to be one of the

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leading experts on high altitude civilizations. So we're just getting the cars loaded up,

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but while they're doing that, maybe you can give me a walk around. Yeah, let's do it.

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Yeah. We hike out of Chuk Sang to find our first clue to Shambhala's location. Unfortunately,

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Mark can't get us there without a minor near death experience.

236
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Little bit of a bridge here. Just a little bit.

237
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Oh my God. I hope you don't have vertigo.

238
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Make sure you look down into the canyon.

239
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Some of the deepest canyons in this whole area. Kind of just trying to focus on the straight ahead

240
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here. Okay, okay. Watch the bolts popping out. Yeah, I'll be sure to do that, Mark. Seriously.

241
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The span is lined with ceremonial flags called katas. Basically, I'm crossing a bridge covered

242
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with prayers, which I'm choosing to take as a good sign. Where have I seen this bridge before?

243
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Oh, Temple of Doom. That's right.

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We make it across safely, and Mark leads me to a view that I've traveled 8,000 miles to see.

245
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:05,000
Okay, this is stunning. It's a pretty extraordinary place, isn't it? God, it's

246
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:08,920
on a scale that's hard to imagine. Well, this is what I wanted to show you here, this

247
00:24:09,560 --> 00:24:12,680
that remarkable complex of caves over there on the other side of the river.

248
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Those are all caves. All caves. All made by people. All made by people. They're not natural

249
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caves at all. They've been all excavated by people that have come here and built them over time.

250
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And you can see how difficult it would have been to get in these things as well.

251
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Do we know who built them? We believe that the people who built these were from the Tibetan Plateau.

252
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How many individual caves total do you think there are?

253
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:39,000
No one's counted them, but I would guess there's more than 10,000.

254
00:24:39,800 --> 00:24:41,080
More than 10,000. Yeah.

255
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:46,840
Individual caves? Yeah. And of that 10,000, how many have explorers been into?

256
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300. 300? Yeah. Out of 10,000? Yeah.

257
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You guys got a lot of work to do. Yeah.

258
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Think about it though for a second. How hard it is to get in these things.

259
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,400
Right. And so everything has to be done by technical climbing.

260
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The cliffs are made of very poor sandstone riddled with larger rocks.

261
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The result is a fragile conglomerate that can collapse at the slightest touch.

262
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Several years ago, the first exploratory teams ventured into these caves.

263
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One climber broke his back. The other was hit by a falling rock that fractured his skull.

264
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:20,040
Well, if you want something hard to get into, check that out up there.

265
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:26,120
Those are caves? Yes, they are. I mean, those must be a thousand feet off the ground.

266
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They're quite up there. That's insane. So those are unexplored.

267
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Those are the kind of things that, you know, we live to look for,

268
00:25:33,560 --> 00:25:36,760
but wonder how we'd ever get inside them. Right.

269
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,120
So those could be filled with archaeological treasures?

270
00:25:40,120 --> 00:25:44,600
Yes. Why doesn't the archaeology department take a drone and fly up to look inside?

271
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:50,600
It's our policy. Our government has no authority to fluid the drones.

272
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No drones? Without the permission from the civil aviation.

273
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:57,480
Due to our proximity to Tibet, where the political situation is volatile,

274
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drones are highly illegal in the Mustang region.

275
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,480
Usually when we talk about things that are undiscovered, they're things that

276
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people haven't found. It's really interesting to be able to see something,

277
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to know that it's right there, and it's still undiscovered because we can't get to it.

278
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:13,400
Can't do it. That's right.

279
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To understand who made these cave complexes and whether they could be related to Shambhala,

280
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Mark and Mohan are exploring some of the structures lower to the ground.

281
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What is this? Is it a cave?

282
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It's a cave complex with what's called a chapel.

283
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:38,520
A lakang. Okay, please.

284
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,560
This is a Buddhist monastery that has been hand carved out of the cliffs.

285
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It's at least 500 years old and is literally falling apart.

286
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:58,520
Wow, this is something. Looks like you touch anything here and it's going to disintegrate.

287
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:02,280
It's this nasty conglomerate except it's even worse than what we usually climb in.

288
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Dangerous stuff, yeah? Dangerous stuff.

289
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Where do we go up? Yeah.

290
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Straight up.

291
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Everybody be careful.

292
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Oh my word.

293
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:24,920
I'm entering a cliff carved monastery in the northern reaches of Nepal.

294
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We're searching for clues as to why thousands of these caves were carved more than 500 years ago

295
00:27:30,360 --> 00:27:34,040
and how they could be linked to the fabled Shambhala or Shangri-La.

296
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Oh wow.

297
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This is incredible.

298
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The interior is supported by intricate woodwork and decorated with brightly painted pigments.

299
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But this is just the lobby. The shrine of the monastery itself is through a small opening

300
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,040
in the cave wall. All of this was just hand carved out of the rock.

301
00:27:58,040 --> 00:27:59,400
Yeah, you can see it. Wow.

302
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:07,160
We make our way deeper into the site when suddenly I come face to face with monsters.

303
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:11,640
Wow. Look at that.

304
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:20,200
This is crazy. These are mummified snow leopards that have been stacked up here.

305
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They're here to guard it, to protect it. And who knows how long they've been here.

306
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But something that they've never seen before.

307
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We round the corner and enter the inner sanctum of the monastery.

308
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Inside the chamber is a magnificent shrine of Buddha,

309
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surrounded by fierce looking deities, intricately painted walls and hand carved ornamentation.

310
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,280
This wooden frame behind the Buddha is unbelievable.

311
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,880
Look behind you, you can see one of the protected deities.

312
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Yeah, Mahakala. There's a story that apparently goes at this place.

313
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That you should not enter this if you're not pure of heart.

314
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:01,160
Oh, now you tell me.

315
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:05,240
Well, I'm sorry. We'll find out in about 15 or 20 minutes whether or not you really do have

316
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:07,080
a pure heart because you're said to die.

317
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:10,760
Wow. So...

318
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:11,240
Cheche?

319
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,160
Sammy, you guys gonna be all right?

320
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:16,280
Think good thoughts.

321
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:16,600
Right.

322
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,040
Think nice thoughts.

323
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:18,760
Okay, got it.

324
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:23,400
I'm not too eager to feel the wrath of the Buddhist deities watching over me.

325
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:28,040
And based on the offerings, it looks as though the locals are still trying to curry favor with them as well.

326
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,080
Tell me a little bit about what goes on in this room.

327
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:35,880
They meditate here and they treat the local peoples.

328
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:38,040
So it's a meditation place, but also if you were sick,

329
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:39,320
you would come here for healing.

330
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:39,880
It's a medicine place.

331
00:29:39,880 --> 00:29:42,360
Yeah, there'd be an amchi, a medicine llama.

332
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:45,880
A person would come here and you'd bring your complaint to him and they would try to find

333
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:46,840
out what's wrong with you.

334
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:48,600
The family physician, basically.

335
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:54,600
This monastery is a rock-carved hospital of sorts, a place of spiritual and physical healing.

336
00:29:54,600 --> 00:29:57,640
But it's only one of 10,000 caves in the region.

337
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,520
To find out why there are so many more and what else they were used for,

338
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:06,280
we head back to the mortal world to continue our search.

339
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:09,720
Mark guides the convoy further north into the valley.

340
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:14,840
His route will take us through the tiny town of Chosur, towards the city of Lomantang,

341
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:18,520
once the capital of an ancient kingdom and the largest village in the region.

342
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:23,240
The drive through the Mustang is almost perversely difficult and lonely,

343
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:26,840
but tiny villages dot the path all the way up to the Tibetan border.

344
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:30,200
In fact, we even make a major discovery right by the side of the road.

345
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:34,360
Right there.

346
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:36,360
Shangri-La, it's real.

347
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:38,440
Mark, you've missed it this whole time.

348
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:38,840
I know.

349
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:40,440
Mythical kingdom.

350
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:41,880
It's real, folks.

351
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,920
And they offer late checkout and free continental breakfast.

352
00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,880
Passing up the chance to get a AAA discount at Shangri-La,

353
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:51,960
we carry on and look for the real thing.

354
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:54,920
How would you describe the roads north of here?

355
00:30:54,920 --> 00:31:00,680
There's some parts of it that are good, that is decent, and then most of the road is quite scrappy.

356
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:02,920
When you say some parts are decent, the half mile?

357
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:04,040
Oh, god.

358
00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:08,760
You're going to want to use whatever driving skill you have achieved over the years of your

359
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:10,200
life driving in weird places?

360
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:12,280
This is the ultimate test.

361
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:14,440
How bad could it be?

362
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:16,760
Bad.

363
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,240
We leave the valley and begin to climb up along the side of the cliffs.

364
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:24,360
There's no pavement, a narrow track, and instead of a shoulder,

365
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,640
you get a 300-foot drop into a new career in archaeology.

366
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:29,000
As a subject.

367
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,440
As we progress, the road gets markedly steeper.

368
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:36,120
Then it gets downright sinister.

369
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:38,120
Ice.

370
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:40,520
Wow, look at this.

371
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:41,640
Go through, you think, Mander?

372
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:41,960
No.

373
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:42,840
Yeah, yeah.

374
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:43,160
Go through?

375
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:43,640
Yeah, go through.

376
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:48,120
Okay, here we go.

377
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:52,360
I see water.

378
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:54,360
Okay.

379
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:58,200
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.

380
00:31:58,200 --> 00:31:58,680
Good.

381
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:03,880
Come on, come on, come on.

382
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:04,520
Okay.

383
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,280
Struggling to pass 12,000 feet above sea level,

384
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,680
my road trip to the sky caves of Nepal hits a major roadblock, literally.

385
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:25,880
I get out of the car to assess the situation.

386
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:27,960
He might be stuck.

387
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:30,600
He's stuck.

388
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:32,360
Stuck?

389
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:35,640
Cascading ice and water from the peaks above

390
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:38,520
have turned an unstable road into a death trap.

391
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:41,720
One of our vehicles is now stuck in the slushy mess.

392
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:46,040
Real icy in here and wet, and so much weight in the cargo vehicles that

393
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:47,080
you just can't get through it.

394
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:51,880
Our team tries to fill the hole with flat stones over which the 4x4 can roll.

395
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:06,280
Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, yeah.

396
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:07,400
Yeah.

397
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:08,840
Okay.

398
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:15,240
Now that one vehicle is free, my crew climbs out of the convoy to cross on foot.

399
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:20,360
So it's really steep here, and we're going to walk this crossing,

400
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:22,280
send the cars through this little weight in the crossing.

401
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,520
Here's the fun fact, there's no oxygen up here.

402
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:43,640
Out of breath, but safe, we climb back into the 4x4s and press on to the tiny town of Chaucer.

403
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:51,800
It's the last place for us to gear up on our journey, and Mark has an unusual shopping list.

404
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,560
Stopping here to pick up a couple of local helpers from the village

405
00:33:55,560 --> 00:33:57,640
and to acquire some ladders, which we're going to need.

406
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,000
Lash all that to the car, drive a little bit further, and then we're going to be on foot.

407
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:05,960
The ladders are hardly state of the art, unless the art is from the Renaissance period.

408
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:08,040
Okay, we got a ladder.

409
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:09,160
Yeah, yeah.

410
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:09,720
Let's go.

411
00:34:09,720 --> 00:34:10,520
We're ready to go.

412
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:18,520
We pack up our new cargo and drive until the steep and rocky terrain forces us to walk.

413
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:26,840
Stop here.

414
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:27,480
Yeah.

415
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:28,440
No more road.

416
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:28,760
Okay.

417
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:29,960
On foot.

418
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:37,720
Okay, let's get ready to hike.

419
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,200
The landscape here is utterly empty.

420
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:49,720
For the first time in my life, I'm getting a good idea of how Buzz Aldrin must have felt.

421
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:52,680
Not easy.

422
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:59,800
Mark has brought us here because high above the village of Chaucer, archaeologists have identified

423
00:34:59,800 --> 00:35:04,840
another collection of skycades, and locals claim to have spotted other structures that have never

424
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:05,560
been explored.

425
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,640
We hike on, enveloped by the clearest sunshine and purest air on earth.

426
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:17,560
Though as we pass 13,000 feet, I could use a bit more of the air.

427
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,040
Honestly, it's like breathing through a cocktail.

428
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:24,040
The Nepalese who grew up at these heights are having a slightly easier time of it.

429
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:33,160
Hold on.

430
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:44,040
Caves, yeah?

431
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:49,560
Hours of hiking and we've arrived at some seriously remote, man-made caves.

432
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:52,520
Okay, now we just have to get in.

433
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:54,120
Okay, get the ladders going.

434
00:35:54,120 --> 00:35:54,760
We'll get up there.

435
00:35:55,320 --> 00:36:01,080
The Nepalese team quickly lashes the two ladders together into an extension ladder in which I have zero confidence.

436
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:05,640
How far up do you figure that is?

437
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:07,640
About 40 feet, give or take.

438
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,280
Okay, let's get into it.

439
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,800
One of our local guides takes the first trip up to the cave.

440
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:16,520
Okay.

441
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:18,760
As he climbs, the ladder shudders underneath them.

442
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:21,240
You made it.

443
00:36:21,240 --> 00:36:21,880
Let's drop.

444
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:22,360
Yeah?

445
00:36:22,360 --> 00:36:22,840
Here you go.

446
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:26,440
What?

447
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:27,400
Next, it's Mark's turn.

448
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:28,760
And then mine.

449
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:31,320
You make it, Mark?

450
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:31,800
I'm good.

451
00:36:31,800 --> 00:36:32,920
Okay, I'm coming up.

452
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:40,360
This is one crazy ladder.

453
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:43,720
Almost there.

454
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:48,440
Okay, here we go.

455
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:49,400
Oh, wow.

456
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:52,280
This is extraordinary.

457
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:21,720
I climb into a sky cave to learn what secrets are hiding inside.

458
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:25,000
Okay, here we go.

459
00:37:29,720 --> 00:37:30,600
Oh, wow.

460
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:36,520
Climbing in, I see that the small opening in the cliff was just the beginning.

461
00:37:37,240 --> 00:37:40,120
A low passage leads to a sun-soaked chamber.

462
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:44,360
And on the walls, painted art for more than 500 years ago.

463
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:45,640
Look at that.

464
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:48,440
Absolutely stunning art.

465
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:51,640
I was not expecting this.

466
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:53,080
Oh, my word.

467
00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:56,680
This was worth the walk up, I hope not.

468
00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:57,480
Oh, my God.

469
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:58,120
Big time.

470
00:37:58,120 --> 00:37:59,480
That is incredible.

471
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:05,000
From floor to ceiling, the walls are covered with meticulously painted Buddhist imagery.

472
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:08,920
And within that art, clues to help understand the cave itself.

473
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:13,400
Makes this unique is that there's artistic designs in different hands.

474
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:18,520
So in other words, a number of different individuals came here and painted this on the walls of this cave.

475
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:19,560
It's this refuge.

476
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:20,280
They come here.

477
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:21,960
They bring their art styles with them.

478
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:23,720
They paint them on the walls of these caves.

479
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:27,000
What's really fascinating is that when you look at each of these panels,

480
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:29,960
not all of them, but when you begin to look at the panels more carefully,

481
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:34,840
what you find is there's a variety of different artistic styles that are represented on this wall.

482
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:35,320
Okay.

483
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:41,240
So you take a look at this individual here with the, you know, the staring black eyes looking right out at you.

484
00:38:41,320 --> 00:38:45,160
There's an identical image found in a monastery in Ladakh,

485
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:47,560
which is in northwestern India.

486
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,800
That's part of the Tibetan cultural region.

487
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:52,680
Only one of two images like that in the world.

488
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:53,480
That's correct.

489
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:54,040
Wow.

490
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,280
But that tells you the strength and power of this place.

491
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:59,720
The existence of work by different ancient artists,

492
00:38:59,720 --> 00:39:02,680
as well as the same painting in two different places,

493
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:07,720
means that people traveled hundreds of miles by foot to this cave as a destination.

494
00:39:07,720 --> 00:39:10,920
And over how many years do you think this cave was used like this?

495
00:39:10,920 --> 00:39:13,800
You know, I would guess it, two or three hundred years would be my guess.

496
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:15,560
Of people just continuously coming in.

497
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:21,560
So this cave and perhaps others in the Mustang were a destination for Buddhist pilgrims

498
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:23,800
to meditate and to create art.

499
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:28,440
This is a place of culture, but sadly it is vanishing before our very eyes.

500
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:32,360
The people wanted to come here.

501
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:33,240
Exactly.

502
00:39:33,240 --> 00:39:34,440
That is amazing.

503
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:38,360
And really you can see that it is all kind of disassembling.

504
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:39,880
This was all plastered.

505
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:40,280
Yes.

506
00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:40,760
And painted.

507
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:45,640
There might have been a whole nother motif of art on here that has fallen away.

508
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,600
They're going to be reclaimed, I would think, at some point by the environment.

509
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,120
You know, preservation is a real challenge up here, even though it's dry.

510
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:59,880
It's still wet enough that, you know, water begins to seep in cracks, the paint peels off.

511
00:39:59,880 --> 00:40:00,280
Right.

512
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:01,000
There it is gone.

513
00:40:01,720 --> 00:40:05,160
In a hundred years it is almost certain this place will be gone.

514
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:09,800
Perhaps like Shambhala itself, one day these caves will be thought of as a myth.

515
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:11,800
So I count myself lucky to have seen them.

516
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:14,680
Mark, this was amazing.

517
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:19,720
We carefully moved back through the narrow cave entrance and down the ladder to continue our

518
00:40:19,720 --> 00:40:20,440
investigation.

519
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:27,160
We're trying to spot never before excavated rock structures that we were alerted to by the locals

520
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:28,360
in the village below.

521
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,320
The locals tell us there's something interesting over there, so let's go take a look and see

522
00:40:31,320 --> 00:40:32,680
what that interesting thing might be.

523
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:33,240
Yeah, for sure.

524
00:40:33,240 --> 00:40:33,800
Let's check it out.

525
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,320
We carefully hike across the sheer ridge.

526
00:40:37,320 --> 00:40:38,920
There's little room for error here.

527
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:40,360
Watch your step.

528
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,360
Once across, we look for a way to the top of the rise.

529
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:50,280
Bring the ladder here.

530
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,040
Well, if you're afraid of heights, here's a pro tip for you.

531
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:58,920
Don't ever lean a homemade ladder up against a crumbling rock tower at the edge of a cliff.

532
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:02,520
Wall's crumbling.

533
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:04,840
Be careful.

534
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:06,680
Back up, back up, back up.

535
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:07,160
You okay?

536
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:11,320
So, what do we got?

537
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:15,640
When you have small chambers like this, there are only one of two things usually put inside,

538
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,280
something stored or human burials.

539
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:21,080
So, looking inside, guess what we got?

540
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:24,120
Oh my god.

541
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:27,400
Next time on Expedition Unknown.

542
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:32,280
So, nobody's been up inside them before?

543
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:33,960
No, this is uncharted territory for us.

544
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,360
My search for Shangri-La turns into a struggle for survival.

545
00:41:40,440 --> 00:41:41,080
Along the way down.

546
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:43,240
Oh my god, look at this.

547
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:45,720
That is discovery.

548
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:52,520
At high scale new heights, holy f***ing in an attempt to find heaven on earth.

549
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:53,000
There it is.

550
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:53,720
You can see it.

551
00:41:53,720 --> 00:41:54,200
You see it?