Palpa, May 10 -- Six years ago, Karma Angyal Gurung, a 67-year-old man from ward 1 of Lomanthang Rural Municipality in the mountain district of Mustang, had to walk for six days to reach Pokhara. He used to visit Pokhara, now the provincial headquarters of Gandaki Province, with his parents, carrying medicinal herbs and other local products. Things have changed.

"Traveling then was quite difficult and time-consuming. Nowadays, one can reach Pokhara within a day. Vehicles arrived in Jomsom first. They now reach up to Korala," said Karma. This is all possible thanks to the construction of the north-south Kaligandaki corridor road.

The road now stretches from Pokhara to Jomsom and up to the Korala border with China, and this has made trave...