Footprints in the "Snows" Of Time: Winter Spiti 2021 - Part 2

Footprints in the "Snows" Of Time: Winter Spiti 2021 - Part 2

Day 4: Kaza-Chicham-Kibber-Key-Kaza (For more on Kaza)

Morning greeted us with beautiful weather again. We woke up to the sight of snow covered mountains from our homestay. I feel envious that every man, woman and child at this place has a chance to do this everyday of his life. But then our host Rohit at the Welcome Homestay had done something tangible about it. Originally from Bhopal, he chose to settle down in Kaza and run the business, with the owners of the mansion as his partners. Apparently, outsiders cannot buy property in the Spiti region. 

I changed for the only time during the trip. Tilak and I then walked to the Kaza monastery. Kaza is the administrative centre for the Spiti region with a population of close to 6000 people. The Kaza monastery too has a presence befitting this stature of Kaza. We stayed in the courtyard of the monastery for sometime, viewing the structure and the mountains in front of it. The day seemed to be significant for monasteries in the region and the monks had congregated for their rituals. We didn't feel like entering the monastery and disturbing them.

We then walked to the highest petrol bunk in the world that is located in Kaza. The Indian Oil bunk has this written in bold, with the name of the regional manager currently in charge. We were surprised by the number of cars in Kaza, for a small town of 6000 people. Also learned later that the people are financially well to do, and people generally end up finding government employment.

Post brunch, we traveled to Chicham. The Chicham bridge is the highest bridge in Asia. This bridge was completed in 2017 and is at a height of 13500 feet above sea level. It is well and truly an engineering marvel considering the terrain. A plaque in front of the entrance to the bridge has the names of the engineering leaders who made this feat possible. Enroute Chicham, we were able to see the Rangrik village on the other side of the Spiti river. One can almost capture this village in a single frame and yet this is one of the largest villages in the region. 

From Chicham, we headed to Kibber. This region houses the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. We were lucky to spot a mountain goat that was standing right next to the road. We saw a couple more in the hills far from us. At 14000 feet, what held our attention yet again was the landscape. Kibber is also known to be the home of the snow leopard and adventurers camp here for months together to get a glimpse. We could see some electrical fencing in the village and we speculated that this was perhaps to discourage animals from the sanctuary entering the village.

The Key Monastery was one of the sights we'd all been anticipating since the beginning of the trip. A picture of this monastery with the mountains in the background is almost bucket list stuff. The icing on the cake would be snow covering the monastery. Though that wasn't the case, pictures from here are veritable portraits. The Key Monastery was built in the 15th century and has withstood both invasions and natural calamities. It presently houses about 200 monks. It is home to the reincarnations of the great translator "Rinchen Zangpo". According to one of the priests at the monastery, it was the efforts of Rinchen Zangpo that ensured that the Buddhist texts in Sanskrit were converted to Tibetan. Else, Buddhism may not have proliferated as much in Tibet. The climb to and within the monastery was steep. Inside one of the buildings were meditation caves for the monks. We were also served herbal tea in one of the rooms that provided much needed hydration. (For more on Key Monastery)

                                                                       Key Monastery

We returned to Kaza in the evening, still energetic enough to visit the market area. The dogs of Kaza that seemed polite and affable in the mornings turned ferocious in the nights. Umesh had warned us of this earlier. As someone terribly scared of dogs, I chose to walk along with the group, making sure there were enough people around me. The market area is a stretch of at most 200 metres with clothes, souvenirs, essentials and even hotels in the same stretch. We made a beeline to "Maya's kitchen" the most popular "restaurant in town". We ordered Thukpa and Momos. The Thukpa here tasted way better than the one at Spillow. Such was the demand that we got the last plate of Momos on offer that day. The authenticity (meaning spice) of the red chutney brought tears to the eyes, but warmed us for a long walk back to our stay in the night. 

Back in the Welcome Homestay, we were served "Timo" for dinner, which we jokingly called a distant cousin of the Momo. This dish doesn't have any stuffing and is pure steamed flour. We ate with the cabbage and cauliflower side dish our hosts had prepared. Keen to spend as much time in the common room, we resorted to digital ludo - a game I played for the first time. I always believe that when you spend a couple of nights at a place, the place and the people start to grow on you. I've experienced this in Pushkar, Rishikesh, Varanasi, recently Puri - Kaza would be no different. 

Day 5: Kaza - Langza - Komic - Hikkim - Kaza

It was daylight by around seven in the morning. Sleep slowly starts to fade at this time. But for me in Kaza, my alarm to get up would be the rays of the sun falling on the walls of my room. That was definite indication that it was warm enough to go out and freshen up with the hot water that would be just warm by the time it touched your hands. 

I found the water heating technology unique. The cold water is in a tank. To prevent overnight freezing, this cold water is filled into the tank only in the mornings, every morning. Then there is a kettle with burning wood and water around it. You funnel the cold water into this kettle. The warm water already in the kettle is displaced and comes out through an outlet. Engineering at its simplest. I tried finding out the local name of this "heater" but was none the wiser.

Rohit offered to take me and the Keralite couple (we were the only ones ready by then) to a view point just above the monastery. Though it was a steep climb, the view point gave us a bird's eye view of Kaza. Rohit talked to us about local life, answering questions about everyday life, local politics and even how Spiti tackled COVID. There is a lot of difficulty in the operational aspects of daily life - but then there also seemed to be a sense of  community that helped them tide through. We coincidentally saw a funeral procession that morning. Rohit told us that while married relatives of the deceased would stay with the family, unmarried relatives would visit each home in Kaza as part of the condolence rituals.  

The highlight of that morning for me was a short game of cricket with three local kids in Class 6. The moment I suggested it would be "Spiti v/s Bangalore" they rose to the occasion. It was an intensely fought game till the end and I was trying to match up to the fitness of three kids who'd grown up in those conditions. Inevitably, there was some crowd interruption by my travelmates and the game was declared an honourable draw. 

The scoreboard read as follows:

Spiti: 16/1 in 2 overs

Bangalore: 14/1 in 1.3 overs

We traveled to Langza later that morning. While Pin Valley was the most beautiful location, the drive to Langza was the most scenic drive on the entire trip. We gained height for a while and then plateaued to snow all around. New vistas opened up at every turn and every turn presented the same landscape a different view that was more stunning than the previous one. The Buddha statue at Langza is located at an altitude of 14300 feet and is an excellent vantage point for a view of the entire village and the mountains surrounding it. 

A few metres away from the statue is the aptly named "Shanti Cafe". Seabuckthorn Tea in this cafe was a delicious mountain drink. It brought back memories of the Seabuckthorn juice I'd enjoyed more than once back in Markha. It was worth climbing the height from Kaza just for the tea. As we drove from Langza, some of us chose to ride on top of the vehicle for a few minutes. The roads were suited for such an adventure. I obviously backed out. Adrenaline is not exactly my preference.  

We then made a token visit to Komic, touted as the highest village in the world with a motorable road. At an altitude of close to 15000 feet, this village has a population of 114 people. Well, if it seems a lot, we didn't meet anyone from the village that afternoon. 

Hikkim, housing the highest post office in the world was our next destination. The romance of sending out hand-written post cards from the Hikkim post office made this one of the more looked-forward to stops on the trip. Each of us had our ideas to ensure a lasting memory from here. Nitin and Lakshmi wrote postcards to almost 15 of their friends and relatives, and hoped atleast half of them would be delivered. Dhrashti and Manishji were sceptical about the letters getting delivered. So they chose to write the content, get a stamp from Spiti and either hand deliver the letters or courier them from Mumbai. I chose to write a letter home and to my five years young nephew - and left it to chance to ensure they get delivered. A lot of it would depend on if the lady at the counter was in a good mood to stamp and forward the postcards the next day. Ten days on, I'm still waiting. (For more on Hikkim)

World's highest post office - Hikkim

Some of us made another visit to the Kaza market that evening, buying souvenirs. Dinner that night was typical Chinese - soup, fried rice and chowmein. We were vacating next morning and another tour party had already arrived. We suddenly felt like locals, as they asked us what best they could do in the two days available to them. The common room bustled even more that day. We were conscious that this was our last night in extreme cold and also the fact that our holiday would soon draw to a close.

Day 6: Kaza - Kalpa and a Happy New Year!!

We were determined to leave early from Kaza the next morning, which was also New Year's eve. And ten in the morning is as early as it can get in such weather.  Departure from Kaza would mark the beginning of two days of return travel to Shimla. 

The journey from Kaza to Kalpa was majorly event less. Vishal chose to drive rather cautiously that morning as the left tyre was short of air. We would get that filled later on in a BRO (Border Roads Organisation ) camp along the way. There were a few blockages because of  loose stones on the hills that the BRO chose to remove using JCBs and artificial landslides. Needless to say, roads are the lifelines of the region and the BRO is the lifeline of these lifelines.

There was a minor tiff between Manishji and the organisers towards the evening. There was a stoppage for more than an hour as the brakes of the traveler had overheated because of continuous usage on the mountainous roads. Manishji was unhappy with the delay - but Vishal and his driver friends were insistent. Most of us were too tired to take part in the argument which died down once Manishji had vented with the organisers.

We reached Kalpa around nine, three hours to the New Year. Kalpa was definitely warmer than Kaza - but I still couldn't get my layers off. The organisers had arranged a party to celebrate the new year. Vegetable Salad, roasted Paneer and peanuts seemed a luxury after one week of  sustenance on Roti and Rajma. Bonfire, music and alcohol loosened us a little bit. It felt as though we'd earned the occasion and the celebration.

Kalpa had a restriction on open parties post 10:30 in the night apparently. The police were swift to land on the property and warn us not to play loud music and party outdoors. We felt like a bunch of college kids at that point. What followed was disappointing, when one of the organisers said he'd spoken to the local bureaucrat and we had permission till midnight. It was a display of the typical "I'm well connected" syndrome that some of us suffer from in our country. Nothing would give us the right to disturb the peace of the mountain people - specially when they'd been so hospitable to us and would continue to be to the hundreds and thousands of tourists every year. 

Well, soon it was 2022! It's always wonderful to welcome a new year with travel. They say what you do on the first day of the new year sticks throughout the year. I hope the travel sticks!

Day 7: Kalpa - Shimla and onward to Delhi!

We woke up to the view of Kinnaur Kailash from our Hotel Aucktong in Kalpa. If we thought that our tryst with mountain views had ended the previous night, we were happily wrong. The Hotel had a clear view of the Kinnaur Kailash and adjacent mountains. We were blessed with beautiful weather yet again. (For more on Kalpa)

Thanks to the New Year celebrations, we woke up late and started to Shimla by 11:30 in the morning. Umesh was unwell and for some reason, Vishal seemed circumspect. We stopped late afternoon in Badhal for lunch. While most of us chose to be cautious with lunch, I felt hungry and good for a couple of Paranthas with butter and vegetable salad. I wanted a good meal.

It was probably destined that the trip would be action packed till the end. As we neared Shimla, a huge traffic jam stretching to about 16 km blocked our passage. The slow moving traffic jeopardised our departure plans. Sourabh and Nitesh, both college students who had to board a bus to Manali, were left stranded in Shimla as they couldn't make it to the terminal in time. The rest of us made it in the nick of time to board buses to Delhi. If we'd planned a peaceful reflective trip back from Kalpa to Shimla, the peace had to wait for sometime. 

Day 7 +1: Delhi to Bengaluru - until next time!

We reached Delhi at six in the morning and bid hurried goodbyes to each other, totally unaware if our paths would cross again. Tilak was a benefactor and invited me to stay with him for the morning. I was grateful for I had no clue how to spend about ten hours in Delhi till my evening flight back to Bengaluru. Bathing in hot water and changing to a new set of clothes in the hotel room lent a fresh lease of enthusiasm to continue my journey homeward. 

A salad, some fruit juice and a Palak Paneer- Rice later, I was back to the familiar Kannada radio in a Bengaluru cab.  Amma waited, with rice, rasam and pieces of onion. Anna had switched the geyser on already. About 250 unread work mails would usher me into the New Year.

Life and Work would surround me completely during the next few days. Nevertheless, the heart would start yearning for that inevitable call soon enough. It would be a call from the mountains yet again. And as they always say, "When the mountains start calling......"

                                     

For Part 1, visit Winter Spiti 2021- Part 1