The Himalayas are nourishment to the eyes and the soul. Once you discover them, the only option left is to visit them again - and again. How often - is an individual question. But my last tryst with the mountains being July 2019 (I gifted myself a trek to Markha in Leh when I turned 30), it was about time that I received the inevitable call this December.
Instagram sold Winter Spiti to me virtually. All I needed to do was evaluate a couple of vendors who organised the trip (they prefer to call it an "expedition") and reserve my slot. This part done in early December, I kept hoping that COVID didn't take a turn for the worse. The moment I announced that the temperatures would be in the minus 20s, advice and concern poured in in equal measure. The optimists were a cousin and an uncle who'd been to Spiti in Winter and thought the trip was eminently doable and definitely enjoyable.
I was mentally on the flight to Delhi the moment I shut down my work laptop for one final time for 2021, on 23rd December. I like to "go through the motions" before travel, specially vacations. Preparing a checklist of stuff I need to pack, organising them, packing them and finally crossing them off the list. It's almost meditative and helps me get in the flow. Yes, I usually do miss a couple of things along the way - but it's probably a sign of good luck that I do. And yes, the night before travel is a time when I get second thoughts, specially when travelling alone. Is it worth it after all? To leave the comfort of home for a week or more - not to spend the time in relative luxury - but to survive and thrive in the awareness of discomfort. Again, this anxiety is also what I've accepted as part of the process.
Day 0: Bengaluru to Delhi and Onward to Shimla!
Any such jitters disappear the moment I board the cab to the airport and know that I'm on my own. And it was the same this time around as well. I asked the cabbie to play some Kannada radio and turn up the volume. Once you reach the airport it always feels as though the whole world is travelling with you. So many unions, so many separations - most temporary, a few long term. May be someone's starting a holiday, may be someone's completing one. Someone's on their first flight, someone's tired of flying. I've contemplated on this before - and continue to do so each time.
The highlight of my journey to Delhi was the Muesli and Yogurt I'd ordered in the flight. I tried Muesli for the first time and it could end up on my breakfast Menu near term. My first task on reaching Delhi was to add a layer of thermals to my clothing. How to do it in the airport restroom was the question. Squeezing my backpack and myself into the toilet and wearing the thermals was my first sense of discomfort on the trip - and also my first sense of accomplishment.
Delhi welcomed me with a view of the evening sun in the horizon - clouded by the smog that Delhi is now (in)famous for. Even the metro compartment seemed to smell of smoke. I arrived at the bus terminal without much hassle and had a wait of five hours to look forward to. It was here that I met my first acquaintances of the trip. Four people from Mumbai - and interestingly one of them was "employed" as a politician. They would go on to invite me to join them on the exclusive Innova they'd booked for the trip. I politely refused, saying I wanted to meet more people, and a trip like this would have a lot of solo travelers like me.
Day 1: Shimla to Chitkul
We reached Shimla at seven in the morning. It was our first proper taste of winter on the trip. Hand gloves were out in an instant. We spent the next thirty minutes getting used to the cold before starting on our journey to Chitkul. We were assigned to twelve seater tempo travelers. This group of twelve would stay together through the trip and would be led by a co-ordinator from the tour organisation. Umesh was an exuberant 27 year old, and would eventually earn a lot of respect for the way he led our bunch.
Our driver was a 22 year old and his skills were put to test almost immediately. The left front wheel of the vehicle burst just outside Shimla. It gave us our first scare on the trip. We used the break to freshen up in a wayside hotel. Again, it was an exercise in getting used to ice-cold water that would be the norm throughout the trip. But at that point, this was still a novelty and we were excited by the prospect.
We gained height as we cut across the hills. The hills were a mix of brown and green with step farming- a phenomenon I've encountered only a few times after high school geography. Loud Punjabi and Bollywood music on the traveler would turn out to be a default in the vehicle. Apparently, it's a useful stress buster for the drivers who need to drive along roads that only get more perilous as we climb higher.
We stopped for lunch at Badhal late afternoon, still about four hours from Chitkul. The weather didn't look or feel great. But we would continue to Chitkul. I realised that these enduring journeys were part of the package and there was no other go but to hope for the best. I confess I worry about these dangerous drives a lot more than most people - even when I'm not the one in the driver's seat.
Our first point of interest was the Kinnaur Gate. This marked our entry to the Kinnaur region, of which Chitkul is also a part. After a brief photo-op, we continued to Sangla and Chitkul. It was soon night and the temperatures outside dropped. Chitkul to Sangla in the night, I must say is a foolish adventure given the quality of roads. With our stays booked in Chitkul, there was no choice.
Kinnaur Gate
(Please click for more on Kinnaur District)
We reached Chitkul at around ten thirty. People who had a functional phone network told us that the temperature was anywhere between -10 to -13 degrees. If that was the case, we were doing ok, with about four layers of clothing.
I decided to share rooms with a Tilak from Chennai. We would go on to share rooms throughout the trip, though he sometimes vacated the room in the middle of the night telling me I snore. That night in Chitkul was the ice-breaker that would help us become travel mates through the trip. We found we were almost the same age. We exchanged notes on each other's families, work and even our toilet habits. The last conversation was definitely the most crucial one, as it would help us know who needed the bathroom when.
Day 2: Chitkul. Chitkul to Tabo (For more on Chitkul)
Chitkul is the last village on the India-Tibet border, in Himachal. That is the village's claim to fame, along with the beautiful landscapes and the snow covered mountains surrounding it. With bathing out of the equation, we'd freshened up by around nine. It was ironic that with snow all around, water was a scarcity. When we wanted to relieve ourselves, our hosts offered us their regular toilets. One of them offered me a mug of water to wash myself once done. Without thinking twice,he added they'd take care of the flushing, as we might use more water than necessary and they'd have to work extra hard to get water even from their nearest source. Water was at a premium throughout the trip - and its rational usage a lesson for all of us who take it for granted.
Spillow to Nako and onward to Tabo took about four hours and by the time we reached our homestay in Tabo, it was eleven in the night. We were not sure if this was poor planning or just the way the trip was scheduled. There was definite relief at reaching the homestay, though. This was probably our best stay on the entire trip, from a weather and hospitality perspective. The common room was spacious, the tandoor radiated enough heat to keep all of us warm. Warmer though, was the welcoming tone of the family that hosted us. Man,lady,son and daughter. They offered to carry our laden backpacks all the way from our vehicles, prepared tea in the dead of the night, allowed us to rest before serving sumptuous dinner.
And once we finished dinner, we found it difficult to retire to our rooms - because the common room was so warm and cheerful. While sleep dragged us inside, the warmth made us wait by the tandoor. Manishji, Jaini(Manish's daughter all of Class 9) and Dhrashti (friends from Mumbai) would eventually choose to sleep in the common area, trying to have the best of both worlds. Pradeep -a Bengali raised in Lucknow settled in Delhi - would be my new room-mate that night. Tabo was colder than Chitkul outside. But in the Tashi-Yangphel Homestay, it was a warm good night.
Day 3: Tabo. Tabo to Kaza via Pin Valley
The relative comfort of the previous night meant that we woke up refreshed. The clear weather and sunlight made us feel even better. Tilak, Pradeep and I chose to take a walk around the homestay and discovered a nearby stream. The brown mountains and the blue skies reminded me of Markha. We later understood that Tabo would hardly receive any rain throughout the year, because of the mountains surrounding it.
We returned to the homestay for some happy conversations. Manishji enthusiastically related his experience from the numerous Amarnath Yatras he'd done in the past. Nitin and Lakshmi - a couple from Kerala - revealed it was their first wedding anniversary that day. This was a difficult anniversary holiday, but I'm sure they felt the sights were worth it! Dhrashti completed her morning prayers in the common area, with the photograph of the deity she worshipped on her phone. She was determined not to break her 21 day ritual which she'd started a couple of weeks ago. Equally intriguing was Amish's (a lawyer from Mumbai) determination to only have Jain food on the trip - which meant he wouldn't be eating anything that grew beneath the ground. The localites' innocent suggestion that he could have eggs in that case, evoked laughter much to his dismay. What I found ironic through the trip was his insistence on strict diet - which caused some difficulty to our hosts - while being completely ok with consuming cigarettes and alcohol. Religion as always, is a touchy topic!
We started from the homestay around eleven, first stopping by the Tabo monastery that is more than a thousand years old. The walls of the interior part of the temple are covered with paintings and there are numerous statues inside. From near the monastery, we could also spot the caves on the hills that the monks used for meditation.
At around one in the afternoon, we commenced our journey to Kaza. Our first stop would be the Dhankar monastery, located in the Dhankar village. This is a fort monastery and was the capital of the Spiti kingdom in the 17th century (source: Wikipedia). A description at the monastery indicates that there are about 200 monks residing in the monastery present day.If there was something I missed on this trip, it was some historical context to the different monasteries we visited in Tabo, Dhankar, Kaza and Key. They were all visually appealing and were nestled in gorgeous landscapes. In hindsight, there would have been more flavour if we'd spent time knowing their significance.
Enroute was a frozen waterfall that had become a temporary tourist attraction. It may be a normal occurrence in the region at this time of the year - but managed to hold us in awe as we gave it celebrity status and clicked frantically.
As evening turned to night, the cold returned with vengeance. To be honest, we were intruders in its fortress. That it had turned dark outside meant that all we could do in the bus as we traveled to Kaza was to view the pictures in our cameras and phones and relive the evening again. We reached the "Welcome Homestay" in Kaza at around eight in the night. We now knew that the place we would need the most was the common room with the warm tandoor and we were not disappointed. Huddled around it for heat, we tacitly accepted Kaza would be our home for the next three nights. The chill of Kaza (temperatures were close to -20 as expected) would be our companion, whether we liked it or not.
Continued on Winter Spiti 2021 - Part 2
🙌🙌🙌 beautifully explained.alok bhai. 😍😍😍
ReplyDelete