A Bagpacker's Guide to Spiti Valley

The more I was travelling in the direction of Spiti valley, The landscape kept changing the mountains, and the land kept turning brown as a substitute of green. The bus passed from various streams, crossed the river and kept going up the mountains to cross them. Although in the back of the mind I was initially getting afraid of the bus falling into the river, But the way hrtc driver was driving I got so confident to be taken to mars on this bus!

Day 1: One can easily get on the HRTC Deluxe Bus from Chandigarh to Reckong Peo that goes every evening at 06:00 PM, and this will be the best option to travel in a bus if you are entering Spiti from the Shimla-Kinnaur Side of himachal. The HRTC Bus will drive you on a roller coaster ride through Solan, Shimla, Narkanda, Rampur Bushahr and finally leave you speechless in Reckong Peo around 6 to 7 AM in the morning, Your journey will be depending on the roads and weather conditions as told by café guy in Malana: “Shimla ka fashion or malana ka Mausam Kabhi b Badal Sakta hai”. This deluxe bus ticket costs you around Rs. 750, Where as ordinary ticket will cost you around Rs.550.

Expenditure : Rs. 750(Deluxe Bus) + Rs. 200 (Food) = Rs. 950

Day 2: Its always better to take a day break in Reckong Peo and acclimatize your body with the weather. Reckong Peo is a big town of Kinnaur District and you can easily find an accommodation at Rs. 500-700 for a room and for a backpacker like me it will cost you Rs. 200-300 for a Dorm plus 70-100 Rs for Food at hotels in Peo. If you have enough time then consider going for better hamlets called “Kalpa and Roghi Villages”, 7 Kms from Reckong peo Bus stand and buses are quite frequent to kalpa and roghi.

Day 3 : Reckong Peo - Nako – Chango ( 110 kms )

KHAB: Khab is a small town in the Region Kinnaur of Himachal Pradesh, India. It is located on the bank of Sutlej river near the India-Tibet border. Khab comes on the way of National Highway 22, connected with state capital Shimla. It’s quite famous for the meeting of Sutlej river Spiti river. River Spiti flowing through the Spiti valley meets the Sutlej here, that originates from the Lake Mansarovar in Tibet.

As we approached the Highway, HRTC took us right on highways towards pooh, Traversed the most dangerous rugged rubble path through mountains, We cross the Sutlej again to now drive along the left bank and then came upon the ‘Most treacherous road in the world’ signboard.

NAKO: Our zesty HRTC Bus stopped for a small tea break at Nako and it turned out to be a relief for many fellow travellers including me! Nako is a remote village in the Himalayas of northern India, situated close to Indo-China border area of Kinnaur District.

Nako has a small beautiful sacred lake. If you are fond of capturing landscapes and have time, Walk around the small village absorbing the traditional atmosphere and architecture.

I was surprised by the look of this village and to the very fact of life away from commercialization and their happiness while playing carrom with bunch of people while it was snowing outside, Yes it can snow anytime in Nako!

As It was informed by the Owner of chini bunglow in Kalpa to spend your night in a dorm near peo bus stand named, “Hotel Bhagwati” which was quite economical for a backpacker as I paid 250INR for my bed. In order to catch the early bus to kaza. With not much choices, Currently There is only one direct bus to kaza from Reckong Peo.

I met Liton, a guy from kolkata who is staying in Spiti from last 2 years for his documentary on “winter Spiti”, We saw some video glimpses of Snow leopard at Kibber village in Spiti in his laptop and slept at around 10 PM to catch early bus to Kaza.

Woke up early for a long way to go, Day to enter Spiti Valley. It was cold outside and While waiting for our bus at peo stand Liton was explaining me how to cover Nako and Tabo in a day, If you want to cover Nako and Tabo in a day, You need a strategy! You have to catch the 6 am Kaza bus and get down at Nako around 11:30 pm, You’ll be getting around 2:30 hrs to explore Nako. Strategize your Nako travel so that you can board the Rampur-Tabo Bus that reach Nako around 2 PM that finally take you to Tabo to travel economically in a HRTC bus!

CHANGO. The place had less than 100 people living there. As the place was small and traveller were more. And fortunately the owner of the Hotel Yellow Leaves in chango, Where my stay was confirmed was also travelling with me in the bus!

Spiti Valley is a place that requires no synopsis to the travelers and backpackers! A cold desert hilltop sited high over the Himalayan slopes of state of Himachal Pradesh. A picture-perfect illustration of nature’s surrealism is home to some of the highest towns in the world.

Nako to Chango

From Nako, There was a group of girls boarded the bus, They were basically from Delhi and Kolkata. They were searching for hotels and homestays near Tabo and stated by locals that Tabo is a quite expensive place. There comes the voice of Liton to break the ice in a moving bus as he revealed his identity in the bus that he’s running a hotel in Chango by the name: “The Yellow Leaves”, and what’s next? They asked him bluntly if there is any room available! And liton played a nice mind trick here, He asked me to give my Room stay plus he had another Room available to provide stay to the Girls, For this favour he was giving me his scooty he own for this entire day to road around the valley. If I give my room to those girls and stay in a backpacker’s dorm. What a smart Business trick huh!

And I decided to give my earlier booked stay to other travellers in need. It was around 2 pm during our check in. After taking a power nap of around 2 hours, Liton and I decided to visit Gue Village in his Activa Scooty.

The Yellow Leaves..

The name is very much symbolic to its fantastic ambience..

You can be lost easily in the colourful orchards of apple hearing the murmur sound of ever-flowing Sutlej River that flows just in front of it. The staffs are really friendly.

Amazing place ... Awesome view .. but the best is the staff, Especially lucky!

Liton loves traveling too so you will get good knowledge about the local attractions. I got a very good friend for life! Highly recommended for chilling and enjoying river side view and peace, Bungalow near chango highway.

While coming back to the hotel, It was dark with no lights due to power cut in the area. We brought few candles before the market was closing. After few hours the power was restored and we received our dinner from the staff, Lucky is the most famous one out there!

This trip was turning more adventurous day by day and We had no plans to sleep early. After Dinner, We were carrying few extra blankets outside and spread the sheets near the sides of highway and arranged our tripod stand for capturing the most soothing Milky way with star lit sky. The view cannot be described in words as its been a long time that I have seen such magnificent sight. After keeping tripod on the required mode we sat on the highway beneath the sky full of stars and went on discussing from school life, college life, adventures to para normal activities, and slept around 1am.

Day 4: Chango-Tabo-Dhankar-Kaza

I woke up next morning by 7:00 am and went for a walk on the freeway to watch Spiti River curving gracefully just beside the “yellow leaves hotel” bank. Rinzin and Phunsuk(Remember aamir khan’s name from 3 Idiots) came to pick me up like old school homies! I had to start my journey ahead, I said good bye to Liton and lucky, We reached Sumdo by 9:00 am to register our car for access into Lahaul & Spiti Valley, My couchsurfing hosts were literally driving like homies in spiti valley.

Tabo: We Reached Tabo at 10:30 am. Tabo is a hamlet that is situated at an altitude of 10,750 ft. Tabo has a Buddhist monastery which, according to myth, is supposed to be over a thousand ages old. The Dalai Lama has stated his desire to retire from Tabo, The shrines inside the Tabo monastery have a plethora of fence paintings and mud statues.

Further overhead the Dhankar village there's a small trail that will take you to Dhankar Lake .The complete trek time is around 2:30 – 3 hrs for a steady trekker, But If you have Chandratal in your itinerary you can give this a miss.

Day 5: Kaza-Kibber-Chicham-Komic-LANGZA

In the morning after exploring the small town of Kaza and interacting with a few people we decided to go to Kibber. We thought of renting a Bike but the shop owner had all of his royal enfields rented out and the only available bike was pulsar. We decided to rent a taxi from the taxi stand right next to the market. After driving another 40 minutes on the zig zag road, we were at Kibber, located at the height of more than 4200 meters, it is the highest village connected by road. We were still feeling the altitude, a little dizzy in our head. There was a shrine at the beginning of the village.

KIBBER:

The houses here are closely located , painted in white and the roof of all the house are stacked with stacks of dried for preventing snow to enter through terrace. and also for burning in winter. The area is known for Snow Leopard.

The monks of the monastery took us in, there was a couple already there. The monks made us seat inside the room and brought us some tea, made of different herbs (I could taste rose and cinnamon) but no other taste was identifiable

We got back to our hotel in Kaza it was dark already; the place was illuminated by the moon light. We did some night photography, captured the night sky.

Our next stop was supposed to be Losar. The road (or let's say Ice-snow track) was in very bad condition. We went as far as we could go by pushing our bike and ourself but had to give up 23KM before Losar. From there we had to come back. I was sad for not reaching there but going upto that was totally worth it, for the Beautiful surrounding we could see.

We came to Kaza early in the evening and moved around the town. Had thupka (traditional noodle soup) and noodles at a small cafe shop.

Next morning I woke up with a little hangover and a mess of the room.

Next we packed our bags and Started our journey back to Delhi that took next two days which were very tiring. This is the part I hate most. Coming back is the to your normal life. I wish to travel forever.

So till next time!!

Day 1: Delhi-Chandigarh-Reckong Peo

Day 2: Reckong Peo- Kalpa-Roghi

Day 3: Reckong Peo - Nako - Tabo

Day 4: Tabo - Dhankar - Mudh (Pin Valley)

Day 5: Mudh - Kaza

Day 6: Kaza- Key-Khibber- Langza-Komick-Hikkim