Part-1: Kinnaur Valley
Diwali this year afforded us with a very long weekend, and off we (my friend Abhijit, his friend Amiya, and I) set for Kinnaur Valley. We had booked overnight bus tickets till Shimla, and as the bus ascended the sharp turns with each passing minute, it was overtaken by a contagious wave of nausea. Even those who held their fort tight till the very end, had to give in – spurred by bouts of throwing up all around – to throwing up themselves.
After a quick breakfast in Shimla, we hopped on to a state transport bus, even as a 12-hour journey remained before us. Accompanied by Pahadi Nati songs (of which the most memorable one was ‘Teri Paronthi Laga Radio‘), we finally reached Rampur-Busahr at 3PM, and soon got ourselves a room alongside the Satluj river. After a quick lunch, we stepped out to check out a Buddhist temple, the Rampur-Busahr bridge across the Satluj, and then, the King’s palace, where public access was allowed only till the lawns.
It was Diwali after all, and so atop the hotel’s terrace, we looked in awe at the night sky, as the twinkling stars became indistinguishable from the showers emanating out of exploding fireworks. The mountain on the other side of the river looked as if it wore chains upon chains of sparkling diamonds. The temperature dropped to below 5 deg. C.
The next morning at 9am, we took a Himachal State Transport bus to Rekong Peo which was the gateway to the Kinnaur Valley. We hurtled alongside the Satluj for the longest time, with the mountains flanking us on both sides, treated to images of waterfalls streaking across the ridges on the opposite mountainside and the numerous hydro-projects. Before soon, we had passed through the famous hoop-like rock tunnel marking our entry to the Kinnaur Valley.
Shortly, we reached Karcham, the point where the Baspa river met the Satluj, and the road diverged, with one branch leading to Rekong Peo and further to Kaza, and the other leading to the Sangla Valley, where the well-regarded village of Chitkul, touted as the last Indian village, is situated. At this point, the snow-capped Kinnaur Kailash was already visible, standing there as if a stone’s throw away, but still unreachable even as we kept windingly moving in its direction.
Reaching Rekong Peo around 2 PM, our first step was to hail a lift from a personal vehicle going towards Kalpa, which is accessible by a 7km drive diverging from the road to Kaza. Getting down at Kalpa, we were immediately struck by the shining peak of the Kinnaur Kailash, which now seemed like a touching distance away. It being the shoulder season, we checked in at a throwaway price into a fascinating hotel in the form of a standalone Himachal-style bungalow located in the village centre, and chose a room with a clear view of the Kinnaur Kailash.
After a quick meal of thukpa at a roadside diner, we walked down the slope to the Kalpa monastery and the Chandika Devi temple. Exiting from there, we stopped to have tea at a homestay run by a 70-year old lady, who offered to make us a hot mutton curry dinner that night for a price. With the cold setting in, the prospect of hot piping food was enticing enough that we paid up the advance, and left for some further sight-seeing… or to put more precisely, aimless wandering.
That’s when a local villager offered us a ride to Roghi. Little did we know that we would be subjected to one of the most dangerous roads that I have come across in my whole life: in fact, the Kalpa-Roghi road is cited to be one of the most dangerous roads in all of Asia! The road was as narrow as they came – suitable for barely two small car to pass through – with a vertical wall on one side, and a 500-feet vertical drop on the other, supplemented by a general dose of blind curves.
We stopped at the famous ‘suicide-point’ on a platform jutting outwards into the Valley. The view of the Satluj lying as a shining silver ribbon several feet below, and the road winding around the corners on two opposite ends, with the Kinnaur Kailash standing like an imposing guard overlooking the whole set-up, was breath-taking. The villager took us to Roghi, and dropped us back at Kalpa, after which we explored the Apple orchards on foot, to while away time till dinner was readied by the old lady. The dinner, as it turned out, was delicious.
Part 2: Sangla Valley
The following morning, we were were stuck by decision paralysis – Abhijit wanted to see Chitkul which was quite a detour, while Amiya was keen to just return to Delhi. The quibbling went past 9 AM, the scheduled time of the sole morning bus to Chitkul, and it was time for me to adjudicate. My verdict: we would see Chitkul and leave for Delhi the same day.
Abhijit and Amiya looked at me incredulously, given there would be no public transport to Chitkul until later that evening. I told them I didn’t know how we would would do it, but there would be only one way to find out: we would get down at the fork in Karcham, where the road to Sangla Valley emanated – the point the River Baspa met the Satluj – and try our luck.
So checking out at 10AM, we hitched, yet another ride, down to Rekong Peo, and caught a bus headed to Rampur-Bushahr; got down at the fork in Karcham, as planned; and waited for a lift. Amiya was still sceptical – he would rather he was headed to Delhi – and Abhijit just sat there in quiet anticipation. After a couple of vehicles ignored our hailing sign, we were pleasantly surprised to find a middle-aged couple stop to give us a lift in their Alto. Stashing our luggage in the boot, the three of us squeezed ourselves into the rear row, and soon found ourselves negotiating another death-defying road.
At 11.30, the couple dropped us at the Sangla bus depot, where, upon a quick inquiry, we learnt that there was a bus to Chandigarh at 3.30 PM. So, we had 3 hours in hand to make a trip to Chitkul and back if we wanted to be on our way to Delhi the same day. With no public transport in sight, and the reliance on hitchhiking seeming undependable given the time constraints, hiring a cab seemed to be the only resort. Thus, following yet another round of disagreement, this one involving the budget, we bit the bullet, and hired a cab for Rs. 2000.
Soon, we were headed to Chitkul – with the road seeming less dangerous, since the Baspa Valley in this stretch is not very deep – marvelling at the sight of glaciers flowing down the mountainside into the River Baspa. We encountered a cute-looking waterfall on a stream with a bridge on which only 1 vehicle could pass at a time. The tarmac soon gave way to an unpaved road, even as the mountains on our side of the river soon turned brown with no vegetation, with their peaks topped with snow.
By 12.30, we were at Chitkul village, and we promptly trekked down to the bank of the Baspa, on the other side of which lay a cover of snow. Crossing the bridge over the Baspa, we were soon wading in the snow. There’s something about snow that awakens the child inside of man, and we were not immune to the same, evident from how we soon got down to making snow mortar and throwing them at each other. A pint-sized snowman followed soon after.
But we had to be mindful of the time, so at around 1.30 PM, we clambered back on to the main road, had a quick lunch at a roadside eatery, and headed back to Sangla. At Sangla, we hopped onto the ordinary (non Air-conditioned) state transport bus as soon it arrived, and managed to get ourselves window seats, keeping in mind the long journey ahead. The joy of managing to get those seats, however, was tempered by the vomit stains on the window frame, and on the inner side of the bus’s wall, and on the floor…meaning, leaning against the bus’s wall was not an option.
The bus started at its own sweet time, at around 5, and soon we were traversing the treacherous stretch of the road, with our seats located on the side of the bus facing the deep, deep valley below, and only a hair’s width separating us from the edge of the cliff. Luckily, as it was getting dark – and darkness falls rather quickly on the high mountains – we were spared the scary views of the bottom of the valley from our window seats.
After a dinner stop somewhere near Rampur-Bushahr, we fell asleep, waking up only once the higher temperatures of Punjab lashed at our faces. At Chandigarh the next morning, following a quick freshening up, we caught another state transport bus to Delhi. Amiya seemed exhausted by now, and could not wait to be back home, but Abhijit and I were not helping matters, as we ribbed him by humming the tune of ‘Teri Paronthi Laga Radio‘. Thankfully for Amiya, his misery ended at 2 PM when we finally reached Delhi.
The Timber Trawler 