Spiti Valley - Article published in Hindustan Times

Himalayan Patterns @ Spiti

The web edition of leading Indian daily, Hindustan Times, recently published an article written by me on Spiti (Himachal Pradesh). You can read the article here.

Leap of Faith!

Titled 'Discovering the charm of Spiti', it is a slightly modified version of the article I had written on this blog last year immediately after returning from Spiti - one of the most satisfying trips of my life!
Hope you enjoy reading the article. I also urge you to visit the place at least once in your lifetime for the spectacular sights it offers and the wonderful people who live there!

As always, I would like to personally thank each one of you for having patronised my blog and for supporting me. A special thanks to the team at Incredible Spiti for getting this article published in Hindustan Times, which is an esteemed newspaper of our times.

P.S. - The pictures published alongside the article in the newspaper are not mine. They have been mistakenly credited to me. All images on this blog are, of course, mine :-)

Lahaul - Spiti Valley Jeep Safari: Notes & anecdotes from a 7 day odyssey through the middle land!

Connoisseur’s delight…door to freedom...

Komic

If you are not averse to any of these -

• living at an average altitude of 4,250 metres in a cold desert;
• travelling on narrow (single lane), gravel and water filled roads winding through the Himalayas, which stare thousands of feet down into a violent river, and where road blocks due to landslides and snowfalls are as common as the day and night;
• living without newspaper and telecommunication network (save for BSNL) in a place unscathed by modernity;

then Spiti is the place for you - the connoisseur traveller, the solitude seeker, the adventurer!

Spiti Valley came on my radar a couple of years back while researching some exotic driving holidays in the Himalayas. I was instantly taken in. Ladakh had been on my travel list for over seven years (since the time the populace had not even heard about it), but seeing the swarm of casual tourists thronging to it since the release of 3 Idiots, I decided that it had to be Spiti that I must visit this time around, before the hotels over there too started dishing out thalis!

View of Spiti Valley from Kye Monastery

Spiti, which means ‘the middle country’, is the land of ragged and snow capped mountains that reach out to the clear deep blue skies. Here, in the cold desert, trees are scarce and the moonscape expansive. Spiti is the land of several perennial rivers - Spiti, Pin, Chandra - whose gurgling sounds will soothe you in the night and whose ferocity will awe you when you travel alongside them in the day time. Ah, and not to mention the placid, azure blue lakes like Chandra Taal, Nako, Dhankar. The observer would also be struck by some of the most beautiful canyons and the most unusual clay and rock formations along the river bed and in the mountains. The continuity of the landscape is only broken by numerous waterfalls and glaciers, including one of world's largest non-polar glaciers - Bara Shigri.

{Continue reading...}

The Buddha

Another Tibetan style statue of the Buddha in Dharamsala (HP).

The Buddha

Tibetan style statue of the Buddha in Dharamsala (HP).

Anxious monks

Photo taken at the seat of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala (HP). Dalai Lama was returning from an overseas trip and scores of monks n tourists were waiting for him outside his residence. This one too was taken in 2004 using a phot-film camera.

By the river side

Captured while touring Himachal Pradesh. The river Beas is one of the most prominent rivers in HP and provides visual delights all along its course. This one was taken in 2004 using a photo-film camera. Quite neat for a scan, ain't it?