There stood the mighty Rohtang Pass the eastern Pir Panjal
Range of Himachal connecting Kullu Valley with Lahul and Spiti valley of
Himachal. The road towards Rohtang was not a walk in the park, our
driver-come-friend-guide grown up in these range knew the route like back of
his hand. The harsh rugged road, sharp turns of the deep valleys and the breath
catching the view of the beautiful Himalayan range was every worth towards Rohtang.
It wasn’t the rugged bumpy road or the massive trucks
carrying Petroleum, CNG or essentials or the pissed driver of these trucks that
was getting to us; it was the glance of the pass covered in clouds that caught
our eye and the realization that we shall be at the tip of the giant mountain
in the couple of hours.
After hours of rough drive from the melting glaciers towards
Kasol, we finally reached Rohtang, the pass covered in clouds, the refreshing air,
full of travels, riders and people around the world to experience this mighty
mountain and one of the highest motorable road in the world. Standing at the
tip of this pass we realized that had we not taken this choice a month back we
wouldn’t have experienced this magnificent view.
It was a beginning of June when I met my college friend after
our last trip to Ladakh, remembering the holiday our group had last year it was
so nostalgic. It was that time of the year when we 5 had some time off from our
respective busy schedules and sat together remembering old college days and the
fun we had.
Manish, the lead of our group suggested for a trip to
Himachal and this time we targeted to explore Spiti Valley. We couldn’t cover Spiti in our last trip to Ladakh because of bad weather, this time we explored the beautiful Spiti valley. We were hesitant about this trip because of
the rumors we heard about the road to Spiti is full of flooding rivers and rash
rugged roads. Yet we were determined and started to plan the places to visit in
our trip. After weeks of discussion we planned our trip and started
from Hyderabad (home) to Chandigarh - Jibhi–Chitkul () –Nako–Tabo–Kaza
(Spiti Valley)—Key Monastery–Chandra taal lake–Kasol–Hyderabad (home).
Four of us (Manish, Ashish, Narayan and myself) started our
10 days trip to Himachal on August 3rd, we landed in Chandigarh
early afternoon, Nikhil (5 member) who joined us from Madhya Pradesh was
waiting for us along with our new travel companion Manoj (cab driver) whom we
hired to take us around our trip. We started from Chandigarh to reach our first
destination Jibhi and were welcomed by cops, Manoj said this village is famous
for smuggling of wood and charas. It was past 11pm, and we were struggling for
accommodation with almost no network and dark roads, we have been travelling
for over 8 hours and were exhausted . Some-how we could search for
an accommodation called mud-house, the network was weak but still we could
guide ourselves to mudhouse , it was around 5 kms from the entrance of Jibhi,
not a big distance to cover but we were so tired it looked like 50 kms.
We reached mud-house almost at 12 it was pitch dark we could
hardly see anything except the couple of light at the entrance. The room was huge
with 5 beds and single washroom room had simple cement flooring, but the beds
were comfortable with warm blankets. We crashed on our beds and shrunk in our
blankets we were badly tired, yet we woke up early next day to enjoy
the beautiful sunrise.
4th
Morning in Jibhi
We woke up around 6 and rushed out to check the place. Mountains covered the place and had a beautiful waterfall in its backyard the
early sunrays rise made the view more beautiful. The owner of the place suggested
us further trip and precautions to be taken . We enjoyed our breakfast and the
chief of the place a local guy took us to another waterfall at the distance of
around 500 meters from the place. We walked our way to the waterfall, the
hoarding at the entrance caught our attention the best quote one can think of
at a beautiful place ““ .
It was small yet beautiful the showers of the waterfall made
us feel so fresh and lively we drank the cold and refreshing water. We were
lucky to talk to the couple of old locals sitting next to the water and chilling,
at first what we thought they were smoking cigarette later we realized they
were smoking charas. We came back to mud-house and started to our next
destination—Chitkul.
Chitkul
Village at the height of 3,450m, the place mostly
remains covered with snow during winters. August was one of the best time to
visit Chitkul and we were at the right time to enjoy the village which is said
to have the cleanest air in India. Just like Jibhi we reached at night, Chitkul
has a lot of accommodation facilities unlike Jibhi. We booked 5 beds in Zostel in
advance to avoid the last-minute rush. Temperate at Chitkul was way much lower
than Jibhi, we were prepared for it and covered ourselves in thick jackets, yet
we could still feel the cold breeze making us shiver. We sat in the open air
where all the travelers staying in the Zostel were chilling and smoking some
puff to stay warm; we got ourselves small table with ice cold iron chairs. We
ordered some food and had some drink to enjoy the cold evening, Manoj was
sitting with us and enjoyed the drink to begin with and later on made one puff
and smoked it. While we all couldn’t feel our bumps after some time, manoj was
sitting comfortably and said this temperature is very normal at this place
and it is warm, being from south part of India where the lowest
temperature is not less than 18c we had nothing to say.
5th
Morning at Chitkul.
We all woke by 7 to explore Chitkul, the place was crowded
with travelers coming from the north part of India. We found the last dhaba