Travel India Guides - Mountain Destinations - Himachal - Hill Stations - Highlands
 

ENTRY FORMALITIES:
Inner Line Permits are not necessary for travel to Spiti and you are now permitted to go as far down in the valley as Tabo. A permit is only necessary if travelling from Spiti to northern Kinnaur and this is not granted unless you are in group of at least four persons on an itinerary arranged through an authorised travel agent.

(a) District Magistrate: Shimla; Rekong Peo (Kinnaur); Kullu; Keylong (Lahaul);
(b) Sub District Magistrate: Shimla; Rampur; Kalpa, Nichar (Kinnaur); Keylong, Udaipur (Lahaul); or
(c) Additional Deputy Commissioner's office: Pooh (Kinnaur); Kaza (Lahaul).

The permits can be obtained on presenting the following documents: i) Three passport size photographs, ii) Police verification from home town or any other equivalent document like passport, driving license etc., which can establish the identification of the applicant. Foreigners are required to present an itinerary and introduction by a recognised travel agent. The tourists are advised to get their documents verified at the checkpoints at Chitkul, Lippa, Khud (Kinnaur) and Kaza (Spiti).

Far away from the heat and dust, the travails and trysts of commonality – the ibex roam free. The silence overwhelms, the stars blaze, and when lightening streaks – a hundred and one thunders explode in your own heart. Deeper Himalayas, higher Himalayas – there is no experience like this.

Nothing is familiar, neither the people, nor the customs, and least of all – the nature’s display. Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti – an uncanny, almost unreal world. This is a lunar landscape, you are in a mountain desert, which is intensely cold and unbearably scorching in turns. The nights are magical, the days pristine blue, and the people seem to hold the clue to the mystery – following a strange flow, adopting a rhythm to which solely the Nature reverberates. They warm the winters with festivals, dance to haunting drums, drink the chhang, sing ballads, and speak of ancient legends.

They believe they are a special people – and perhaps they are. The ancient Hindu texts refer to the people of these high passes as celestial beings, God’s chosen musicians, the bridge between the ordinary and the godly. History, however, would tell you that the Sino-Tibetan speaking people, belonging to Mongoloid stock, have been living in these highlands since the beginning of 1st century BC. This is also the high land of Buddhism, thousand year old monasteries exist here, prayer flags flutter signifying human habitation and it is not unusual to find people walking down the road humming Om Mani Padme Hum.

But religion, as life, does not follow a linear motion in the highlands. Those who hum the Buddhist chants also burn incense to Hindu gods, and propitiate forces of Nature in rituals that cannot be pinned down. There are temples as well as gompas in the villages and when it is festival time, all villagers participate with equal enthusiasm – no matter what the origin of the event.

The social system has a similar eccentricity to it. The polyandry practised in every household seems to mock the First World ‘women’s lib’. Only the eldest son resides in the village to look after the house and the fields; the younger inherits the wayfaring existence of the nomad, migrating from high Himalayan pastures to the foothills with his herds when the snows fall thick.

Accessible from passes that remain closed for half the year due to heavy snow or rain, Kinnaur, Spiti and Lahaul were till now, a forbidden land. Security red-tapism ensured that no foreigner stepped on this soil, but now the rules have been relaxed and with a ‘permit’ paper that is not difficult to get, the rugged beauty of these highland regions is for the world to experience. It, of course, is a different matter that only the hardy might wish to take the intensity of the experience these high mountains offer.

There are glaciers, high ridges, broad valleys, villages like little green oasis in a stark, brown and dry landscape, miles of rolling pastures, swollen rivers that turn into mere trickles in winter, and a minimum elevation exceeding 3000 m. The twin valleys of Lahaul and Spiti, connected by the 4500m Kunzum pass, are surrounded by the Kullu Valley in the south, Ladakh in the north and Tibet in the east. Kinnaur lies between the Shivaliks and the Greater Himalayas, on an ancient trade route to Tibet that follows the valley of the Sutlej River. Formidable mountain ranges tower over Kinnaur as well – to the north lies the Zanskar range that provides the border with Tibet and to the south lies the Kinner Kailash range. And a beautiful high alpine meadow touches its edges – this is the Sangla valley. The district spans the entire width of the Himalayas to the edge of the Tibetan plateau.

Unspoilt, uninterrupted nature is what is on the offer here. There are no furrowed brows, only sun-kissed wrinkled faces, reflecting wisdom handed down by the mountains – a sense of equanimity that warps and flows around you and into you like the snowy mists.

So, is it going to be a trek or a drive for you?