The first tingling thought of long-distance walking beyond a designed trek hit me in Nepal. From the open window of the bus, I wished with all urgency if I could walk that 200 km and know the villages that retain their place only through white letters on green signboards. I made up my mind, but the succeeding monsoon wiped out such a prospect from my landscape. There was a pause.
It kept irking me with visionary and adrenaline. That little insect that pesters like a persistence, and sticks to your mind with a heart. I wanted to know Spiti, and the freedom of walking on the most spellbound cold desert mountains of Himachal. It was a privilege to be. So I drew my own map on a piece of white paper with inaccurate lines and accurate altitudes in an old-fashioned manner.
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I was giddy at the end-light of the long dark Atal Tunnel, with the heft of my 70-litre backpack, a tent, sleeping bag, and the Buddhist prayer flags giving away mindful shades of the barren landscape of the brawny-brown Lahaul.
The goal was to camp at Village Koksar for the night and explore Guru Padmasambhava’s cave over Dimpuk Monastery. And that’s the kind of goals I curated for myself. In those burgeoning beginnings, there was no vision of Spiti.
Kaza was a name I set up as the endpoint. It was more about the little steps, the little stops, by the stones that shine as in sprinkled in whitewash waterfalls.
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On the smouldering roads of fine cuts, I kept the kilometres at bay, only for 12 km up to Koksar. My body needed to grab the signal, It needed to get accustomed to the ongoing rhythm that lied ahead.
Right by the kitchen of the army base, in the parking lot, I pitched my tent against the black cottage that defused a dark colour in the shootings of the day’s last clouds. And from then on, for the next eight nights, I solo-camped all across the villages of Lahaul and Spiti, and I had never felt more at home!
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In rain, in the whooping minus-coldness of nights, in the high-altitude wind that semi-promises to blow your tent in shivering length, the fragility of a tent kept me sturdy and lent me the warmth of a home that is Spiti.
Sometimes contributions are momentary. In a moment of curiosity, one may stop for a quick conversation, with a packet of Parle-G, or water, and worst, for photographs! The Royal Enfields would jumpstart and fly by, with the encouragement of a lifetime.
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Things that are small, to naked eyes, have long legs. Unintended acts done in a fluke can build convictions. As lovely as the lonely roads are, honestly, it’s all the people who transduced strength to my feet.
The second day was not just about climbing two mountains up and down for 23.3 km at a stretch. Yes, that was the prologue, the vessel that framed all the emotions of that day, but it was the restlessness towards the end, the hope of the beginning for a village…
I couldn’t see the village anywhere! In my mind I couldn’t assess the remaining kilometres, with the receding light shrinking deeper. Now that I had climbed down the whole mountain in gravel and pebbles, I found myself completely alone in an open pasture divided up in a narrow path with largerthan-life boulders, smaller rocks and spikier rough edges.
It was as if a civilization existed once, no more. Even though I knew the village should be within 2-3 km radius, I still could not spot a single house, and with the dimming sunlight, that got into my nerves.
There were only trucks running. I stopped a truck and asked the driver how far Chhatru was. He said, ‘10 more km!’ ‘What?!’ How is that even possible!
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I confidently told the driver that’s not possible, who clearly was trying to misguide me. I asked him to leave. But when you hear that in such a stressful moment, your mind boggles. And therein sprung up the tickling sensation of a need for certainty. I needed to be certain I was close. But I could see nothing!
Five minutes later, a Royal Enfield came from the opposite direction. I finally put myself together, and stopped the bike. ‘How far is the next village?’ ‘You are almost there. One more
kilometer!’
My early-morning roads were angsty. With scarce vehicles in passing, I dreaded the trucks. In all the villages, the locals had cautioned me, repeatedly, not to walk this particular road. It really is the most depressing stretch. Two km prior to Chota Dara, in red-hot heat that burns, I finally asked a South Indian couple for a lift for the last 10 km before Batal.
Darjee and Hishe Chhomo, popular among the locals as Chacha and Chachi, have been running the Chacha-Chachi Dhaba for the last 45 years. And they are quite famous now in Spiti for rescuing a group of school kids during extreme snowfall, saving travellers from storms and sheltering them in borderline situations.
Chacha has a keen sense of humour.
– ‘Chacha, aapke bare mein bohot suna hai!’ (’Chacha, I have heard so much about you!)
– ‘Ha, abhi dekh liya.’ (’Now you have seen me’)
That night I camped just under an iron-bridge, a few meters down the Dhaba. ‘The wind would be less fierce there’, Chacha showed me the ground. A brick-wall posed as a wind breaker, and the half-bright half-dim mammoth mountains were waiting for the yellow sunset.
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That night the temperature dropped to -3 degrees. Just around the corner, I unzipped my tent to pee out in the open, and up there was the dreamy map of stars. Numerous connecting dots. The shooting star was falling away!
Chandratal is a 15-km-walk from Batal, with non-colors in the colossal shady structures except in the confronting direction which expands in light purple from both diagonals. Down my eyes, the tangled glosses of the lean Chandra River linger in the frame of the quaint visuals. Out of reach. I was still far away. Far, far, far…
Before I spotted the first campsite, ‘Moonlake Camps’. The owner of the campsite, not only helped me in pitching the tent in the bizarre rain and wind, we shared deep conversations about the exceptionally harsh life in Lahaul. For the night buffet and morning-breakfast, Sunny Ji refused any money.
I can still hear the whistling rattle of the ferocious wind of the Himalayas. The sharp pointy sounds piercing from all directions. It was a physical sensation, to be trapped in sounds. Once you reach Losar, the first village in Spiti Valley, the roads change into as flat as pancakes. Walking in Spiti finally escalated my pace, a relief, an aberration from the unfine cuts of Lahaul.
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The mudhouses are built in the same pattern all over the valley. The windows are open in width and breadth, more in squares. The Buddhist frames frame the windows. Yak-houses and grass-storages. There is always a ladder somewhere, lazily reclining against the white walls.
Losar, Kyato, Hull… As I camped alone every night on someone’s pea fields or rested lazily on a bench, puffing and huffing, they took me to their homes to make pancakes for me, and the farmers shared tea and potato Momos from their containers by the roadside. I would often find myself peeling onions in the kitchen of a mud house, cheering over local alcohol from Kibber and hearing stories of generational Buddhist traditions.
Spiti, you changed me.
