Thought and Action

We started out on 2nd July. We, as in, me, Colonel, Papa and Bahl. For starters, it was gonna be a Fauji Trip once again. You would get to know the concept of a Fauji Trip later in the post. So we boarded the train from Delhi for Kalka after hours of swearing at Mamta Banerjee for taking over the railway ministry and as a consequence trains are running late. Our train ran 4 hours late but it never was a problem – the weather in Delhi was so awesome.

Once we ‘checked in’ the Transit Camp at Kalka Military Station the trip had actually began. We started out almost immediately and after stops at Narkanda, Rampur, Jhakri we reached Jeori for an overnight halt at some ITBP guest house. One of the few significant things we did except for the ‘rolling’ part of it was, enjoying a pahaadi chicken. Yea, having a ribcage weak chicken on the hills can be a treat too.

Carrying on the journey the next day through Povari we reached Karchham where we saw the Karchham-Wangtoo Dam. There was a spot on the road where the water coming out of the turbine just falls over your head with a awful great force. Amazing sound it makes must say. Then we reached Reckong Peo which is the district headquarters for Kinnaur. In the backdrop there is the Kailash Parvat or Kinner Kailash which is supposedly the home of Lord Shiva. One of the most striking features of the place is the extensive presence of Marijuana. It grows almost everywhere and anywhere maybe thats why its called Weed. I couldnt resist taking a lot of the leaves as not-a-souvenir. The moment we stepped in Reckong Peo me and Colonel had just one thing in mind. “Bhaiyya, Yahan kya hai dekhne ke liye ? “, we stopped by a shoe store and asked the guy. “Bas yahi hai, chhoti si market hi hai” , “Achha bhaiya yahan kahin cigarette ki dukaan hai kya ?”. The market was small indeed. May be thrice the length of the market outside Jesus and Mary’s College, Delhi. One of the two things we bought there was medicines for puke. It almost is a necessity with Papa and Mountains – they make a lethal cocktail. “Kitne ka chahiye aapko – 100, 200 kitne ka bhi le lo “. Colonel and me had a telepathy and decided on 200. We decided to move on and explore the market a bit. There was this Jimi Hendrix tee I liked. Too bad they had room for just Hendri.
Colonel was getting restless. Maybe he was haunted by the memories of his first trip with his mom to the place where he cried on the way because they couldn’t find a place to halt for hundreds of kilometers. Thats when we decided to speed up and we stopped next at the Pooh DET for lunch and then Maling DET for Tea which is at 12407 ft above sea level as a matter of fact. There are vast orchards of Apples in Chango, a village next to Malling. We could only see a few of them which looked more like Golden custard apples. After spending more than an hour cumulatively outside the car window clicking pictures of the most awesome place I had yet seen, we reached the destination – Sumdo.
Sumdo is a tiny village, where the confluence of Spiti and Parechoo ( chinese) rivers take place. It is from here the beautiful Spiti valley starts.
The Army settlement, the only living human beings there are Army personnel, is very well maintained indeed. I never even thought of privileges like a Pool table and a PS3 at 14000 ft up in the air. The real privilege however was to see Roger Federer winning his 15th. What a match !
Next day had to be quite eventful, the main attractions of the trip were to follow. So we turned to Gypsies for the night and wandered places. Papa in his talismanic style got rid of the Stag and opted for the Teacher instead.
Through the entrails of the jaw dropping sceneries, we reached Tabo Monastery. The view outside the window was such that I virtually wanted to click after every second but pity not even half of the feel and spirit can be captured by the device.
Throughout those days I couldn’t help but wonder, that how human progress has been measured by how much control we are in of our suroundings i.e. the resources and our environment and the very fallings of the progress the human society has made are exposed to the fullest when nature is in the mood.
Tabo is one of the oldest Buddhist monasteries in the world and home to many a monks. You wont find many people out there except for a handful of overtly adventurous tourists. The Dalai Lama was to visit the place on the 13th of July but we missed him by a whisker.
Kaza is a village on the way to Kye Monastery. It is one of the popular tourist locations and at times you feel the expats are a major chunk of the visible population. We reached Kye Monastery after an hour’s drive or so. The first view of the place was disappointing. I told the reason to Colonel almost immediately that it failed to meet the picture I had already painted for the place. Bu nevertheless I could capture a good one especially as a souvenir for Arpit.
Kye was way much smaller than I thought. It resides few monks and their families and is perhaps even older than Tabo, though it was opened to tourists in early 90s only.
Being in Kye, Kibber was a temptation. Kibber is the world’s highest motorable village and Asia’s highest village. I am not so sure of the former but pretty much sure of the latter as one of the locals told me that. The place is quite small actually which I am guessing you must have been used to by now. We ordered something for lunch and almost automatically the telepathy worked again. I rushed to the car and got the matrix. We became Gypsies again and wandered places for this time it was the highest village in the world.
Tumbling down wasnt much of an adventure. By then we had travelled too much for a day. So, we reached Kaza and then headed back to Sumdo for the night. That was supposed to be our last night at Sumdo. The day had been awesome. I had some of the most beautiful places and clicked some of my best shots. It couldn’t have been better. So we turned Gypsies again and wandered places for this time it was our last night at Sumdo.
Choice without repercussions isnt a choice at all. So there we were almost late by 2 hours and to our bad luck we had to skip Lepcha- the Indo-Tibet border site. So we moved on for Sangla Valley which I had heard is one of the most beautiful valleys in the world. A long treacherous journey followed full of repercussions and we reached Sangla.
“Bhaiya, yahan dekhne ke liye kya hai ? ” , ” Bas yahi hai, chhoti si market hai aur aage jaakar camps hain”.”Bhaiya, yahan kahin cigarette ki dukaan hai kya ?”
“Kitne ka chahiye 100, 200, 500”.