Travels in Himachal Pradesh II: In the heights of the Himalayas

Once before, 30 years ago, I experienced the agonies of altitude sickness. While trekking in the Karakoram Mountains with Helen, our guide had taken us up far too quickly. I can still recall the intense headache, nausea and shortness of breath I felt then.

This time, fortunately, I was spared the headache and most of the nausea, but the thinness of the air still left me feeling breathless on any exertion. Even taking off a sweater, cleaning my teeth or getting up to move to the other side of the room left me panting for ages afterwards.

Up here at 14,000 feet, the air was not only thin and dry, but bitterly cold. I was very grateful for the efficient thermals I’d brought as well as the thick Tibetan quilt on our beds.

Nothing, though, could taint the awesome beauty of snow-capped mountains in the golden glow of the rising dawn.

‘Glancing back in the twilight at the huge ridges behind him and the faint, thin line of the road whereby they had come, he would lay out, with a hillman’s generous breadth of vision, fresh marches for the morrow; or, halting in the neck of some uplifted pass that gave on Spiti and Kulu, would stretch out his hands yearningly towards the high snows of the horizon. In the dawns they flared windy-red above stark blue, as Kedarnath and Badrinath – kings of that wilderness – took the first sunlight. All day long they lay like molten silver under the sun, and at evening put on their jewels again.’

Rudyard Kipling, Kim

The next day, Friday, we went on even further to the remote village of Tashigang, where we were welcomed into one of the three homes in the village for a warming, sweet glass of chai, once more with the beneficent face of the Dalai Lama smiling upon us. The villagers here live simple lives: farming; collecting dung and brushwood for their fires; maintaining their homes. But they face their challenges too: long winters, cut off from the rest of the world; minimal and remote healthcare; hard manual labour. It is perhaps easy to idealise a way of life of which we see just a tiny picturesque snapshot. The harshness, though, is perhaps etched into the deeply lined faces of the old men and women remaining in these tiny villages.

Laji and Sheila have been coming to the Spiti Valley for over 30 years now and it seemed they knew or had treated someone from every remote village and hamlet, and were welcomed warmly wherever we went. The mountains around Chichim, Kibber and Tashigang are known for their wild Himalayan Blue Sheep, Ibex and Snow Leopards. Sadly, we didn’t see any while we were there, but we were treated to the majestic soaring of a golden eagle as we made our way along the steep-sided gorge of the Spiti river below.

Gradually this striking gorge opened out into a wide glacial valley, the rushing river winding its way along the flat bed of the valley, and, on the slopes above, irrigated fields, villages and groves of trees brought a freshness and life to the otherwise harsh, barren wilderness.

‘At last they entered a world within a world – a valley of leagues where the high hills were fashioned of a mere rubble and refuse from off the knees of the mountains. Here one day’s march carried them no farther, it seemed, than a dreamer’s clogged pace bears him in a nightmare. They skirted a shoulder painfully for hours, and, behold, it was but an outlying boss in an outlying buttress of the main pile! A rounded meadow revealed itself, when they had reached it, for a vast tableland running far into the valley. Three days later, it was a dim fold in the earth to southward.

“Surely the Gods live here!” said Kim, beaten down by the silence and the appalling sweep and dispersal of the cloud-shadows after rain. “This is no place for men!”’

Rudyard Kipling, Kim

We stopped for lunch in the town of Kaza – the main administrative and commercial centre of the Spiti valley. Here we met up with Jo Smith – a Kiwi friend of Lois. A teacher by background, Jo came to Kaza seven years ago and has lived here ever since – the only foreigner resident in this isolated town. Jo lives a simple life and is entirely self-sufficient. Although she has never learnt Hindi, Jo has set up a small play room, where the children of the town and surrounding villages can come after school – a safe and stimulating place with games, puzzles, arts and crafts, and the opportunity to learn basic English and numeracy in a fun environment. For these children life is harsh, with few opportunities just to enjoy being children. Somehow Jo has also won the trust of the local government teachers and officials and will go and help in the government schools too, teaching English, supporting the teachers, befriending the children, and – slowly – challenging the deficits in the quality of education and the deeply ingrained use of harsh corporal punishment in the schools.

Leaving Kaza – we would return two days later – our final stretch of the day took us further down the Spiti river before crossing over and climbing a short way to the beautiful village of Mane. Here we were welcomed into the luxurious home of Jeet, the local district commissioner, and his wife, Samten, where we were to enjoy a well-earned respite from our two long days of travelling.