India Travel

Trains

Pathankot to Joginder Nagar (2 daily; 7hr 30min-9hr10min).

Shimla to: Kalka (4 daily; 4hr 45min-5hr 45min).

Buses

Dalhousie to: Amritsar (2 daily; 5hr 30min);Jullundhar (1 daily; 6hr); Kliajjiar (2 daily; 1hr);Pathankot (hourly; 3hr30min).

Dharamsaia to: Baijnath (hourly; 3hr 30min);Chamba (1 daily; 9hr); Chandigarh (6 daily; 7-8hr);Dalhousie (1 daily; 6hr-7hr); Delhi (6 daily; 12hr);Dehra Dun (1 daily; 9hr); Haridwar (1 daily; 14hr);Jawalamukhi (8 daily; 2hr 30min); Kangra (every15min: 45min-1hr); Kullu (4 daily; 8hr); Manali (4daily; 10hr); Mandi (7 daily; 6hr); McLeod Ganj(every 20min; 40min); Nahan (1 daily; 12hr);Pathankot (10 daily; 3hr).

Chamba to: Amritsar (1 daily; 8hr); Brahmour (7daily; 3hr); Dalhousie (10 daily; 2hr 30min); Delhi(1 nightly; 18hr); Kangra (2 daily; 6hr); Khajjiar (3 daily; 1hr 30min); Mandi (1 daily; 15hr); Pathankot(10 daily; 5hr).

Kangra to: Delhi (every 30min; 12hr);Jawalamukhi (every 15min; 1-2hr); Mandi (4 daily;6hr); Masrur (3 daily; 2hr]; Pathankot (10 daily; 3-4hr).

Kasauli to: Chandigarh (5 daily; 2hr 30min); Delhi(3 daily; 7hr 30min); Kalka (3 daily; 1 hr 30min);Solan (5 daily; 40min).

Kullu to: Amritsar (1 daily; 16hr); Bhuntur (every10min: 30min); Chandigarh (8 daily; 6hr 30min);Dehra Dun (1 daily; 14hr]; Delhi (6 daily; 14hr);Haridwar (1 daily; 14hr); Manali (every 10min; 1hr 15min-2hr); Mandi (every 30min; 3hr): Manikaran (every 30min; 2hr); Nagar (hourly; 1hr 30min).

Manali to: Amritsar (1 daily; 16hr); Chandigarh (13 daily; 8-11hr); Dehra Dun (1 daily; 16hr); Delhi (8 daily; 16-17hr); Haridwar (2 daily; 16hr); Kangra (7 daily; 12hr); Kaza (2 daily; 12hr); Keylong (11 daily; 6hr); Mandi (every 30min; 4hr); Manikaran (every 30min; 4-hr); Nagar (hourly; 1 hr 30min); Pathankot (2 daily; I2hr); Udaipur, Lahaul (1 daily; 7hr).

Mandi to: Dharamsaia (7 daily; 6hr); Kullu (every 30min; 3hr); Manali (every 30min; 4hr); Shimla (7 daily; 6hr).

Shimla to: Chail (4 daily; 3hr); Chandigarh (every 15min; 4hr); Dalhousie (1 daily; 14hr); Dehra Dun (3 daily; 9hr); Delhi (hourly; 10hr); Dharamsaia (4 daily; 10hr); Haridwar (3 daily; 10hr); Kalka (every 30min; 3hr); Kangra (10 daily; 8hr|; Kasauli (hourly 2hr 30min); Kullu (7 daily; 7-8hr); Manali (7 daily; 9-10hr); Mandi (7 daily; 6hr); Nahan (4 daily; 6hr); Narkanda (5 daily; 3hr]: Pathankot (5 daily; 13hr); Rampur (5 daily; 6hr); Rekong Peo (3 daily: 9-11 hr); Sarahan (2 daily; 7hr); Solan (every 30min; 1hr30mm).

Flights

Dharamsaia (Gaggal) to: Delhi (3 weekly; 1hr 30min).

Kullu to: Delhi (daily: 1 hr 20min).

Shimla to: Delhi (daily; 1hr 10min); Kullu (daily; 30min).

Sarchu Serai packs up for the season from September 15. Northbound buses thereafter press on over Lachuglang La (5019m), the second highest pass on the highway, to the tent camp at Pang (4500m), which stays open longer. Unfortunately, this means that the drive through one of the most dramatic stretches of the route, through an incredible canyon, is in darkness. Sarchu Serai is also 2500m higher than Manali, and travellers coming straight from Manali nught suffer from the higher altitude here.

The army camp at Pang, 3km north of the serai, stands at the mouth of the Pang Gorge at the far southern end of the extraordinary Moray Plains .i 45-kilometre-long plateau encircled by rolling hills and, nosing up above them, irilliant white Himalayan peaks.This serene Tibetan landscape is the domain of nomadic pashmma-rearing herdsmen who migrate here from Rupsu in eastern Ladakh each summer. Look out too for wild asses, marmots, and the elusive nabu (blue sheep) that graze the open grassland.

After Dibring, the road starts its ascent of the fourth and final pass, the Tanglang La, a dizzying 5360m, the highest point on the Manali-Leh highway. Drivers pull in for a brief photo session alongside the sign exclaiming “Unbelievable! Is it not". Staring north beyond the multicoloured tangle of prayer flags across Ladakh to the Karakoram range, just visible on the horizon, you may well agree.

Beyond Keylong, the Bhaga Valley broadens, but its bare sides support very few villages. By the time you reach Darcha, a lonely cluster of dry-stone huts and dingy tent camps on the edge of a vast pebbly river confluence, the landscape is utterly denuded. All buses stop here for passengers to grab a hot bowl of Tibetan thukpa from a wayside dhaba. There’s little else to do in Darcha, which would be the definitive one-horse frontier post were it not for all the ponies hanging around its outskirts near the Shingo La trailhead - the main trekking route north to Zanskar. If you are not on one of the through Manali-Leh buses, you are better off stopping at Jispa 7km south, a pleasant little hamlet with ample camping along the river. There is a small but pleasant guesthouse above the road, and the monolithic but comfortable, concrete Hotel Ibex (01900/33203), which you might consider worth the luxury after a gruelling trek.

From Darcha, the road climbs steadily northeast across mountain sides of wine-red and pale-green scree. The Baralacha La is the first major pass, a windswept vale of red-brown rock and grit splashed with streaks of snow.The Bhaga. Chandra, and Yunan rivers fall away from its sides in different directions.

Buses stop at Sarchu Serai for the night where bed is a piece of lumpy ground in a tent made from army-surplus parachutes. There are several more expend f camps dotted along the road, one or two of which charge up to an exhorbitant Rs800 per person including food. HPTDC’s Tent Camp serves steaming plates ot rice, dhal and veg, as do a handful of similarly priced dhabas nearby.

Having made its way past the bleak military installations and wayside settlements above Manali, the road crosses the Beas to begin its long ascent of the ROHTANG PASS (3978m). Buses pull in for breakfast 17km before the pass at a row of makeshift dhabas at Marhi (3360m). A small Tibetan temple dedicated to Palden Lhamo reached via a flight of steps, crowns the top of a bluff from where you view a wonderful panorama of the upper Beas Valley. Though not all that high by Himalayan standards, Rohtang itself, a U-shaped defile between two 5000-metre peaks, is one of the most treacherous passes in the region. Each year Gaddis and mountaineers are caught unawares by sudden weather changes; hence the vultures wheeling overhead, and Rohtang’s name, which literally means “piles of dead bodies". An igloo-shaped brick building, actually a small Hindu temple, marks the source of the river Beas. From the pass a breathtaking vista of the dusty dark-brown mountains of Lahaul can be seen to the north.

The descent from Rohtang to the floor of the Chandra Valley affords tantalizing glimpses of the shining White Sail massif (6446m) in the east. KOK-SAR, where the road finally reaches the river, is little more than a scruffy collection of chai stalls with a checkpoint where you have to enter passport details in a ledger one of many such stops on the road to Leh.

The next few hours are among the most memorable on the entire trip. Bus seats on the left are besc, as the road runs across the northern slopes of the valley through the first Buddhist settlements, hemmed in by towering peaks and hanging glaciers. A sharp descent around the base of the sacred Rangcha mountain brings you to the Chandra-Bhaga confluence at Tandi, after which the road crosses the river on a Bailey bridge and forks, west to Udaipur and north along the Bhaga Valley to Keylong.

Since it opened to foreign tourists in 1989, the famous Manali-Leh highway has deservedly replaced the old Srinagar Kargil route as the most popular approach to Ladakh. In summer, a stream of clapped-out government buses, private minibuses and Enfield motorcycles set off from the Kullu Valley to travel along the second-highest road in the world, which reaches a dizzying altitude of 5328m. Its surface varies wildly, from fairly smooth asphalt through potholes of differing depths, to dirt tracks sliced by glacial streams, traversing a starkly beautiful lunar wilderness peopled only by nomadic shepherds, tar-covered road coolies, and the gloomy soldiers that man the isolated military checkpoints.

Depending on road conditions, the 485-kilometre journey can take anything from twenty-six to thirty hours. Bus drivers cover more distance on the first day than the second, stopping for a short and chilly night in one of the overpriced tent camps along the route. These, however, are few and far between after September 15. when the highway officially closes, In practice, all this means is that the Indian government won’t airlift you out if you get trapped in snow; some companies run regardless. For more details on transport between Manali and Leh

There are a number of accommodation options in Tabo. The friendly, atmospheric Millennium Monastery Guest House. Out side the main monastery gates has simple rooms, with and without en suite, as well as dorm accommodation (Rs50). At the nearby Cafe Kimzam-Top, the affable Pema dishes up both Tibetan and Indian food, and also runs a small guesthouse and campsite off the main road. For a bit more comfort, try the Himalayan Ajanta. next to the State Bank near the new temple gates, and the PWD Rest House. with large comfortable rooms and attached bathrooms. Three buses a day travel to Kaza. one of which, departing early, travels all the way to Manali, a distance of 242km. Another bus passes through early in the morning to Rekong Peo in Kmnaur (via Sumdo) from where you can continue to Shima, 374km away.

One of the main reasons to brave the rough roads of Spiti is to get to Tabo Gompa, 43km east of Kaza. The mud and timber boxes that nestle on he steep north bank of the Spiti may look drab, but the multi-hued murals and stucco sculpture they contain are some of the world’s richest and most important ancient Buddhist art treasures: the link between the cave paintings of Ajanta, and the more exuberant Tantric art that flourished in Tibet five centuries or so later. ArcorJing to an inscription in its main assembly hall, the monastery was established in 996 AD, when Rinchen Zangpo, an emissary of King Yeshe Od of Guge, was dissenunanng dharma across the northwestern Himalayas. In addition to the 158 Sanskrit Buddhist texts he personally transcribed, die “Great Translator” brought with him a retinue of Kashmiri artisans to decorate the temples. The only surviving examples of their exceptional work are here at Tabo, at Alcbi in Ladakh, and Toling and Tsaparang gompas in Chinese-occupied western Tibet.

Enclosed within a mud-brick wall, Tabo’s Chogskhar, or “sacred aickre", contains eight temples and twenty-four chortens (stupas).The largest and oldest structure in the group, the Sug La-khang, stands opposite the main entrance. Erected at the end of the tenth century, the “Hall of the Enlightened Gols” was conceived in the form of a three-dimensional mandala, whose structure aid elaborately decorated interior functions as a mystical model of the universe complete with deities. There are three distinct bands of detail - the lower level piinnngs depict episodes in the life of the Buddha and his previous incarnations; akwe are stucco gods and goddesses; and the top of the hall is covered with meditating Buddhas and bodhisattvas. The giant four-armed figure in front of the altar, lit by butter lamps, is Vairocana, a manifestation of the primordial Buddha.

The other temples date from the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. Their contents illustrate the development of Buddhist iconography from its early Indian origins to the Chinese-influenced opulence of medieval Tibetan Tantricism that still, in a more lurid form, predominates in modern gompas. The new gompa, inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in 1983, houses thirty or so lams and a handful of chomos (nuns), some of whom receive training in traditional painting techniques under a geshe, or teacher from eastern Tibet.

Midway between Kaza and Tabo, near the meeting of the Pin and Spiti rivers, a rough road veers off to the east for 12km to the village of DHANKAR (3890m) or “a place in the mountains unreachable for strangers” and houses another monastery associated with the Great Translator, Rinchen Zangpo. Set against a lunar landscape of crumbling cliffs, the Lha Opa Gompa dates back to the twelfth century. The main interest, however, lies in the small chapel on the uppermost peak behind the village of Dhankar- the Lhakang Gompa -with its brilliant murals depicting the life of the Buddha. Probably painted in the seventeenth century, the dominant bright red pigment has survived especially well. Although some of. the work has been vandalized, the scenes depicting the Buddha’s birth in the heavenly realm, his re-birth and life in Kapilavastu and his rejection of worldly ways are spectacular. The gompa also affords superb views down to the confluence of the main Spiti river and the Pin tributary which flows down from the snowfields of the massive Pin Parvati pass. Keen walkers may like to check out the lake a couple of kilometres above the village.

Dhankar is not on a bus route so you will have to arrange your own transport or walk from the main road.

KIBBER (4205m) is reputedly the highest settlement with a motorable road and electricity in the world. Jeep tracks, satellite dishes and the odd tin-roofed government building aside, its smattering of 3 hundred or so old Spitian houses is truly picturesque. Surrounded in summer by lush green barley fields, Kibber also stands at the head of a trail that picks its way north across the mountains, via the high Parang La pass (5578m) to Ladakh. Before the construction of roads into the Spiti Valley, locals used to lead ponies and yaks this way to trade in Leh bazaar. These days only the old folks in the village know the path, which is used by shepherds as a route to the pastures above. Some Manali-based trekking companies offer a seventeen-day trek from here to the lake of Tso Moriri in Ladakh. Shorter routes around Kibber explore the delightful villages in the area and the incredible scenery, and eventually link up with Kaza. A pathway or kora leads all the way round the village to a tiny walled enclosure draped in colourful fluttering prayer flags. In 1983 Lama Serkang Rinpoche (from Tabo gompa) passed away in Kibber and was cremated here. A water source erupted from the rocks at that moment and is still running. Pilgrims come from all over Spiti to drink from this sacred spring and a well-tended garden inside the enclosure defies the surrounding barren land.

Buses run from Kaza, Jeeps are available for hire, or you can walk the 16km. Trails lead down from Kibber to Ki loosely following die road and racing vehicles down is a popular sport. Four guesthouses in Kibber cater to the increasing numbers of tourists and trekkers passing through: the Norling (01906/26242) and the Rainbow (01906/26234), at the entrance to the village, both have terraces, the Resang (01906/26231) and Sargong (01906/26222) are a little further in.

Set against a backdrop of snow-flecked mountains and ochre and brown cliffs, Ki Gompa, whose white buildings stick to the steep sides of a windswept conical hillock, is a picture-book example of Tibetan architecture, and one of Himachal’s most exotic spectacles. Founded in the sixteenth century, Ki is the largest monastery in the Spiti Valley, supporting a thriving community of lamas whose Rinpoche, Lo Chien Tulk from Nako village in Kinnaur, is said to be the current incarnation of the “Great Translator” Rinchen Zangpo. His glass-fronted quarters crown the top of the complex, reached via crumbling stone steps that wind between the lamas’ houses below. A labyrinth of dark passages and wooden staircases connect the prayer and assembly halls, home to collections of old thangkas, weapons, musical instruments, manuscripts, and devotional images (no photography). During the new moon towards late June or early July. Ki plays host to a large festival celebrating the “burning of the demon” when chaam dances are followed by a procession that winds its way down to che ritual ground below” the monastery where a large butcer sculpture is set on fire. Pilgrims prostrate themselves on the ground for the procession of lamas to walk over them.

Ki lies 12km northwest of Kaza on the road to Kibber. Ki Gompa is a steep lkm walk up from the road but some buses go to the monastery gate.To appreciate the full effect of its dramatic southern aspect, it’s best to walk the last section anyway, or better still walk all the way along a mere 8.5km along trails. Accommodation in Ki is scant - Hole! Gompa Heart only operates as a restaurant, but there are several guesthouses in Kibber just 4km beyond Ki Gompa.