Kaza Part 2

13 August

The confirmation came in the morning from the manager of the guest house. " Yes, rats" he said with an amused grin "come in when gets cold", then, as if suddenly remembering that we were non-indian lightweights, his grin gave way to a look of concern and he added "too much?" " no.... not at all" I said, not wanting to look like a wimp, but wondering where you drew the line between "too much" rats scrabbling over your head and an acceptable level of rats scrabbling over your head. We were now a little trapped in in-activity. There was no word of our trekking team yet, so we had nothing with us but the clothes we were in, and we tried not to think about the smell that they were generating, otherwise we would have been too embarrassed to leave the room.
We drifted gently between the guest house and the village centre, had coffees, talked to a number of other travellers and the locals who now started to seem very familiar. The heavy rains over the last week had caused various problems with the roads - snow on the passes, and landslides meant that no traffic was getting through Rhotang, the junction where the road from Kasa splits into the road north up to Leh in Ladakh and south to Manali. Most travellers were heading in one of these two directions, and were now stuck in Kasa. The information about the roads though was very patchy and sometimes conflicting, relying only on phonecalls coming from people that were trying to get past the blockages. We re-looked at the options in front of us. We knew that there was considerable expense in having purchased supplies, and in getting the trekking team, particularly the pack of mules, up to Kibber, and there would be further expenses in getting them back to Manali. These would certainly be at our cost. I had a few conversations with Inder and by phone with Ravi (Inder's brother and the owner of the agency) on whether there were some alternative treks that we could do that involved less altitude (despite doctor's doubts, Jacqui and I were now sure that Tamsin's illness had been her own unique manifestation of a mild altitude sickness), so that we could still make use of the trekking team and supplies. But you cannot get far in the Spiti valley without facing high altitude passes, and now we didn't want to take any risks on Tamsin's health or of starting another trek from which we would have to turn back from, at even further expense. We decided to cut our losses, absorb whatever costs had already been committed and get a bus up to Leh. So we joined the other stranded travellers, eagerly awaiting news on the roads. Any new information passed from person to person - "Rohtang pass is blocked from snow, but expected to be clear by tomorrow".... "there is a landslide blocking the Kasa to Rohtang road just west of Chatru - not expected to be cleared for 7 days"..."I'd heard it would be clear in 2 days" ..... "the buses say they don't expect to pass for next 15 days".....and so on. This was the topic of Kasa - on the guest-house terrace, in the cafes, in the town centre square.We had a priviliged connection - probably the most informed of all was Lote, the owner of the main trekking agency in Kasa, who had fallen in love with Fia and Tamsin and them with him. His agency office was on a small square, which acted as the town centre, and we had also become familiar with the others based on this square: Amit, who ran the internet cafe next door to Lote, and Bapu, the shop next door. We were able to sit in the german bakery having a coffee without worrying, while the girls would float around this small square, talking to Lote in his agency, or playing a game outside. They were revelling in having a little autonomy, and knowing that this wouldn't come often over the next year, we were too.

In the evening we happened to be back in our room at the guest house when there was a knock at the door. It was Dalma, the lady from the hospital, with her two sons, Tenzin (7) and Thinlay (9). We welcomed them in, and they came and sat on the bed. We felt a little uncomfortable about hosting guests in our bedroom, and without a drinks cupboard to serve them a gin and tonic, but we shared out an orange juice that we had, and some biscuits that she brought, took endless photos and managed to have a very warm and friendly conversation, even-though Thinlay, with the best English of them all, had only a few key words. They must have enjoyed it, as they left informing us that they would come back again tomorrow. It wasn't the conventional flow for neighbourly invitations that we were used to, but we were delighted, as we enjoyed being in their company and it felt a privilege to get to know a family so culturally remote from ours. Dalma had a friendly, smiling face, that, as we found with many Spiti women, radiated an aura of warmth and calmness.

14 August

Lakpa and Karam arrived back in Kasa, with all the equipment and supplies, and with our rucksacks. Clean clothes, Kindles, sandals, toothbrushes, torches.....it felt like Christmas. The girls wanted to do a televised interview with Lakpa. They prepared some questions, then I invited him down to our room, where they interrogated him, Jeremy Paxman style, and I followed with the video camera. The focus was his mountaineering exploits, though his life was interesting in many other ways. Lakpa was married at a relatively young age to (by all accounts) an eccentric English woman, Linda, whom he met on one of his treks. He lived in England for some time, which explains his incongruous northern england accent, doing various jobs from farming to garden landscaping. They now live separate lives though remain married, and Linda lives in Kathmandu in a large house together with an unbelievable menagerie of animals (we are dying to meet her, if we get the chance when we go there), while Lakpa married his second wife with whom he had a child. The girls asked about the different mountains he had climbed, what a mounataineering expedition involved and whether he was ever frightened.

We caught up with some maths and french school work but otherwise, we were still floating in our state of suspension while awaiting news of the roads up to Leh. The situation was not looking positive, and the possibility of us being stuck in Kasa for up to 2 weeks was starting to become a real risk. By late afternoon, Jacqui had I had taken the decision that we would cut the loop through Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir out of our trip and head straight for Dharamsala before starting to head down south to Amritsar and then Rajasthan. This was a difficult decision because our hearts had been set on seeing Leh, but the journey there was long and even when the current roads were clear, left us with much more risk of getting stuck, and as our time in India was passing by before our eyes, we were starting to worry about spending too much time up in the north and not having enough for the rest. As a small financial bonus of the decision, we could join up with Inder, Lakpa and Karam in a shared jeep to Manali, which we had already paid for as part of our trek.

Our Spiti friends, Dalma, Thinlay and Tenzin came to visit us in the afternoon, and we settled down again around the bed with orange juice and bisuits. We had been talking for 20 minutes when Dalma asked us if her husband could join. "Where is he?" Jacqui asked, wondering if we had mis-understood. "Outside" she replied - and we raced to the door, found Dorje waiting patiently, and hurriedly ushered him in. He was disarmingly humble and polite but yet friendly and confident, and his English vocabularly, ever-so slightly wider than Thinlay's, gave a little boost to our conversational depth. Time came for them to leave, and imitating the customs that We had learnt from our guests, we boldy invited ourselves to their house for the following day.

Meanwhile, some information had flowed through which generated some optimism that the road to Manali could be clear by the following day, and Inder informed us that we would all leave between 6 and 8 in the morning. It was unfortunate as we had just arranged to meet our Spiti friends, but we were also glad to have some hope of moving, and we packed our bags in the evening to be ready.

Out and about in Kaza downtown!

15 August

I was up at 6:00, but there was no sign of life out of the room where Inder, Lakpa and Karam were sleeping, so I let Jacqui, Fia and Tamsin sleep on. Around 9:00, Inder was up, and there were vague plans of leaving for Manali in the jeep at around 10:00 - we were ready to go, but that was exactly the time that we were expecting Thinlay to come and pick us up to show us the way to their house in New Kasa. When the boys arrived, we went with them, leaving our bags completely packed and ready, and telling Inder to call us if everyone was ready to leave. The call never came though, as further news came through in the morning that the road had not cleared, and was not likely to for a few days more at least. A 4 wheel drive vehicle had indeed arrived in Kasa succesfully from Manali the previous evening which had raised hopes, but the jeep had had great difficulties crossing some areas where there had been landslides, and in addition, further rainfall during the night had caused additional blockages.

We were welcomed by Dorje into the Chhering family residence - a relatively comfortable 4 room single floored concrete house with 2 square rooms either side of a corridor. There were two bedooms, a kitchen and a living area - all immaculately kept, and the four of them lived together with a brother, his wife and their child. On arrival, we we were ushered into the lounge, draped with silk scarves (a Buddhist sign of hospitality and respect that we saw many times subsequently), sat on the cushions against the wall, and given the remote control for the television. We would have been very happy to turn the television off, but not knowing whether the presentation of the remote control to us was a 20'th century sign of respect for guests, and also under great pressure from our children, we played along and chose a Bollywood classic. Dalma was out at work, so we were entertained by the boys and Dorje, and a cute little cousin of about 2 years old. Dorje brought in chai and biscuits and then followed it up with Tibetan chai - a mixture of hot water, butter and salt. We made a respectable effort, but none of us managed to finish our cups!
Dorje was an artist - painting Thangkas (the buddhist silk paintings that hang in many monasteries), and monastery murals, as well as some canvasses. We saw many of these kinds of art in the monasteries, and it always seemed like an art-form lost in history, so it was fascinating to learn that it was a vocation alive in the present. We encouraged Dorje to talk about his work and he brought out various thangkas to show to us - some half done, to illustrate the steps that he went through.There were only 3 or 4 such artists in the Spiti valley - they worked entirely to commissions by the monasteries (who survived mostly on donations), and only during the winter. One thangka could take the whole winter. All the paintings depict Buddhist sriptures in assiduous detail, mostly with established imagery. Murals may be worked on by more than one artist. The house itself was built by a brother of Dalma's, but both he and his wife died in the process when one of the walls collapsed on them. we showed our sympathy as Dorje explained this to us, and sub-consciously shuffled slightly away from the wall which we were sitting against. We left - Fia and Tamsin sacrificing one of the little cuddly key rings that they had attached to their rucksacks, to be able to give something to Tenzin and Thinlay who were absolutely delighted with their gifts, and who had previously presented Raki (not sure of spelling) - whereby bracelets are placed on the arms of girls as a loyal sign of brotherhood.

Our rucksacks were un-packed again when we heard the news about the roads - we had mixed feelings as we felt a little trapped and were eager to move on, but Kaza was growing on us with familiarity and Fia and Tamsin in particular felt completely at home. As Jacqui and I were working on uploading the blog in the internet cafe, I popped next doors to check on the girls who were in with Lote. I saw both Fia and a middle-aged gentleman both standing on one leg, with one arm in the air and their heads pointing down to the ground, with Tamsin in front of them. They had got Rod, a semi-retired Australian teacher, playing "Simon says".

Electricity was almost non-existant in Kaza.

16 August

With the roads going west out of Kasa blocked and with no certitude as to when they would be cleared, we had been considering heading east, and taking the long circular route which curves back south westwards towards Shimla, from where we could get to Dharamsala. It would be a long route, but it was also an adventure in itself - the road was notoriously difficult, dangerous and subject to problems (though ironically was the only road still unblocked at the moment) and the area was only recently opened up to foriegn visitors, and even now requires a special permit owing to the political sensitivity of its proximity to the Tibetan border.

We knew that it would take us more than a week, with stops at villages on the way to avoid 10 hour and more bus journeys. We were also interested in the idea of staying at Kungri monastery - a possible first stopping point on this route - after having had discussions with a French buddhist that we had met in Kasa, and who was staying there, studying the history of Buddhism. Inder was also starting to think that this route represented their only feasible way back to Manali, so in any case, we decided we should apply for our "in-line" permits to allow us the option of this route. The application for our permit took me most of the day - finding the stationery store where you can buy the forms to fill out for the application, finding the Assistant District Commisioners Office to make the application, having to return for a signature from each of the member's of the family, deposing the application at the office, then a later trip to pick up the completed pemits - but by 5:00 I had 4 in-line permits in my hand.
On each route to and from the ADC office, I passed a large concreted recreational area, and stopped to watch a few overs of a hotly contested game of cricket. The game was being played with a tennis ball and some self-supported wickets, and an enthusiastic commentator with a loudspeaker animated the gathering, completely in Hindi except the scores. Despite the rudimentary infrastructure and equipment, the level was truly impressive, with the tennis ball being launched at an immense speed, and I found out in discussion with some of the supporters that it was an official 1 day knock-out tournament between villages. The subject of the test-match innevitably came up (India, from their nbr 1 world ranking, were being humiliated by England at the time) and I didn't linger too long in case they proposed me to bat as a representative outlet for their revenge. Jacqui and the girls spent the morning in a French lesson, and we all met for lunch at our favourite little Tibetan restaurant for momo's (little steamed pastry parcels of potato, cheese or mutton) dipped into soy or chilli sauce.

By the evening 2 other pieces of news had reached us - 1) Inder had changed his mind about taking the longer route to Manali - another closed mountain pass meant that it was even longer than he had thought and 2) the Ladarcha festival was starting in Kasa. This confirmed our plans - we would wait one more day to see some of the festival, then leave Kasa the following day heading east, stopping initialy at Kungri monastery, and then onwards by bus on the long route towards Dharamsala, finding the appropriate places to stop en route.
Lote, from the travel agency, had previously invited us to dinner with him, so we headed off with him and Rod the Australian, at around 7:00 in his jeep. We had understood we were heading for his house, but in fact he took us to a hotel out of Kasa (which we later found out was his) and had a fabulous evening of excellent, seemingly endless, food - rice, dahl, chicken marsala, muttar paneer (curried and cheese and local peas), curried vegetables and chapatis ad infinitum - with very enjoyable and interesting company, and all lubricated by numerous bottles of Kingfisher beer. Rod was a character, and we found that his talent at entertaining Fia and Tamsin at their level was matched by his talent at entertaining us with the amazing stories of his life, told always with a comically laid-back australian tone. At 50 something (can't remember exactly what), he now spends some of his time doing supply teaching in the countryside of australia and his summer on challenging Himalayan treks with only his tent for company. Lote hosted us like royal visitors - he couldn't do enough for us, and ended the night offering us a room in his plush hotel. The girls were begging us to, but as we had nothing with us, we decided to head back.

17 August

This was our last day in Kasa before an extended period on the move, focused us, and we intensively worked on some school work and the blog. Kaza was buzzing though - there were many more street sellers in the main street, that came in from neighbouring areas, and the street was now busy way beyond the bus station where the village normally ended. People were everywhere, and somehow we could tell they were not from Kasa - they found us novel and stared at us even more than the locals would. The Kasa locals crowded around sellers that were bringing something new to them - a shoe seller and a seller of plastic domestic items, washing bowls, jugs etc were getting particular attention.
In between our "work" we wondered down the street and ended up sitting in the warehouse-like concrete buldings of the bus station where an animated game of bingo was in progress. We stepped up, bought some cards and joined in. We needed some special attention from the organisers to fully understand the rules, but the calls were in english - "two fat ladies, eighty-eight", "unlucky for some, number 13", and the occasonal "big shake", and in no time at all we were there yelling our remaining numbers as fervently as the rest, willing the appropriate balls to be selected from the bag. We won nothing, but felt, as everyone does, that we were close, and had a lot of fun.
Our last lunch was in our favourite (at least Jacqui and my favourite) Hindi restaurant - there are only ever two options on offer: a thali (with Dahl, vegetables, rice and chapatis), and the other samosa with channa (curried chickpeas) doused in a chilli sauce and curd. Both were asbolutely delicious (even Tamsin loved the thali), and the chaotic indian atmosphere was special with all sorts of people eating at the little tables, and a charismatic server rushing around shouting orders through to the kitchen, slamming plates onto the tables, and plonking ever more chapatis onto your table. No matter how much we ate at this restaurant, we never payed more than 3 euros, with a large part being the bottles of mineral water.
In the evening we went to the school where we had heard the Ladarcha festivities would be taking place. There was a large playing field with a fixed concrete stage at one end, in front of which had been assembled rows of chairs. We had clearly arrived early as the seats were completely empty and having chatted away to a couple of Italians, it was not long before we were ushered into seats, before we sat through a painfully long series of what seemed like congratulatary speeches of which we understood absolutely nothing. Finally, after everyone had been praised, thanked or informed, the entertainments began: a haunting flutist sitting cross legged in the middle of the stage, a group of traditional dancers and then a number of different children groups, with colourful traditional costumes abounding throughout. Our naivety was clear - we had been more or less alone to listen to the long droning speeches, but by the time the more interesting entertainments started, the place was heaving - the seats were all taken, the floor in front of us packed with seated ladies, and the sides of the stadium crowded. Unfortunately, we had not eaten before coming (we were expecting something much less formal, a bit more rock-concert-like, with stalls to eat food, and music and entertainments in the background) and apart from a little sip of Mountain Dew when they felt guilty handing out to the officials just in front of us - there had been nothing - so we made our subtle exit, and headed to the Mahabuddha restaurant. Lakpa and Karim were there and Inder joined us shortly afterwards.

Kaza (part 1)

Kaza
https://picasaweb.google.com/116253494913081133936/KazaAlbum?authkey=Gv1sRgCPv6hsjywY7qQw#5656063801185291170

Day 1
8 August

We sheepishy handed over an enormous pile of unpleasant laundry from our last week o sweat drenched trekking, and headed off to find somewhere for breakfast.
Kaza is used to foreign travellers, with a number of guest houses and with restaurants that served cornflakes and muesli for breakfast and pasta and pizza as well as indian, chinese, and israeli food, but it is smaller, much more remote and primitive than Manali. We had running water in our hotel, (which we think came from a tank of rainwater on the roof), but all the restaurants and houses had a tub of water that they kept filled by carrying cans of water from a hand-pumped well in the centre of town. If you wanted to wash your hands in a restaurant, the waiter would stand next to you with a jug of water, pouring over the balcony as you soaped and rinsed. If you asked for the toilet - they would look confused and signal vaguely outside the restaurant - toilets were rare in Kaza, you were expected to find somewhere in the rubbish strewn wasteland behind the houses. Electricity was only occasional and residents had learnt to live with it using torches and candles. Traveller oriented menus were often not backed up by supplies and we learnt to check what was available before spending too long deciding. Fruit was particularly scarce the whole time we were there, despite tantalisingly tempting mango and kiwi lassies offered on the menus.
The town is split in two by a wide stone laden river bed - completely dry except for a tiny apologetic stream of water that weaves its way betwen the heaps of rubbish and scavenging dogs, on its way to the churning Spiti river, leaving one one side the old town of Kasa, with its ancient whitewashed houses along the winding main bazaar street, and on the other, the new town, with its concrete residential areas and corrugated steel roofs, hospital, petrol pump station and local government departments.
Dreary as it was in the rainy weather that welcomed us, if you looked up (from the already high 3640m altitude) it was surrounded by the majestic Himalayas on all sides, and along with the rest of the region had the unique Spiti character - so different from any pre-conceptions of India that it could be a different country. The Spitians (if that is what they are called?) have their own language and customs. Buddhists represent less than 1% of the Indian population, but here, everyone is a Buddhist, and there is a laid-back sense of calmness that (rightly or wrongly) we associated with this. Colourful Buddhist prayer flags can be seen in all directions and a brightly painted Buddhist temple is positioned on the hill, supervising both new and old Kaza. In the 9'th or 10'th centuries Spiti was a part of the Tibetan kingdom, and in everything we saw and did, we somehow felt closer to Tibet than we did India - though this was Spiti and what we were seeing was not Tibetan but a unique culture evolved over centuries of remoteness.
We had difficulties again in getting cold millk to go with Fia's cornflakes - it was available but it seems that the word "cold" hit a black spot in our waiter's English vocabulary, no matter how many different ways we tried to accent it. Eventually a third party was pulled in for the translation and there was relief and smiles all round.
We took a wander around Old Kaza after breakfast, getting a feel for the place and also to have some guest house comparisons and alternatives to the larger room that the Zanchuk had offered us to move into. All were similarly cheap and basic, though clean and adequate. When we finally got to see our new larger room in the Zanchuk, and successfully fought over the price - we decided to stay there. It was big enough for the mattress on the floor, had the possibility of hot water (if the electricity supply allowed it), even if our " shower was a bucket-and-jug "Indian shower". There was a terrace on the roof of the guest house which we loved - it had great views and was a bit of a meeting spot for all the travellers staying there,
Our afternoon was spent in leisurely exploration. We found out that internet connections were limited and much more expensive at 80 rupees per hour - 1,33 euros which doesn't sound much but started to add up with our different e-mail, Twitter and blog activities. Both of the two internet cafes in Kasa were satellite connections only, which are much slower and when Jacqui tried to upload the first photo onto the blog page - she brought the whole internet cafe to a standstill - the satellite was shuddering in space with the weight of this 3MB photo, and several other travellers were left watching frozen screens while their 80 rupees ticked away. We spent an evening learning how to reduce the size of our photos.
Our phone SIM cards that we purchased in Delhi were no longer working - Vodaphone had no network in the Spiti valley, but BNSL, the state national network did - so I purchased yet another sim card, along with the 2 hour long procedure of form- filling, passport copies, letter from our guest house etc - just for Spiti.


9 August
The sun was shining. When it rained in the Spiti valley, it was cold enough to have to wear long sleeves, but when the sun shined, it radiated a blissful dry heat - unlike the humidity we had suffered on the plains. Everything in Kasa immediately looked more pleasant and the hemisphere of deep blue sky that encapsulated us formed a beautifully contrasting background to the grey rocky scree-coated mountains and did wonders for our spirits. At least for Jacqui and myself - the girls were less impressed and in any case had been told that today was our big "back to school" day, so their spirits were in need of something more than a blue sky.
We started in the morning with a maths lesson at the Dragon restaurant, sitting on a sunny terrace while we were waiting for our breakfast. It seemed a good idea as breakfast would typically take a long time coming, but hunger together with distractions of meeting Zohar, an interesting Israeli zoo-keeper and two charming canadian girls (all of whom we got to know over the following week) proved to be a poor medium for mathematical concentration and after a stressful conflict and a 7 year old tantrum, we decided not to repeat the experiment.
Later, tempers were calmed, family relationships repaired and we were able to make a productive school day.
By late afternoon. we headed off for a walk up to the monastery - a fairly recent one, but beautiful and impressive - and then onwards up a path climbing the valley wall to an old, and now disused, monastery. Buddhists seem to have an irrepressible urge to climb every peak in sight, and if they didn't build a monastery on the top, would at the least honour it with a string of colourful flapping prayer flags. We had little information about the old monastery, but the views of Kaza, nestled on the valley side of the Spiti river were amazing.

We took the plunge and called to confirm our 9 day trek to Tso-Moriri lake. It would be a challenging trek but we felt that the girls had proved they were up to it (staying with our final conclusion that Tamsin's illness on the last trek was stomach related rather than altitude). We had heard further inspiring information about this trek from an agent in Kasa, Lote, with whom we had got into conversation (and whom later we came to know much better) and as an additional bonus, the trek would take a large chunk out of our journey towards Leh in Ladakh, where we were heading afterwards, cutting out some of the painfully long bus journey. Mules, donkeys, a cook and helpers had been pre-prepared in Manali awaiting our confirmation - we were to leave in two days.


10 August
We set off early in the morning to catch the 7:30 Tabo bus for a day-trip visit to the mythical looking Dhankar monastery, about 1 hour away along the Spiti valley. We were at the bus station by 7:00 the bus was waiting there, already fairly full, but it seemed you had to queue at the ticket desk before getting on. Jacqui joined the queue and was still in it at 7:35 while I was hovering near the bus, ready to get everyone on if it started to leave. Finally Jacqui's turn came, and rather than the ticket that she thought she was queing for, she was given a little slip of paper on which the clerk had scribbled seat numbers. The ticket was to be bought on the bus, and our piece of scrap paper was only a reservation - but it was worth doing, as we were able to claim our seats while others were standing.
We were at the back, and the ride was nothing short of a roller-coaster. The bus careered at great speed over very pot holed roads and tracks, and at each bump, the back of the bus leapt, throwing us all up from our seats with bone shaking ferocity. I felt like it was going to jar my back, the girls giggled uncontrollably with delight, and Jacqui let out involuntary, but very loud yelps, causing worried and curious faces to turn round to see what had happened. The journey went quickly, and we were deposited at the beginning of a small track that led steeply up the side of the valley.

After a short walk up the track, the first signs of the monastery came into view, peering down at us like an eagle from its perch high up on the craggy edge of the mountain, clinging so spectacularly to its rocky escarpment that it looked like a distant fabled giant's castle. We looked at our path that wound its way ahead of us then buried itself in the base of the vertical cliff, and wondered how we were expected to scale it, but as we gradually approached, the route opened up to us between the crags and up the rock face like a secret passage and we finally arrived at the village of Dhankar, and on upwards to the monastery.
The peaceful village is a smattering of rural houses implanted in a large basin on the mountainside. We stopped for a drink after our tiring climb, at a small guest house, above the village and just before the monastery. Beating us there was a local that we had seen on the same bus as us and we started to make small talk. He was a farmer in the village - some crops (basically peas) and one or two animals - mostly for his own family, but some also for sale. Farmwork in the village in general, being primarily based on peas, was highly seasonal - for many months of the year there is nothing to be done, and in the harsh winter the village becomes more isolated, often completely cut off when the road is unpassable from snow, and they survive on a diet of stored rice and lentils.
At the highest point (3870m) are the remains of a fort, which as far as I can tell dates back to the times of the Nono - a relation of the king of Ladakh to whom they depended in around the 10'th century) who's descendants administered local rule of this remote region, switching allegiances from Ladakh to Kullu, and then finally to the British, according to the prevailing power.
The crumbling monastery is an amazing 1200 years old, and having looked up for the last hour at its precarious position on the edge of a precipice, we were reminded of its age once we were inside by a reassuring sign saying in big no-holds-barred letters "MONASTERY IN IMMINENT DANGER OF COLLAPSE", and a plea for donations to help. We happily gave our donation, but in the solemn awareness that the ability of this legacy monument to cling on to its rocky home for the duration of our visit depended not on the scale of our donations, but on those of our predecessors, and hoping that they too had given generously. Budhism started in India in the 6'th century, but it was Rinchen Zangpo, a Western Tibetan translator of Sanskrit, who played the key role in invigorating Gelugpa Buddhism in Spiti (and also Tibet), and was the founder of Dhankar monastery as well as others.
The operational life of the monastery having now migrated to a more recent, much larger monastery built lower down in the village, the old monastery is inhabited by only 2 monks, who eat and sleep there, clean and maintain, and practice puja (prayer) as well as hosting visitors such as ourselves. One of them, Changchoopl, enthusiastically showed us around, unlocking each door and turning on dim lights as we went. We padded around in our socks in virtual silence, crouching under beams to enter dark rooms, with the distinctive monastery smell intermingled with incense, the wall full or dusty rolled-up scrolls of scriptures that were hauled over the treacherous Himalayas by fleeing Tibetans, ancient Thangkas (Buddhist silk paintings), fading murals, statues and painted face masks that were traditionally worn by the monks for dancing at festival time. We were in another era and another world.
When we climbed up the wooden ladder up onto the roof, the views were breathtaking, with the confluence of the blue and white-water Pin and Spiti rivers and their respective valleys snaking away between the stark, barren dusty mountains, and the backdrop of the ever-humbling peaks of the Himalayas.
As our limited conversations with Changchoopl, the monk, diverged from the subject of the monastery, he discovered that we lived in France, and told us that his teacher lived in a monastery in France.
"Do you know where?" we asked.
"In Cergy-Pontoise" he told us, 20 minutes from our home, and where I have worked at 3M for 9 years. We had no idea there was a buddhist monastery there, but we vowed to look him up when we were back.

We wondered back down to the village and had a simple lunch at the new monastery before taking the 10km track down to the main road. We were down by 3:00 in the afternoon - the bus back to Kasa was due past this spot only at 4:30, but we were hoping that we would be able to get a lift from another vehicle in the meantime. However, hardly any vehicles passed, and those that did looked distinctly local and waved enthusastically at us, sometimes stopping, but none were able to give us a lift.
It was scorching hot and we huddled in a small patch of shade under the wall of the only house on the road, and played clapping games. The ladies from the house, after they had arrived back from the fields loaded with their heavy bundles of grass, disappeared inside then reappeared with a tray of chai for us all - which we gratefully sipped while we all made a form of simple conversation without mutual vocabulary, and looked at each other and smiled.
The bus arrived, and together with an Israeli couple who had descended from the monastery to join us, we all climbed on. They were a lovely couple, and we crossed their paths several times subsequently in different towns. Fia and Tamsin spent the bus journey chatting particularly to the girl, enchanted with her very long hair and friendly smile, and who had a gift of animating and charming them both.

When we were back in Kaza, Inder, our guide for the trek had arrived with his helpers and had been trying to contact me, though there had been no phone network in Dhankar. They were leaving for Kibber, the starting village, that evening, but we were not ready, so said we would join them early in the morning, and spent the evening buying our last provisions, ready for an early start.


11 August
We had over-ambitiously left our packing for the morning, and as a result were late for our jeep arranged at 8:00. It was a 45 minute climb up to Kibber, stopping on the way to briefly see the magnificently picturesque sight of the 13'th century Ki monastery, the largest in Spiti, mounted on a rocky pedestal, encircled by the white-washed houses of Ki village tiered down the sides around it.
We needn't have worried about the time, as when we arrived, the mules and their handler were still on their way from Manali. They probably had more of an excuse to be late than us - the trip from Manali which had taken us 4 days of trekking and a 5 hour bus journey would be completed by them in 2 long days of walking.
Looking around us on arrival, we immediately fell in love with Kibber. This small village sits at more than 4200m of altitude in a scenic wide open basin, dotted with rural white-washed houses, and lined by steep tracks along which trudged the villagers and their donkeys, both already laden with their loads of grass-bundles brought back from the fields. In the warm sunshine, and under the deep blue sky, we stepped out of the jeep into an aura of total serenity.

We took our bags to the open terrace of a guest house, where the floor was covered by the equipment and supplies for our trek, and met Lakpa, our cook, and Karam, the helper. We had heard from Ravi at the agency, that Lakpa was a mountaineering legend with a lot of experience, and had been looking forward to meeting him. A Nepalese, Lakpa was short and wirey, notably fit and strong, and with a face that already spoke the stories that we would later hear, about his different adventures climbing Everest and other legendary peaks in the company of some eminent mountaineering names. He was in India for work while the trekking in Nepal was in the off-season, and was serving as a cook on this trip, though had fulfilled many roles in his lifetime of mountain work. Karam, also Nepalese, was young and much less experienced, but seemed pleasant, enthusiastic and hard working.
We had time, and ordered some eggs, toast and coffee for breakfast, which we ate stting on the terrace, soaking up the peaceful mountain atmosphere around us and watching for the appearance of our pack of mules around the ridge at the far edge of the village. We were excited about the trek - the presence of Lakpa and the quality and quantity of the equipment and supplies around us reinforced our expectations of this high altitude, 9 day venture, longer and more challenging than the Hamta Pass trek that we had recently completed.

Not all was on our side though. Tamsin had started to feel sick in the jeep on the way up to Kibber, and didn't recover as we thought she would when she was out of the car, refusing blankly to eat any breakfast, until she was finally sick. After that she felt much improved, ate some eggs and toast and was back to her old lively self, leaving us optimistically confident that it was related to the car journey. Inder had very thoughtfully presented both the girls with a present - a story book each, and a colouring book with crayons - they were both absolutely delighted and were immediately lost in reading and drawing, as if it was the first time they were discovering these pleasurable activities.
Finally the mules and horses arrived, and while the team were busy with the task of distributing the weight between the animals, and then attaching the loads, Inder led us off on the start of our trek - each of us with our day packs, containing waterproofs, cameras, a fleece and our lunch and water, on our backs.
The path lead initially through the pea fields, and being in peak harvest time (seemingly later than Dhankar further down the valley) they were a hive of activity - teams of villagers, crouching down picking the peas, chatting and laughing as they conscientiously went about their task, and it made for an atmospherically rural scene. After a steep descent into the valley down to the river, we started the ascent up the other side. Everyone had been on good form, but as the going became more strenuous, Tamsin began to lag, and then announced that she wasn't feeling well again. The alarm bells rang - we made some stops, tried water, glucose solution and some things to eat, managing to encourage her to continue, but the stops and the lethargy became more frequent. We decided to make a longer break, and found the only scratchings of shade from the now punishing sun under a prickly bush, with my jacket draped over the top, and let Tamsin lie down, cuddled up to Jacqui, while we picked at an early lunch.
However she wasn't improving. The symptoms were not at all conclusive. Inder thought there were signs of altitude sickness, but elected for a diagnosis of a stomach related bug and provided some appropriate medicine, which Tamsin anyway was unable to take. As there was no signs of improvement after the rest, I suggested that, before it was too late, we headed back to Kibber for the night to see if Tamsin improved by the morning. Everyone agreed - in any case, the first days walk was normaly 6 hours of challenging uphill - if we had continued at our current pace we could have been walking until after dark before we would reach the camp site. In addition, we had already ascended more than 600m from our last sleeping altitude at Kasa, and Jacqui and I were both starting to suspect that Tamsin could indeed be suffering from mild altitude sickness and maybe had done also when she was sick at the top of the Hamta Pass, despite ours and others previous conclusions to the contrary.
We turned back. The support team had overtaken us earlier so would continue to the first camp-site, unaware of our problems, and Inder decided that he should also carry on while we retraced our steps back to Kibber alone. I was comfortable with that decision, but after an hour of walking, Inder re-appeared behind us - he had also turned back after deciding that it was more important for him to stay with us and ensure that Tamsin was ok. Even as we started to walk back, Tamsin improved radically, starting to chat incessantly and laugh again. It was perplexingly confusing, but we had no intention of changing our plan again now, we were heading back to Kibber for the night.
When we had discovered Kibber only that morning, we had regretted not having spent time there. Now, as we walked back along the path through the pea fields, our wish was unexpectedly being fulfilled - though not quite as we would have hoped - and indeed it looked as beautifully tranquil on our return, as it had done on our arrival. We checked into the guest house, and put Tamsin to bed for a sleep, while we sat on the terrace, and had a bite to eat. Sam, a middle-aged English man, whose substantial travel in India and other parts of Asia showed in his clothes, hair and ear-ringed face, as well as his accumulated knowledge, was with us at the guest house and we had several hours getting to know each other. Disallusioned with his life in an office job, Sam left to travel for several years, but was now setting up business running motor-bike tours in India and South-east Asia, organising the hire of the ubiquitous and charismatic Enfield bikes, the itinery and acting as an accompanying guide. He had a customer with him in Kibber, but their trip had been disrupted by the rains which had washed out roads leading out of Kasa. He was a mature traveller, and we found in each others company a refreshing break from the young affected backpacking crowd typical in Manali.
Amazingly for this tiny mountain village, there was a guest house that offered wi-fi - something that was not available even in much larger Kasa. I made the walk up there with my laptop to send some e-mails - it was a satellite connection, painfully slow, very expensive and after 10 minutes of using it, the village electricity cut off for 45 minutes before I was able to resume. It was a long time to send a few e-mails and a tweet, but I was happy enough to have been able to at all - at one point this village held the world record for the highest village with both electricity and a road.
Tamsin surfaced, a little refreshed, but we soon realised that she was still ill, and she spent the evening whimpering on Jacqui's lap and not willing to eat anything, At one point, the guest house owner pointed out a lady from the village passing by - she was a doctor. We raced out to grab her, and she kindly came in to take a look at Tamsin. She gave her a good check, and assured us that it was not acute mountain sickness, and unlikely to be anything serious - it could be a mild mountain sickness but was more likely to be a stomach bug. She gave us some medicine and told us that if she was not better by the morning we should head back down to Kasa. We were reassured, but still unsure on the diagnosis.


12 August
I was up early and while out on the terrace, spotted Lakpa wondering around the village. When we had not turned up at the camp site by evening, he had set off with the horseman thinking that we had got lost or had some sort of accident. They had searched for us, looking for footprints and calling, and had ended up sleeping out, under the horseman's make-shift tent. Inder had wrongly assumed that they would quickly come to the conclusion that we had returned to Kibber. Sitting with my cup of tea in front of me, after my full nights sleep in a bed, I felt pretty guilty, but it wasn't me that Lakpa was angry with and he expressed his feelings that the agency had been too ambitious with this trek.

Tamsin had a full nights sleep cuddled up with Jacqui, but woke up in the morning without any real improvement. Inder and Jacqui went to ask the doctor, who restated that we would be wise to go back to Kasa and have her checked at the hospital. She offered to organise transport, and within 20 minutes, the sleepy time-less peacefulness of little Kibber village was broken as a siren-blaring, light-flashing ambulance came through the village entrance portal and came to a halt outside our guest house. A crowd gathered round to watch a bemused Tamsin being carried into the back of the ambulance where she was gagged with an oxygen mask. Inder and Jacqui climbed into the back with her and Fia and I hopped into the front with all of our day sacks. It felt a little over the top, but at the least, we were glad of an immediate transport down to Kasa, as it would have taken the morning for us to organise a jeep to come up to pick us up.
We had two stops on the way, when Tamsin was sick, but as the road was very winding and the ambulance drove fast, I looked through the little separating window both times, half expecting Tamsin's mother to have joined her on the sick bed. The hospital in Kasa was rudimentary and shabby, but the medical staff looked competent. Tamsin was taken into a ladies ward where a young doctor asked a number of questions before organising a rehydration drip, which she needed to keep for the rest of the day, when she would be reassessed. The diagnosis was dehydration - though this was more of a consequence of the sickness - the initial cause still seemed to be a mystery with the doctor seeming unsure about any altitude connection.
We took it in turns to stay with Tamsin. I went off with our bags (still only our day sacks from the previous days trekking) to find us a room for the night, and booked us back into our old room at the Zanchuk, then Fia and Jacqui went off to eat some lunch while I stayed in the hospital. Tamsin improved by the minute, and was starting to enjoy the excitement surrounding her.
It was mostly older Spiti ladies in the ward, but they were all accompanied by their daughters or other relations. No food was provided by the hospital, so the visitors supply flasks of chai, packed meals of rice and dahl, sweet Spiti biscuits etc, and by the time I had returned from one of my outings, friendship had been struck with several others in the ward. One lady in particular had two sons, Tenzin and Thinlay, roughly Fia and Tamsin's age, and promised to bring them to see us in our guest house.
By mid-afternoon, Tamsin was released on great form, and we all headed to the hotel. By early evening she was tucking into dinner at the Mahabuddha restaurant as if she was making up for lost time.
We were full of gratitude for Indian health service - from the doctor in Kibber, the ambulance, and the hospital in Kasa - Tamsin received a professional and trustworthy care and we were never asked to pay a thing, not even for medicines that we walked away with. Later in the week, Jacqui bumped into the doctor from Kibber in the Kasa pharmacy and was able to pass a donation for the hospital, with which she was delighted.
Inder had tried to get a message to our trekking team, who with the exception of Lakpa were still up the mountain, through a separate group that were heading off on the same route that we had been taking. But by the end of the day, we had no news of them arriving back to Kibber. He joined us for dinner and we took advantage of our familiarity by bombarding him with potentially sensitive questions on the caste system in present day india - a subject that in talking between us had raised a lot of curiosity.

In the middle of the night - I heard noises in our room. I sat up in alarm, as it sounded as if someone was shuffling through our bags. I tried the light but there was no electricity, and our torches were with the rest of our luggage still up the mountains. By this stage, Jacqui was also awake, and as the scuffling noise continued despite my vocal challenges, it was clear that this was not human but an animal, and we soon realised that it was coming from above our heads - bigger than a mouse, smaller than a dog. Our ceiling was merely several dilapidated sheets of hardboard - in the middle there was a hole, plugged with a plastic bag, and at one end the hardboard had become unattached and was hanging loosely. The defensive barrier between our visitor's frenzied activity and our sleeping bodies was hardly robust, and the thought of him joining Jacqui and myself in our bed, followed by a frantic scrabbling race between the three of us to get out of the bed, was not appealing.
Somehow the three of us managed to get to sleep. Fia and Tamsin slept through it all, blissfully unaware.

Fia and Tamsin are in town!

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Trekking to Chattru (Hamta Pass)

Photo Album
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3'rd August

Day 1
We were at the trekking agency at 8:30am, after having had a quick breakfast at the German bakery. We met Chotu, our stocky Indian guide of Nepalese origin, as well as Stan and Sophie, the two Dutch students that were trekking with us. After a 15 min drive to Prini, where we would begin, we were joined by the horses and the other men - Pritam, the cook, Ratan, the horse-man and Tilak and Romish the 2 helpers, along with enormous amounts of camping equipment and supplies. We packed the lunch boxes that we were each given into our day packs, applied our sun cream and with a great sense of excitement, had started walking by 10:00, leaving the 4 men loading the horses with all the equipment and supplies.
It was a steep uphill for 2,5 hours, mostly on steep steps, and we all found it a pretty exhausting start. We arrived for lunch at a sweet little tea house, with the mama cooking on the floor in the corner of their one room. She served us all a welcome chai (Jacqui, myself and Fia starting to get a taste for this sweet milky drink) and we then ate our cheese roll and other bits from our lunch box in glorious sunshine and already with beautiful views of the mountains. A bird with a huge wingspan, that Chotu informed us was a vulture, gracefully glided across our view causing a lot of camera fumbling and missed photos.
The afternoon Walk was initially through an uinteresting area in which a dam was being constructed, but then on a barely defined path through increasingy beautiful mountain scenery, to arrive finally at Chikha, the camp site, at around 4:30. It was less demanding than the morning and Fia and Tamsin, having found a captive audience other than Mummy and Daddy, let their conversational flood gates open, latching alternately onto Chotu, exploiting his gentle, caring manner with children, and to Stan and Sophie - who displayed immense patience and goodwill, but had probably not expected this kind of endurance test on their trek.
We were camped in the most beautiful spot in the valley with the river runing below us, breathtaking views both up and down the valley, and up the steep sides of the valley to majestic mountains, with patches of remaining snow dotted around us, and snow capped peaks in the distance. The weather had been hot all day, and we sat with the chai and biscuits that were brought out to us, relaxing and soaking in this wondeful wilderness. We had climbed 800m (1900 up to 2700m) that day and been going for about 6,5 hours - the girls had had a few complaints but basicaly managed to keep up well, sustained by a little glucose enhanced water solution at the low moments.
Ratan, the horse-man, together with his five horses and all the equipment would set off in the morning after us, but always overtake us at some point during the day, allowing for the team to set everything up in advance of our arrival. The horses would then be left loose to graze and roam where they wanted, but miraculously could be recuperated in the morning for their next day of work. Ratan was an experienced horseman, and his smiling weathered face revealed the years of his mountain life. He let Fia climb up on a horse, and told her all their names. His confident and engaging manner allowed you to somehow have a conversation with him, though he didn't have a word of English.
We had some spare time (what luxury) before dinner would be served and I sat on a rock, opened up the laptop and started writing up the blog notes, while the girls wrote their diaries and Jacqui continued her rapid digestion of "Passage to India". Jacqui and I thought back to our trekking / camping in the Pyrenees with our beloved donkeys, when from dawn to dusk we never seemed to have a moment spare - hurried walking to get to our target, unloading everything, setting up the tent, beginning the cooking, looking after the donkeys, and then all over again in the morning before we could start walking. This, by comparison was luxury camping - to have our tents set up on arrival, to be able to sit in the sun and read a book with a cup of chai after our long walk, until we were called for the soup course of our dinner was.... bliss.
It was a coriander and mushroom soup - served al fresco. Everyone mopped it up, even the girls, who previously were prepared to go to war to avoid eating a single mushroom. After the soup course we were invited into the big tent where the candlelit table was laid out - the metal boxes used to transport food doubling up as tables while we sat on the floor behind them. The cook co-ordinated all the work but all the men seemed to contribute to the dinner, cooked on the floor in front of us with two kerosene burners. All 11 of us were in this tent, the 6 of us and Chotu sitting behind our tables like royalty being served and the other 4 men squatting down rolling out chapatis, serving dahl, and rushing out every now and then to wash up something in the freezing cold source close to the tent, or just smiling at us and our vain but enjoyable attempts to make conversation with a common vocabularly of around 10 words.
Tamsin put Stan and Sophie under the spotlight by boldly, persistently and publicly investigating potential marriage plans.
We went to bed straight after dinner (I think at around 9:00 - 9:30). We used the children as our excuse for the early night, but in reality were exhausted and dying to get into those puffy warm sleeping bags, and we heard Stan and Sophie, with no excuses to offer, following straight afterwards.
Everyone was on good form. The girls were buzzing with excitement over having a tent to themselves, and as they zipped up the door, were giggling away with their torch and who knows what amusing and imaginative games.

4'th August
Day 2
Chai was served to the tents at 7:30 (though I was already up at 6:00) Everyone had slept reasonably well. We set off at 9:30, again leaving tents for the men to pack up and load on the horses.
It was a beautiful trek up the river valley virtually the whole day, with a steady constant ascent and an enjoyable rocky terrain. It was much colder though, and at around mid-day started raining.
We had several rickety and roughly improvised bridges to cross, but at one point, we had to wade through a freezing and fast running stream, taking off our boots and socks, rolling up our shorts and feeling our way across, resisting the strong current of the river. The girls went on Chotu's back while Jacqui and I, Stan and Sophie followed one at a time, all wearing Stans Teva sandals, the only ones available, which had to be thrown back over each time for the next person. We stopped for lunch on the other side of the river, and ate in the rain, dressed in our waterproofs. The conversation was certainly a little less sprightly than it had been the previous sunny day, though we were still getting a kick out of the ruggedness of it all. As clouds enveloped us though, the temperature suddenly dropped and we all became very cold - lunch lost its interest and was hurriedly stuffed away so that we could get moving again and warm up.
We arrived at camp at Juara (altitude of approx 3400m), the foot of the Hamta Pass, at around 4:30 - it had stopped raining, but was still cold and we had tea in the tent, and then an over-the-top snack of pakoras (battered vegatables) and a bowl of noodles. Exhausted, Jacqui and I went to rest - I snoozed virtually until dinner time, and Jacqui read. Our more energetic daughters were in the big tent with Prittam (the cook) and the others - we're not sure who was entertaining who but there was a lot of singing and giggling.
Both of the girls were up sick in the middle of the night - we asked them if there were any headaches (to understand whether it was altitude related or not) but the answers were not very conclusive, and we decided to wake up Chotu to get his opinion. Both girls felt better after having been sick, slept the rest of the night without problems and woke up on good form again - so we concluded it was just a stomach upset.
While I was up, in the pitch darkness, I saw two bright eyes dashing around at a distance from our camp site - it was most likely a jackal, I was told, hoping to pick up some easy dinner.

Day 3
5'th August
This was the big day, where we would cross the Hamta Pass at 4270m. It was thankfully sunny and warm when We set off at 9:00 on an exhilarating trek up the valley. The climb included our largest glacier - for about 45 minutes we were trudging up snow, hard, but a little slippery.
The sight of vultures had become frequent, but on this day we also sighted two eagles, soaring over our heads and then gracefully on down the valley.
Having been going well Tamsin started complaining at 11:00 of feeling a bit sick. We gave her some glucose solution but she was needing to stop more and more frequently. Chotu, having wisely sensed earlier that we may need some extra help that day had asked the other helpers to wait for us at a certain point in case of need, and as Tamsin was not improving, Tilak was there to take Chotu's backpack and Tamsin went on Chotu's back. Each time we stopped however, Tamsin was getting more morose and only 25 minutes away from crossing the pass, she was very reluctant to continue. In the cold everyone took the opportunity to eat their lunch while we waited to see if Tamsin would improve. Tilak was amazing - aside from his strength at carrying anything loaded on top of him, holding Fia's hand and walking faster than any of us in his flip-flops, he could also sit there in his T-shirt in the freezing cold, refusing any additional clothing while we were all wrapped up in fleeces and coats. Tamsin stayed cuddled to mummy and wasn't really improving - she was sure she was going to be sick (which probably would have made her feel better) but wasn't. By this stage we were all sure it was altitude sickness and knew we had to go down. I had some horror stories in my head about altitude sickness and had started to envision alternatives to going ahead over the pass, but in truth, there weren't many, and after pulling Chotu out of ear shot of Tamsin, managed to reassure myself that the risks at our height and given our acclimatisation were limited - so between us all we decided to push on to the pass, having to use all our resourcefullness to persuade Tamsin back up onto Chotu's shoulders.
The Hamta pass gave us an amazing feeling, and in particular because we were now exposed to an immense and stunningly beautiful valley in front of us - steep rugged mountains rising up as far as we could see, snow-capped peaks and glaciers, and a wide green valley floor stretching out on both sides - it felt like we'd opened the secret door to a new world.
Tamsin was neither better nor worse at the pass, and we didn't linger before starting our steep rocky descent. How Chotu managed to dance his way across boulders with a 7 year old on his back we have no idea. After about an hour we were on the valley floor, and Tamsin, who had fallen asleep on Chotu's shoulders, woke up, and came down for a rest. As soon as she was on her feet, she was sick. Chotu, Jacqui and I waited anxiously around her. She lifted her head, gave a smile and said:
'All that time I was on Chotu's shoulders I wasn't sick, and as soon as I got down I was sick'.
It was the first sign of the real Tamsin since she had started to feel weak on the other side of the Hamta Pass, and Chotu, Jacqui and myself all collapsed in uncontrollable, and unexplainable giggles - I think more from relief than anything else. The transformation was incredible - Tamsin, then danced the rest of the way along the valley to the camp, with conversation bubbling and jumping between random subjects, trying to make up for her lost time. It was hard to believe that we were all so worried about her just one hour before.
Fia had walked the whole day (and in fact the whole 4 days) without help, at a pace that challenged Jacqui and myself, climbing up and down rocks that were half her size, and hardly pausing from her cheerful chat, despite the attention that her sister was getting. Her energy and strength amazed us.
We were once again camped in the most hauntingly beautiful spot, in a place called Shiagorou, next to a river which snaked its way up this dramatic green valley, with glacier tongues clinging onto the sides of the near vertical slopes, abundant cascading waterfalls and all set against the backdrop of snow capped peaks.
Tamsin again lost her appetite at dinner time and started to feel unwell again - our diagnosis conclusion had switched from altitude sickness to plain stomach upset by now. It was cold in the evening and we all squeezed into the main tent for dinner, with Tamsin curled up against mummy in one corner, whimpering and miserable. The rest of us made polite conversation, but were all keeping a watchful eye on Tamsin and hoping she would pick up. The mood was broken, when Ratan, the horseman, squatting in the middle of the tent, nonchalently let out a long burp (entirely acceptable in Indian etiquette). Tamsin looked up and gave a big incredulous smile and we all fell about laughing.


6'th August
Day 4 - the end of the trek
Tamsin went to bed without eating, but slept well, woke up on good form and managed to eat several slices of toast at breakfast, which we had sitting outside in warm sunshine. After that point, Tamsin never looked back - she was chirpy all the way down and insisted on walking herself, refusing Chotu's offers to carry her.
Our warm-up was another river crossing, just by our camp site. Colder and wider than the last river crossing, our feet and legs were stinging painfully as we climbed out on the other side. After that wake-up call, it was another lovely walk, and for the first time, it was virtually all descent into the valley of the roaring Chandra river. We followed the river, crossing at one point another glacier that plunged steeply straight into the thundering waters. It was a short crossing, but the most frightening, given that if we slipped, there would be nothing to stop us sliding all the way down into the churning icy river below. This time, we went one by one with Chotu and his steady step at our side.
We arrived at the end of our trek at a sunny, clearing by the river, where the jeep was waiting to take the team and the equipment on the 8 hhour drive back to Manali from where we had started. We said our goodbyes, and gave our warm thanks and a well earned tip to the team, and Jacqui and I headed off across the bridge to the village of Chattru - in reality a gathering of a couple of tented dhabas offering dorm style beds and some basic food. We were on our way to Kasa (opposite direction to Manali) and the next bus was the following morning. One of the dhabas had a tent set up, just about big enough for the 4 of us and cheaper than the dormitory beds, so we opted for that, and then prepared ourselves for our nearly 24 hour wait for the bus (our longest ever...so far).
This felt truly like the middle of nowhere. Apart from the roar of the river, we were in a mountainous silence, broken only by the occasional sound of an approaching vehicle, crescendoing from a distant rumble down the valley. There was really nothing to do except read, play cards, chat, drink chai, eat dahl (lentils) and rice, and occasionally chat to some other passing travellers that called in on their way to Manali or to Kasa. It was calm, and very relaxing after our arduous trek.

7th August
Day 5 - Chattru to Kasa
True to form, that even after 24 hours to get ready, we were so relaxed that we nearly missed the bus the following day and when the shout came that the bus could be seen winding its way at the other end of the valley - we were hurriedly stuffing clothes into our rucksacks, starting to imagine another 24 hour wait if we missed it.
The bus rumbled to a stop. Having verified that it was going to Kasa (there weren't really any other options, but best to be sure), I climbed up onto the roof and attached our rucksacks, and we all hopped in. We had been told that we had an 8 hour trip in front of us and knowing what the roads were like, Jacqui and the girls had all taken a travel sickness tablet (recommended by the pharmacist that the girls had befriended in the train to Chandigarh - if you're following - thank-you!). This was true travellers stuff - the bus was rugged, basic, noisy and dusty, and ground its way up or down amazing winding tracks on valley sides, occasionally crossing rickety bridges at the bottom (whose perennity was emphasised by the remains of the previous collapsed bridge by its side) before winding its way up the other valley side and wading through melt streams that flowed down the mountains, burying our road on their way down to the river. Our hearts were in our mouths as the bus veered round corners, the road edge disappearing from our view under the bus, leaving us exposed only to the sheer drop down the rock side. The track was mostly single laned, and sometimes looking in front of us there didn't look like there was sufficient space for a bus between the rock face and the cliff edge, and we closed our eyes and reassured ourselves with the fact that this bus took this route every day and, as far as we know, survived. While we were unable to take our eyes off the scenery for one minute during the whole duration of the trip, our experienced fellow passengers were of course completely unruffled and were more interested in us, and in particular the children, or otherwise slept with their heads being rolled from side to side, often onto my shoulder.
The bus stopped for lunch at a roadside dhaba, and we all had some excellent and very cheap dahl and rice inside this dark atmospheric room before heading off again. We stopped again at Kunzum Pass (4551m), which marks the transition from the Lahaul valley into the remote Spiti valley, and has a small Buddhist temple on the top where the passengers all say their prayers (offering, I imagined, thanks for having survived the journey so far, or pleas to survive the next leg, or both).
Manali had already had a Buddhist flavour - we were now moving into true Buddhist territory - the faces on the bus, the whitewashed houses with sticks stacked on the roofs, the chow mein and momos being offered at roadside restaurants, the ubiquitous colourful prayer flags - we felt like we had left India and entered Tibet.
We saw Kasa, a collection of houses nestled into the side of the valley, probably 1 hour before we had wound our way down the valley side, across the bridge and along the river to arrive there. This is the capital of the Spiti valley - but everything is relative - the Spiti valley is one of the most sparsely populated regions of the world. When we arrived it was cold and had been raining. We wondered up the main bazaar street (not more than a puddled rocky track), checking rooms in guest houses for one that suited us. This small town was immediately interesting, but at the same time seemed dreary and empty after Manali.
THe girls were starting to get into the swing of budget travelling - when we visited one over-priced guest house, who showed us to their best suite, it was Tamsin that pointed out that we had no need of a bathroom that big, We ended up in a very basic, but cheap guest house at the top of the street - we had two run down, basic, dirty double rooms with nothing in them other than the beds, and a shared smelly hole in the ground toilet. We were counting on the promise of a larger room becoming available the following day, and sure enough at 12:00 the next day, we moved into a larger run-down, basic, dirty double room, but enough space for a mattress on the floor for the girls and with its own bathroom. We haggled on the price, and ended up happy enough.
Our first impressions of Kasa were not helped by the lack of electricity. The rains had caused problems and the electricity came on just to tease us for a few minutes every couple of hours or so, and we stumbled our way around that evening with our single torch. We were tired and dirty after our trekking and our journey, disappointed with Kasa and down about the cold wet weather. So we drowned our sorrows in a beer and a pizza - eaten by candlelight.
As we had only one torch between two rooms, Tamsin and I put ourselves to bed in pitch darkness - working by sense of feel only, and hoping we wouldn't need to get up before morning.

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