"Surely the gods must live here, this is no place for men"

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I somehow managed to drag myself at the train station 15 minutes before 6 but I won't lie and say it was painless. The bed was very comfy and it required all my willpower not to fall back to sleep. I asked around at the bus station for where the bus to Kaza was and everybody gave conflicting answer so for 15 mintues I was just walking around trying to find my bus. Then I found it. Apparently it left in Kullu, about 1 hour south. This meant that almost all the seats were taken already. The only seat left was at the very very end. I figured it wouldn't be too bad, the journey was just 11 hours anyway. That was a mistake. A major one.

The ride was smooth at first but the smoothness didn't last long. We started climbing Rohtang La (Rohtang pass) soon after we left the town; a 2000m snaking ascent. Being in the last seat, every little bump would send me flying. When I was a kid, we would be fighting to be sitting at the back in the bus. We loved being thrown in the air at every bump. You know why we loved it? THAT'S BECAUSE WE WEREN'T IN THE BUS FOR 11 HOURS. God. After about 3 hours I was desperate to get off. After a while I realized that if I put my feet on the metal bar in front of me and tensed up when I went up, I could somewhat block my fall. This required me to be constantly on the edge as I had to tense in a split second or it'd be too late but I managed to avoid some of the pain this way. At least, the scenery was beautiful. We were definately leaving the luxurious Pir Panjal behind and were entering the dry, barren and massive Himalaya.

he road up Rohtang La was pretty bad. In some places there was at least 2 feet of mud on the road. The bus had an incredibly hard time going through but I was so glad it did as I didn't feel like going out in the mud the push. There were lots of military trucks on the road, no doubt heading to the border with Pakistan to participate in the pissing contest at the border (my army is bigger than yours, nah nah).

We stopped at a little village/truck stop before the pass with a few chai shop and the self-claimed world's highest italian pizza restaurant. I didn't try it though. The village was a 100-200m below the snow line, which we reached fairly quickly once we left it. There wasn't much snow, not enough to make driving difficult but enough to look like you didn't want to hang around there too long. Along the way were little shacks with fur coats, apparently they're for Indian tourists who come up here to experience their first snow but aren't equiped to deal with the cold. I saw a group of those who were having a snowfight. But, I was feeling pretty bad at the top. My stomach, which had been quiet in the past few days was going crazy and I wasn't feeling too great.

It took about an hour and a half to get down the pass to a small village called Gramphu. We were now in Lahaul valley, which links to Ladakh (little Tibet) in the north and to Spiti to the east, where I was heading. There was a clearcut difference between this valley and Kullu Valley in Manali. Here everything was barren. There was very little vegetation, everything was rocky. We followed a river for about 90 minutes without seeing anything green. We stopped for chai at a little dhaba. I saw one of the little kids take a dump right by the road and his dad wiped his ass with rocks. Ah, I guess that solves one mystery.

After the dhaba stop we went up Kunzun La. I was a bit worried as it is 600m higher than Rohtang La and since we had snow in the last 300m of Rohtang I was afraid Kunzun would be hard to cross. But nothing could've been further from the truth, there was absolutely no snow on Kunzun. Lahaul/Spiti are too dry and it rarely, if ever, rain/snow here. At the top of the pass we circled around one big stupa with a bunch of prayer flag and then went down to Spiti Valley, our final destination. Kipling came to Spiti once and he said the quote that is in my title: "Surely the gods must live here, this is no place for men".

We quickly reached Losar which had a police checkpost that I had to sign. I was feeling really bad by this point and absolutely needed a toilet but the police officer was unhelpful: "natural toilet only". Ahh well, shitting in front of everyone is not something I wanted to experience so I bit the bullet, took a chance and figured I'd wait 2 hours until Kaza.

I had major backache by this point from the constant falling up and down. It was hard not to "lose face" and not show pain as my face was constantly being distorded by pain which made a few locals around me to smile. I made it to Kaza in one piece in the end. Most of the hotels in the Old City were closed so I picked one outside, in the new city. I had a big room with chair/table with heating for 150Rs. On the way there I saw a dead dogs being eaten by other stray dogs. It's the beginning of winter here so the dogs that are too weak die. Natural selection at work I guess. I'll just make sure not to get licked by those dogs.

I had a big headache and even though I didn't want to admit it, it was a obvious sign of altitude sickness. I've been at much higher altitude (Kaza is only 3700m) and have done bigger elevation gain in a day (2000 to 3700 today, although I did reach 4500m at one point) so I don't know why I got it this time, maybe because I was already sick from something else so my system was weaker. In any case I passed out on my bed right after checking in (well, I did go to the toilet before).

I woke up the next day feeling just as bad as the last day. I now had pretty massive diarhea, still had the headache and felt I had absolutely no energy. It took me about 2 hours to convince myself to get up and actually do something. I went in the Old Town, passing the ever lighter dog carcass, to eat breakfast. It seemed all the restaurants were closed but in the end I found one that catered to the locals and had thukpa (tibetan noodle soup) that had to be the best thukpa in Asia. Check it out.

Before doing any sightseeing today, I had to take care of my permit for the rest of my journey. Going farther in Spiti Valley and into Kinnaur require a permit from the government because it is a "sensitive" area close to Tibet. I went to look for the government building and after getting lost a bit I ended up finding it but the bureaucrats didn't feel like working. I noticed there were lots of boot marks on the wall, I guess it wasn't the first time that the officials decided to wank around instead of doing their job. I waited for more than an hour before one decided to show up. I really was in a bad mood and got even more pissed when he told me I needed to photocopy my visa (the only photocopy machine being in the Old Town, 15 minutes walk away) to get the document and get it signed by the police officier. When I left his office I joined the club of the people who kicked the wall, I'm now the proud maker of the darkest boot mark in the District Commisonner Office's wall in Kaza.

The policemen gave me his authorization pretty quickly, he seemed bothered by my presence. But then I had to walk all the way to the Old Town to get a photocopy (of course, a government office wouldn't have a photocopy machine). I felt so weak walking I had to stop every 5-10 minutes just because I felt my head was going to explode. I got the photocopy and after going back to the first office, waiting another 20 minutes I finally had my permit. That whole thing wasn't too bad and I shouldn't have gotten angry (this is India, not the west), but I was much more impatient given my condition. One comment about that office is that it is stuck in the 40s. Old typewritters, carbon sheets, no computers and the furniture looked like it hadn't been changed since Independance.

So to celebrate my getting the permit I went in town to eat something in one of the Tibetan restaurant. I was planning to get a taxi to the little village I wanted to see close to Kaza. I had been told it was possible to hitchhike but I was in no condition to do so, as the monastery and the villages were another 500m up and I wanted to get up, see, take pictures and go down and sleep. While my food was being prepared I noticed 2 foreigners eating there, I offered them to share the taxi but they told me they already had a jeep and a guide and invited me to join. They were a german couple and were quite nice. The guide was also a friendly fella. I got along with them all quite well.

Ki Monastery was built in the 15th century by the Great Translator. The Bhotia people in Spiti Valley are very closely related to Tibetan and follow similar customs. The Dalai Lama actually visited the monastery in 2000, so religiously it is a tibetan monastery. It is quite an impressive building, very beautiful when looked from afar. There was a group of monk boy playing cricket when we arrived. We visited the kitchen where we had chai served by one of the monk before we visited various prayer rooms. Since we had a guide with us he told us things about tibetan etiquette that I didn't know even though I had been at temple several time (ie: leave prayer room walking backward so that your back doesn't face the room) which was interesting. There's a lot of beautiful old books and old stupas, most dating several hundred years. The view from the top of the monastery was quite amazing. There are some fields below which are among the rare places in the valley where agriculture can be practice. They grow peas, potatos and barley here; the crops that grow in though conditions. Like tibetans, the locals also make tsompa with the barley, but thankfully I was never offered any.

After the monastery we went up even farther to Kibber village. Before we left we were asked if we could give a ride to a little tibetan boy which we agreed but he was a bit shy so we didn't get anything out of him aside frmo his name. Kibber was another beautiful little village. We walked around for about 2 hours, went in the small monastery there, talked with a few local girls and generally just soaked in the atmosphere. The guide said that the group of yak we saw outside town had been brought over from Ladakh a few days ago. Apparently yak caravans still go on foot from Ladakh to Spiti, road transport would take like 2-3 days whereas they can walk it in 5 days (when foreigners do that trek, they do it in 9 days). Interesting to see that caravans still exist somewhere in the world. We went back to Kaza after, where I split the cost with the germans for the expedition. I went to the bus station after to reserve a seat in the front of the bus as I just couldn't think of taking a bus in the back again. I managed to get a window seat near the front. I was happy with that so I went to a local restaurant and had chow mein (I pretty much exhausted the menu of Kaza by now) before heading back to my hotel room where I fell asleep really fast at like 6PM.

The next day I was feeling definately better. Diarhea was still there but no headache and my energy level was quite high. But still, I had decided to get to Delhi ASAP to do something about it. I just wanted to be able to trust my farts again. The bus left at 9AM but I got to the station at 8AM to ensure that I'd get my ticket and the seat I had reserved. I had to fight to get to the ticket office but I ended up being served like the 3rd even though I was maybe the 10th person who got to the office. I'll take lines over pushing and elbowing. But if people want to push and elbow, I can do it better than them. I got the seat I wanted. It was a good thing because the bus was PACKED, as in the conductor had trouble moving down the aisle. I was to learn later that it was because diwali (hindu's christmas) was coming in a few days and everybody was going back to their family (there are a lot of nepali/bihari workers in the mountain). So we were constantly stopping to drop people and pick up new one. The bus was constantly packed so much that it was impossible to walk in the alley and I had someone basically sitting on my lap.

After 2 hours we reached Tabo, a place with an amazing monastery that I had planned to stop at but decided to skip. Shortly after we stopped I heard "Ils me cassent les couilles" which gave me a hint that we had some frenchie onboard. After another 2 hours we had a break and I went to talk to them. Friendly couple who was heading to some town on the way, which they didn't legally have a right to stay at (the permit forbid overnight stay in the sensitive area) but decided to go anyway. They had to stay standing for the trip but didn't seem to mind. It was good to chat up with them but on the bus it was difficult to continue the conversation as tehy were far away and it was impossible for them to move near me as it was too packed.

After another hour we were stopped at a checkpoint and had to show our permit which was just a formality. Not too long after the checkpoint we arrived at the point where the road was destroyed 6 years ago by the mountain who decided to reclaim it. Apparently for the few years after the massive landslide, you had to get off the bus, walk 90 minutes and get on another bus. But since the landslide there has been a new road built which goes up at least 1500m, avoiding (or at least we hope) the landslide risk area. The guy next to me, a tibetan monk, wasn't feeling too well. At some point he opened the window, got on top of me and started vomiting outside. The problem was that we were on a mountain road and at some point we were passing very near some cliff so he had to get his head back on board. He was fast enough to avoid the cliff, but not fast enough to close his mouth so I had the luck to be vomitted upon by a tibetan monk - definately a sign of bad karma. I switched spot with him afterward while trying to clean up with toilet paper and bottled water while the locals tried not to laugh.

The road was good in most places but near the top we had to get off and walk for about one kilometer because the bus was too heavy. The locals were telling us foreigners to sit with the women. I guess they were trying to be polite. Walking felt good after several hours sitting (and having people vomit on me), plus I managed to take pictures of the valley below which was quite amazing. We saw quite a few workers on the side of the road, many were trying to hitch a ride on the bus but we mostly drove on as we were full. I felt really bad about these workers with all their luggages tied up, waiting in the middle of nowhere on the road. At first their face was full of happiness at finally seeing the bus but it shortly turned into sadness and anger as they realized that we weren't stopping and they might have to wait untill tomorrow to get a ride which might means missing Diwali with their family. The frenchies left in a village about an hour after our walk and we said goodbye and good luck.

I had a feeling that the new road, even though it allowed us to stay on the bus, didn't really save us any time as we spent about 2 hours going up and 2 hours going down, plus we had to walk anyway. The bus ride was overly long and packed. We reached the checkpoint that got me out of the "sensitive" zone right before sunset and finally arrived in Rekong Peo around 8PM. I immediately headed for a hotel but it took more than 45 minutes to find a decent one (but still way overpriced). I tried to go out to eat something but the town didn't feel like it was 9PM, more like 3AM. Pretty much everything was closed so I just had bottled water and a bag of chips as dinner. My sole consolation was that, although overpriced, the room had a wonderful "high pressure" shower with plenty of hot water. The water turn brown as soon as I entered it. Before heading to sleep, I also washed my pants to remove the monk's vomit.

I decided to head to Simla right away. Kinnaur valley probably deserves a few days of exploration and it is a shame I couldn't do the place justice but I had enough of being sick, I simply had to head to a major center to get treatment.

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Photos

Top of Kunzun La 2
Better show the flags/gompa

The road to Kaza
The back window was incredibly dirty so the quality is bad, but trust me, the road was worse.

Village girl washing clothes
Her friend didn't want to have their pic taken so they ran away.

Another shot of the world's highest wood fired pizza
This time with mountains to back up it's claim so that no one can come and tell me I took this picture in Delhi or something.

On the way up Rohtang La
Beautiful mountain.

The snaking road
We went up more than 2000m in about 2 hours on that road.

World's highest wood fired pizza!
Unfortunately I didn't try as my stomach was giving me problem. I was fairly certain if I did try I'd produce the world's highest wood fired pizza vomit.

Top of Rohtang La
It's winter up here.

North side of Rohtang La
In Gramphu, Lahaul valley

Lahaul valley
Just before starting to snake up Kunzun La and to enter Spiti

Lahaul valley 2
On the way to Kunzun La

Top of Kunzun La
At about 4600m

Cannibal dog
Dog eat dogs in Kaza.

Ki Monastery
Taken from Ki village. Beautiful monastery.

From the monastery
Spiti valley. So barren.

From the monastery 2
They grow barley, potatos and peas. Apparently they love tsompa here, but thank god I was never offered any.

From the monastery 3
So beautiful

Birds on the monastery
No doubt the monks feed them since there's so many of them. But they also feed cats. I wonder what they think of the morality of feeding the animal that will kill other animals they feed.

Comments

[Genevieve by the sea]

Débile!
Vraiment trop jolies les photos. Bravo!

[Punit]

Must mind your words before typing in
I am sure you are not that educated enough to comment on any activity. You must mind your language before writing in about any area of any country. Read you blog self and trace couple of comments must to be changed.