Sangla Valley: Part 3 (Sangla/Chitkul)

Refreshing morning at Sangla :)

Generally in trips, the day starts at a very early morning. It is better to start early to utilize as much as time available. But morning time happens to be the most chaotic time of the trip. Most of the time shortened sleep poses difficulty, especially in mountains, where one has to fight the low temperature of an early morning and cozy comfort of the bed..for me and for others :p First somebody has to get up resisting all the temptations of sleeping more and wake others up successfully..Latter is proven to be more difficult many times :p And if all get up at the same time, chaos happens! :p This time we got up on time and synced ourselves among us to get fresh on time :) Though the morning times in mountains are chaotic, they are very pristine and beautiful. So was the Sangla morning..As I opened the window, the first thing I could see was morning soft sun rays exposing a part of a Himalayan hillock, across the Baspa river, crowded with deodar. The little hamlet Sangla was awake, still maintaining the charm of the remote place..No hustle bustle, no traffic, people sitting relaxed in a small group near bonfire, intermittently a vehicle passing over a nearby iron bridge breaking rhythm of early morning silence.. enough to give satisfactory feeling of being away from the fast city life, allowing to sync the  life to the pace you want making it an idyllic one :)

Road to Chitkul..

The plan for the day was to start 2 days trek of Sangla-Kanda. We were ready by 8:30. I called our guide. He said he was unable to get porters and it was not possible to start the trek on that day. That was kind of very unexpected to us because trip itinerary was pretty inflexible. We had no back up day. The reason of risking trek to the next day was that the trek is normally done in 3 days. Due to the tight schedule, we needed to do it in 2 days. In an extreme case, if we followed original plan, then even if trek would have gone into 3rd day, we still could have skipped Chitkul. But now we had to shift the trek to the next day. And nothing could be done about it. So we decided to shuffle our itinerary, and brought in Chitkul visit instead of trek.

After breakfast, we set off for Chitkul which is about 25km, 1-hour drive from Sangla. That small bumpy drive to Chitkul was the fascinating one which crossed  many small streams on the way through dense pine trees, which revealed the awesome serious raw beautiful countryside, later tree line disappearing opening slowly magnificent, wide and elegant valley to us as we proceeded towards Chitkul. The road was as usual breathtaking and heart stopping, carrying us from green, thickly forested hill side to barren and dusty one.

:)

The first break..

Very soon after we left Sangla, we got our the first picnic point crossing a wooden bridge at a small stream flowing from top of the mountain, throwing itself into Baspa at the bottom of the valley. It was a great point to make a small halt, to make a small hike along the stream, to try to capture some amazing photographs, water effects and to sit silently leaving  legs in cold and clean flowing water hanging freely and so the your thoughts, looking at distant alpine meadows on the other side of Baspa river. We were soon accompanied by big bunch of school children who were returning to Chitkul winning some sports trophies and wanted us to take some photographs. They came and left. We were still there at the spot, someone in trans moods, someone in a talkative mood, someone in a photo mode, and someone in a hiking phase :p A small halt turned into a very big one. Finally, we resumed towards Chitkul. And another lovely stream stopped us. And we again stopped :p Short break followed by some drive, we reached Rakcham, another amazing village where there are a lot of short picnic spots to go, unwind your lunch boxes and just chill out at Baspa bank. We planned that for Chitkul :)

Tomorrow, we will be trekking on that side ;)

This is the way!!

Sangla..

Another beautiful stream..Another stop ;)

The road has turned dusty and landscapes barren.

Valley opening up completely..We are approaching Chitkul..

 Soon we reached Chitkul about which Outlook Traveller says "A place that gives you the feeling having travelled to the very ends of civilization". Very true!! Chitkul is a small beautiful village situated at the end of Baspa valley terminated by Great Himalaya, beyond which lies Tibet. It is the place to which civilians are permitted. Beyond this place, control is with Indo-Tibet Border Police forces though the border is pretty far, about 90km. Chitkul was used to be on ancient trade route between India and Tibet which was famously known as "Silk Route". Chitkul has characteristic houses, small and wooden built, tilt-roofed which now serves as hotels too. Chitkul is expensive from lodging point of view and tourists prefer to stay at Sangla. We left our vehicle. Some fellow travelers were already there, but a very small number. We started walking towards the bank of Baspa, the way to which, runs downwards and cutting randomly flowing streams in the village. Before leaving we gave our lunch order which was going to take another 1 hour. At Chitkul, valley opens up completely wide, two sides of rivers contrasting each other, one barren while other covered with thick pine forest. And the valley is terminated with snow capped mountains, which let Baspa flow towards Sangla. The environment was so energetic on the bank of restless Baspa carrying freezing water that Kedar, Chetan and Prachita couldn't stop themselves to make a race, a race which would be won by one who would keep bare legs in that bitterly freezing water for the longest time!! :p Everything around was so picturesque that Camera was the busiest thing at that time :p After spending incredible time, laughing, joking, posing for photos, it was the time to return. While walking back to Chitkul, I couldn't stop myself looking back again and again at those snow-capped peaks and the valley before it..I was literally stalking at Great Himalaya :p There is a small school near Baspa bank, facing those snow clad peaks. I felt really jealous for those cute little children who were playing around and studying in the lap of amazing valley. It should be the best school!

Chitkul!!

On the bank of Baspa at Chitkul..Heavens \m/

River Baspa at Chitkul!

At the end of civilization :p Village Chitkul!

Buddhist temple at Chitkul..

Why not to go to school :p The best school!

We were hungry. We had our lunch..A lot of Maggie and a lot of rice. Then we visited a nice Buddhist temple that was situated on the upper part of Chitkul. After the visit, we started back for Sangla, I vowed to go back to Chitkul in winter when it gets completely covered with snow and everything looks amazingly different though equally beautiful. This splendid drive to Chitkul made me believe Sangla valley is the best valley of Himachal Pradesh.

The famous Apples of Sangla!

Another beautiful evening, so another heart stealing sunset!

It was almost 5 in the evening when we reached Sangla. We were still left with visit to Kamru fort which is one of the main attractions of Sangla. Kamru fort is situated above Sangla and one of the oldest in this area. One has to hike there by a well-defined staircase path. The road to the base of fort is narrow and goes along line of Apple trees. Apples of Sangla are of the highest quality and generally exported abroad. We got some apples on the way and they were really good. It was getting dark. We had to hurry up. But the hike to the fort really tests your stamina. Well, it is a high altitude hike. But that really helped us to get acclimatize, which proved very important on the next day when we actually started trekking. So one lesson learned, get yourself well acclimatized before starting a high altitude trek. Chitkul visit and fort hiking did that job for us. One has to enter into fort premises, wearing a traditional hat and a white belt. We were provided with both at the entrance. At the entrance, an image of Buddha greeted us. Fort is of 5 stories. An image Kamakhya Devi, which was supposed to be brought from Guwahati is installed on the upper story. The architectural style of the fort is amazing..Layers of deodar wood placed upon each other, cementing them by fine dressed stones.The view from the fort was simply stupefying. The sun was going down on West, beyond mighty Himalaya. The magnanimity of the valley that was spread over miles could be felt from the top. A hydro-electric project is there on Baspa river just outside of Sangla towards Karccham, which people over there say it a sad thing as it is obstructing the natural flow of furious Baspa. We sat there feeling the elegance of the surrounding observing slowly happening sunset. While looking at half moon, Manali said suddenly, "All half things are perfect!". And I consider this as a one of the epic quotes I have ever heard :)

Happy!!

Kamru Fort..

Sunset at Kamru Fort \m/

As we started climbing down, it was very dark. On the way, we saw some preparation was going on to celebrate something.  Upon inquiring we came to know some kind of festival was there after some time. We were fortunate to be there. As we were waiting for celebrations to start, I got a call from the driver telling that hotel owner had given our rooms to somebody else :-o Well the story behind it was just miscommunication. In the morning we left hotel with intention of trekking leaving unnecessary things at hotel, but checking out the rooms since we would be returning on the next day. But, the trek got postponed, and we informed to the hotel owner about the same. I guess some miscommunication happened in between and he thought we left for the trek and gave rooms to some other guests. To solve the problem, two of us left the festival before it had started and we somehow managed to get rooms in the other hotel. Till we return to the festival place, others were coming back. They had heard that celebration generally would turn into alcoholic one and  it was not wise to stay there. We walked from the base of the fort to he hotel in pure darkness illuminated by light of half moon :)

A traditional festival of Sangla..

We had our dinner and met our guide personally the first time to discuss the trek..He said everything was ready and we would start the trek next morning..We were told Rs. 1000/- per person for the trek (A great lesson is associated with this, in the next part). He said trek was too difficult to do in 2 days..But we forced him to make it in 2 days due to our stringent time constraints..But asked him to keep some ration for the third day for possible unforeseen events..Well we would be trying to cover 24km in two days!

We returned to the hotel settling all about the trek..A problem was waiting there. Some water fiasco happened. Rooms at the new hotel were not served with water. Everybody was tired. After some time, only one room got water supply and we had to manage with that. Tiredness of high altitude walking was enough to force us to hit the bed without a single game of cards :p  The day at amazing Chitkul and awesome evening at Kamru fort were highly exciting and wonderful. Though body was tired, my heart and mind were not! They wanted to bring more of excitement and thrill and so the trek was there waiting on the next morning :)