The Road Ahead

The trip that I am undertaking with Dan is a curricular route, starting and ending at Shimla. It can be imagined like a clock face, with the Great Himalayan National Park at the centre. We are traveling anti clockwise round, starting with Shimla at about 7pm.

Shimla, the summer capital of the Raj; still the legal, Governmental, military and educational capital of Himachal Pradesh. Holiday and tourist destination for Indians and non Indians alike.

At about 6pm is Sarahan. High in a very green and fertile valley, with an excellent example of a typical Himachali temple and watch tower.

At 5pm is the Sangla valley. The main tourist town is about half way up, but Chitkul, at the end of the road is very remote, high and traditional, again with an excellent temple and tower.

Recong Peo, Kalpa and Roghee is about 4pm. Recong Peo is the administrative hq of the Kinnaur Valley and the last town where you can buy petrol, stock up on goods. Kalpa, about 6km higher on the hill is more traditional and popular with tourists - lots of wooden hotels and restaurants. Roghee is the last village on the hill, clinging to the hillside with the tenacity of one of the pines jutting out from the cliff, defying gravity.

Habitation after this dies out as you get higher into the Kinnaur and then Spiti valleys . There are no little villages or roadside stalls. The scenery changes too, turns arid, stark and devoid of life.

If you turn off the highway at 3pm you get to Nako - high in the hills the site of a 1000 year old Buddhist monastery.

Passing on through the impossible landscape, you pass through Tabo, and get to Kaza. A tourist town, filled with guesthouses, restaurants and services, but at this time of year almost completely closed.

At the very top, just before between 11 and 12, and 12 and 1, are the fearsome passes of Kunzum-La and The Rohtang. They perch like fierce, possibly malevolent, possibly generous, guardians; a brother and sister, joined by a chain of rubble and boulders that is some how called a road. Whether they deem to let you pass or halt you there is a question that can only be answered when you are there.

Heading south down the Kullu valley, at 10, there is Manali; destination of travellers, trekkers, hippies, dope smokers, party animals, enlightenment seekers, voluntary teachers and other do gooders.

Between 8 and 9 is Raju's guesthouse, Rivendell. A refuge, an oasis of ancient charm. A place to recover, to rest, to rebuild.

And then back to Shimla, and the circuit of the Himalachi Himalaya's is complete.