The Spiti travelogue: Part 1 - Manali

Its been over a year since I have been trying to put this post together. I am prompt with my travel posts, especially the ones that have touched me more, so why did I take so long for this one I wonder? Is it because Kaza is so close to heart, that its almost a sacred place inside me, and I secretly loathe to share it? 

Well, those thoughts apart. We are finally here. And I am writing. I started writing a detailed Spiti travelogue in my diary like 10 months back. (It’s yet to be completed and I am only half way through). This is a succinct version of the same. This is an unplanned post, in the sense that I haven’t really planned out where I will start and where to end. So bear with me.

It had been like over a year, me and spiffer had been planning a trip to Kerala. We wanted to do a monsoon roadtrip. And Kerala seemed very appealing. We hadn’t really set a time yet. When we got to the details, we narrowed down on July. Then most friends we consulted advised against heading to Kerala in July (especially with a time bound itinerary). So we searched for alternatives, and headed to the other extreme. That’s how we ended up planning for Spiti.

The planning phase began with lots of independent reading. Since he lives in Bangalore, and me in Kanpur, we had most details unplanned till about a month before. There were some more friends of mine from Bangalore who were coincidentally heading to Ladakh that time, so we got several travel tips and advisories from them. We finally settled for an unplanned trip. (Let the force guide us, we thought J ) We had a few places listed. Those were our tentative night halts.  We had our tickets booked for Delhi and then to and back from Manali. That was the only planned part of our trip. When we left from Delhi, our itinerary looked somewhat like this

Day 1 – Manali . Reach by morning. Plan for Tabo

Day 2-  Tabo. Reach by evening. Night Halt

Day 3- Roam around Tabo, head to Kaza by afternoon/evening. Halt at Kaza

Day 4 – Roam around Kaza,(Key, Kibber) Halt at Kaza/ Kibber. Plan for Chandrataal

Day 5- Trek to Chandrataal . Halt at night either at Chandrataal or Battal.

Day 6- Head back to Manali. Halt at Manali.

Day 7- Head back to Delhi.

We reached Manali on a fine cloudy morning. We had been there earlier on our college tour. So it was nostalgia. But Manali of the college trip was a snow covered heaven. So we barely recognised any places. We scourged around for a cheap decent hotel and checked in. After a heavy breakfast we headed to Solang Valley for paragliding. 

Note: There is no public transport available to head out, and one has to resort to auto-rickshaws. Haggling skills required to get a decent rate. 

We took a bumpy auto ride to the Valley. The road was under repairs at several places and BRO (Border Road Organisation, but BRO sounds way cooler) had placed many boards advising caution. Winding up to the mountains the views are beautiful. We could see a snow capped peak in the distance. But most of it had melted from the nearby peaks. The valley itself was pretty green. For most parts the road runs parallel to a stream of the Beas. The gushing water looked very appealing. As we leave the hotels and bazaars of Manali, it gets cooler and more pleasant. Then suddenly after a hair pin turn you are greeted by the crowds at Solang. Near the parking lot you can have rides on ATVs, dirt-bikes, and horses. We headed straight for the Paragliding booking counter. There are two gliding options. One is from a much smaller height (and you land down in like 5 minutes), while for the other you have to head up on the ropeway and trek a bit to reach the take-off point. We took the latter option. Going up the ropeway itself you can get a full view of the Solang Valley. We had a pilot with us, who was also carrying the gliders and safety equipment on him. We walked along a narrow shepherd path to reach the take of point, which is a small clearing on the mountain side with a slight slope for you to take a run off. We strapped the glides on. A small run off and we were in the air (we = pilot and me). During the run off I could feel butterflies in my stomach. But then I was lifted off my feet, and the gushing wind soothed it all. I felt like a bird (more like being carried by a bird J). For some time I just relaxed. It felt so light, floating in the air, as if you are weightless. The guide/pilot pointed to several spots around, the highlights being a temple on a hilltop, and a waterfall (also accessible through a trek). The winding river, flowing from the mountains, through the valley looked picture perfect from up there. I must have been in air for roughly around 15 minutes.

Note: On landing you will be surrounded by several photographers and videographers. They would have full videos of your flight. Here too you can haggle with them and get a good rate even up to about half of what they have initially demanded.

After heading back to Manali, we grabbed some lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The food was good and they served really large portions. We then took a walk around old Manali. We headed towards the Hidimba temple, and lost our way, and ended up at this beautiful Italian café called Il Forno. They serve awesome pizzas, but the best part hands down is the location.

We then came back to Manali to book a vehicle to head to Kaza. When we reached Manali, we came to know that the road was not fully repaired, and buses had not yet started plying. A private taxi was out of bounds for us, so we looked for shared taxis. Most of the local operators tried to talk us into other trips and spending longer in Manali, but when we seemed adamant, one of them asked us to go to the Kiran Hotel where the guys were affiliated to the Kaza taxi union. They had taxis plying every day, and mostly for locals. When we approached them in the morning they had told us, that the seats had been booked (we were a little disheartened then, and began looking for alternate plans, day treks etc.) But then he called in the evening and said that two seats were available.  So we (thanked the force) and rushed to the Kiran Hotel. We booked our seats. They were last row seats in a Traveller but we took those since we didn’t want to spend another day loitering in Manali. On our way back to the hotel, we picked some stationery items (crayons, pencils etc) and chocolates which we had planned to drop off at some local schools on our way in Kaza. We picked this idea from the DOW (Devil on Wheels) blog.

We had an early start the next day. The taxi was to leave at 5: 00 a.m so we crashed in bed after a long happy day.

Note: There are two routes to reach Spiti. The first one is from Manali via the Kunzum pass. The second one is via Shimla-Rampur. We felt route 1 would take us faster since we were on a tight schedule. The other route would add 2 days to our itinerary.
Manali is like a base for people traveling onwards and also insanely crowded. It has lots of traveler havens but these need to be carefully screened out from the touristy ones. Talk around. Dont necessarily trust the first guy you meet. You will find good people and definitely have a memorable stay. More on Manali to follow later.