Spiti Valley (day 1-3)

From Manali we took a jeep and went in 7 days to Shimla through the Spiti and Kinnaur valley. The Spiti valley is famous for its landscape and the Tibetan influence.

DAY 1:
We left Manali at 6 o'clock in the morning by jeep with 2 German and a driver. A total of about 200 km were waiting of us to get to Kaza in the Spiti valley and this on a mainly unpaved road which finally was a quite bumpy experience. On the way to Kaza we had to pass 2 mountain passes, the first one (Rohtang Pass) has an altitude of 3978 meters (photo 1) and the 2nd one, the 45551 meters high Kunzum Pass. Between the 2 passes we drove through the Lahaul valley with its desert like landscape (photo 2 and 3). Near the Kunzum pass we went on a 2 hour (return) walk to the Chandraltal Lake (altitude 4250 meters, photo 4). At this height, it's quite hard to walk, oxygen pressure is very low, but we arrived to the lake and had a nice view of the surrounding mountains (photo 5). Also Fredi was very happy to see the lake, however the water was so cold that he preferred to stay away.
After a long drive we finally arrived at 8 p.m. in Kaza (3600 meters), the main (small) town in the Spiti valley.



DAY 2:
After a good, but cold night, we went on a day trip to Kibber, altitude 4205 meters, which is (at least it's said) the highest village in the world with road access and permanent electricity. The Tibetan houses in this village are very nice and people put branches on the roofs (photos 1-4). Well, Fredi was a bit disappointed, he could find any colleagues, he only met cows, goats, sheeps and a kind of chamois.
Afterwards we continued to another village, Tasigang (4270 meters), with only a couple of houses (photo 5). On the way we saw and met many local people (photo 6). From the nearby Gete village we had a walk downhill (very steep, photo 7, monastery is visible on the left hand side) to the Ki monastery. This Tibetan monastery is quite big, but the location of it is much better, like a fortress on a small hill above the river (photo 8 and 9).



DAY 3:
After another night in Kaza we went by jeep to a viewpoint (photo 1) from where we had a nice view of small Kaza below, the Spiti valley and the surrounding mountains, covered of snow. Then we went to Hikkim village, (photo 2) where we met local people (3 and 4). Finally we drove up to the Komic monastery, situated on an altitude of nearly 4600 meters! The monastery wasn't very interesting, but with the monks we had a funny and exhausting volleyball game (photo 5). A bit below is Langza Village, where we had a nice walk through the houses and could see how people work (photo 6). This village has a nice location just in front of big, white mountain (photo 7).