I am sure my lungs are about to burst. My legs have turned to lead, I can’t feel my face anymore, my vision is blurred by the incessant snow fall. I’m convinced I will soon collapse on the steep mountainside with a 30-pound backpack weighing me down and die surrounded by a group of teenaged strangers. This is not how I pictured myself checking out of this world.
It was June 2017 and I was trekking through the treacherous mountains in the Spiti Valley in India at an altitude of 15,000 feet.
I first heard about Spiti while watching a truly awful Bollywood movie called Paap nearly 15 years ago. I barely remember the storyline, but never forgot the stunning landscape that formed the backdrop of the movie.
Soon after that, I finally read Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and there it was again — Spiti— ‘a world within a world, a place where the gods live’. I made a mental note to find out more and visit the valley someday. And then life took over and that note lay forgotten in the dusty archives of my mind.
It would take over a decade and traversing many different paths in my life’s journey before Spiti made a reappearance in my life. In early 2017 as I was mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed, a post about volunteering opportunities popped up. A few clicks later, the stunning landscape of Spiti was on my screen.
Piti, the Middle Land, the bridge between India and Tibet lies in the Trans-Himalayan belt, the rain shadow region of the mighty mountain range. Legend goes that many, many years ago, a group of travelers came to the Kinnaur region in Himachal Pradesh in India, in search of a new life. When the good people of Kinnaur asked them where they had come from, the newcomers gestured towards a distant place in the horizon and said – ‘Sa…piti’. ‘Sa’ means far away and ‘Piti’ means the Middle Land. Over time, this evolved to the modern name, Spiti.
Ecosphere, a social enterprise based in Spiti is the brainchild of the unassuming, and awesome Ishita Khanna, and has been working for over a decade towards environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and economic sustainability in one of the remotest regions in the world. And they were inviting volunteers to join the Greening the Desert project, that involves building a greenhouse in the local villages.
I signed up for Ecosphere’s 2-week voluntourism program for the month of June; a program that combines volunteer work with the opportunity to explore the beauty of the valley without the negative side effects of commercial tourism.
And that’s how I found myself in the midst of a snowstorm, on the mountain trail between Langza and Komic villages, struggling to breathe, with every cell in my body screaming in agony as the climb got harder and harder, imagining the end.
But…I am getting ahead of myself.
The Journey
Only two roads connect the Lahaul-Spiti Valley with the world outside —one from Shimla, and the other from Manali. Both are snowed in for six months of the year, effectively cutting the valley off from the rest of the world during the harsh winter months. It’s not the easiest place to get to. For those who live in India, the journey typically begins in Delhi. Here was my route.
- Delhi -> Shimla – 12 hours by overnight bus
- Shilma -> Kalpa (Reckong Peo District) – 9 hours by minivan or jeep through the apple-growing belt, along the Satluj river with beautiful views of the snowcapped Kinnaur Kailash range.
Kalpa is located at 9711 feet. It is advisable to break the journey overnight in Kalpa to begin acclimatizing, and of course rest those tired, rattled bones.
- Kalpa -> Kaza (District HQ of Spiti Valley) – 9 hours by minivan through treacherous mountain roads, as the Satluj meets the Spiti river and the lush green Himalayas give way to the harsh, cold desert terrain of the Trans-Himalayan region.
In my case, prefix that with a 20-hour flight from San Francisco to Delhi.
Note: All transportation arrangements were made by Ecosphere.
The World within the World…
“At last they entered a world within a world—a valley of leagues where the high hills were fashioned of the mere rubble and refuse from off the knees of the mountains…. surely the Gods live here” – Rudyard Kipling in Kim
Brown is the new black! As the minivan carrying us motley group of volunteers enters the Hangrang valley near the Indo-Tibetan border, the landscape changes dramatically. This is the meeting point of the Spiti river from India with the Khap river flowing in from Tibet. The two meet below a bridge known as the Satluj Sangam, and become the mighty, torrential Satluj that’s the lifeblood of the Kinnaur region. I look up to see that we are surrounded by massive barren brown mountains, with not a single shrub in sight.
Spiti Valley is a cold, mountain desert. Not much grows out there. During our journey, the summer sun mercilessly beats down upon the surface of the mountains melting the snow and baking the ground into a brittle crust. The dirt roads are gravelly, narrow and dangerous. Our van driver merrily veers along the chasm, singing Himachali songs to himself. The curves just keep coming.
The Spiti River in early June is a brown sludge as the first snowmelt flows down the valley carrying with it the mud and dirt of the winter past. Just about now, cellphone reception starts to get spotty and eventually disappears completely. Spiti is almost completely off the grid. BSNL is the only cellphone service provider that operates up to Kaza. Internet is just that magical thing you hear about from visiting tourists.
As our van rattles (there’s just no other way of describing the journey) onwards towards Kaza, the headquarters of the Ecosphere office, and the main ‘big town’ in the valley, I am silently praying for this journey to end. The long flight, the jet lag, the multiple road trips, the altitude and the rough journey along the abyss are catching up with me.
And then suddenly the Spiti valley unfolds. Despite the desolate, rocky landscape in fifty shades of brown, there is a beauty to the starkness that even my foggy brain can appreciate. The stillness of the canyons dotted with scattered stupas, mani stones (sacred stone plates), centuries-old monasteries perched on crags, and prayer flags swaying in the gentle breeze transport you back in time. To a place that is still largely untouched by industrialization, where technology means very little, and where the residents still retain a certain innocence and naïveté, uncorrupted by urbanization.
Finally, around 6 in the evening on the third day after we left Delhi, we arrive in Kaza. As I get down from the van, I feel the impact of the 12467 feet altitude we are at. San Francisco, where I live, is at 52 feet altitude. That’s quite the change for my body, and brain.
Altitude Sickness Tips
- Start taking altitude sickness tablets such as Diamox at least 2-3 days before your journey.
- Hydrate. Hydrate. I can’t stress upon this enough. That’s the only thing that’s going to help you through the extreme conditions your body will experience during your stay.
- Once you arrive, get something to eat, slow down and don’t go to sleep immediately.
- Don’t try to start walking around and exploring. Your body needs time to adjust to the mountain air.
- If you arrive during the day, sleep only at night.
The next morning, after a 13-hour sleep of the dead, I am ready to begin what I came here to do. At least, mentally I am. My body is struggling with the altitude. I am constantly out of breath like I have been running a marathon. The smallest task has me gasping like I am drowning. Apparently, fitness has nothing to do with how your body reacts to altitude. It’s a combination of physiology and genetics. My South Indian ancestors probably never left the plains of Tamilnadu, so their bodies didn’t need to evolve to have bigger lung capacity. The locals tell me it will take a couple days for my body to adjust. I pray they are right.
The Project
Much has changed in Spiti since Kipling’s time. Despite the claims of America’s 45th, climate change is real and if you need any evidence of it, it’s right here in Spiti Valley.
Winters here are some of the harshest in the world with temperatures dropping to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit). The 6-month long winter brings heavy snowfall blocking the only two mountain passes that serve as entry points to the valley. Locals have no way of receiving supplies during winter and must stock up on essentials like fuel (gas & yak dung) & food supplies, which consist primarily of Tsampa, a local barley flour. During the winter months, their diets can consist almost solely of this dry tsampa powder mixed with water to create a porridge or bread.
The nearly 12,000 residents of Spiti eke out a living by farming a single type of barley and green peas as cash crops, the only two that can survive these extreme weather conditions.
Since the valley is in the Himalayan rain shadow region, local farmers do not depend on rainfall for their irrigation needs. The glacier snowmelt every spring and summer flows down the valley and is directed through kulhs (water channels) to the fields. During my visit in the first week of June, the planting season was in full swing with women in colorful headscarves working in the fields. It was interesting to learn that only women work the fields in traditional Spitian families, while the men take care of the children and the household.
The Spitian diet is quintessentially rustic and robust, meant to keep them warm and fuel their work in the fields. It primarily comprises of meat and barley. During summer months, vegetables are trucked in from Shimla or Manali and typically take 2 days to get to Spiti. This not only makes them more expensive, it increases their carbon footprint exponentially.
Ecosphere has developed greenhouses using traditional building methods of the mountain community to enable locals to cultivate vegetables not only in the summers but also in the winters. In the last 10 years, Ecosphere has built nearly 200 greenhouses in many Spitian villages that popularly grow spinach, coriander, mint, radish, potatoes and onions. These have contributed to better health for the locals, reduction in emissions, and provided many families with an additional source of income.
I was part of a team of 8 volunteers — 6 schoolboys from Gwalior sent by the school as part of their community outreach program, and a lecturer from Delhi University, who would become my soul sister in the two weeks that followed.
We were going to be based in Pangmo village, about an hour from Kaza where we were to build the Greenhouse.
Under the Starry sky…
Pangmo is a tiny hamlet perched on the edge of a valley at 13000 feet and home to 28 households, and a Buddhist nunnery. Typically, visitors to Spiti can stay in local guesthouses or Homestays in the villages, but Pangmo is so tiny, it has neither.
So, we pitched our alpine tents on a bare patch of land next to the home of our hosts Namka and Tiki, overlooking a valley through which the Spiti River flows. We were provided with sleeping bags with fleece liners.
We were to have all our meals in the host’s home and use the traditional Spitian dry compost toilet outside. That took some getting used to.
The dry composting toilets are double-storied structures often built away from the main house. The first floor has a hole in the middle and mud, straw and a shovel on the side. Look down the hole (as I did, rather compulsively) and all you’ll see is a muddy mound. That’s because after every use, one has to throw in a couple of shovels of mud and straw. These mix with the waste to reduce odour and enable quicker decomposition. This mix of waste, mud and straw, lies on the ground floor for six months or so, and its well-placed vents allow for full ventilation. In this time, the dry, thin air of Spiti renders down the waste, destroys harmful viruses like salmonella and converts the mixture into usable manure.
The village is tiny. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, its 192 residents comprise simple farming folk and a group of nuns. Mountain goats, cows, and donkeys are part of almost every household. The villagers were curious about the city visitors and as we took a walk around the village, they kept walking up to us waving out a friendly ‘Julley’, the Spitian greeting for Hello and Goodbye! Little kids playing outside followed us around and attempted to show off the English they’ve been learning at the village school.
I am certain time stopped here eons ago. As the sun sets, the winds pick up and so does the chill. The summers here are interesting. The days are hot and dry. The nights are cold and windy. By dusk, I had to bundle up in 3 layers to stop the cold from getting to my bones. After a simple dinner of Dal, rice and roti with the host, we returned to our tents to retire for the night. It’s pitch dark out there, and deathly quiet.
Electricity supply is intermittent, and many residents have turned to solar lights. As we crawled into our tent, I realized I was going to be sleeping under the stars at 13000 feet in sub-zero temperatures! That first night was scary. The wind picked up speed and shook our tent constantly. The donkeys would randomly start braying in the middle of the night and as the wind carried it, they sounded like howling banshees. I didn’t think I was going to get any sleep, but eventually jet lag and fatigue kicked in and I was out.
My eyes opened at the crack of dawn to the sound of Buddhist chanting wafting across the valley from the nunnery on the other side of the village. The nuns use a loudspeaker system for their morning prayers and this also serves as an alarm clock for the residents. I sat up on my sleeping bag and was greeted by the most glorious sight of the valley over the Spiti river from the window of our tent.
It was breathtaking. For the next 10 days that we spent there, that experience of waking up to the soothing sounds of the chanting and the view made up for any discomfort from the night before.
The Greenhouse
On day 4, we were finally going to begin work on the greenhouse. The main construction material is mud. Given the remoteness of the region, the altitude, and the treacherous terrain, it is a challenge to bring any of the usual construction related heavy machinery up here. So, we work with what we have. Tons and tons of mud, and good old-fashioned gardening spades, mud pans and old flour sacks. All the work has to be done by hand.
There are three main areas of action. The first one is where all the mud required for the construction has been deposited. This is where mud is first mixed with water drawn from a source nearly 100 meters away. Dry mud is mixed with wet mud to form a pasty consistency. This is then carried manually to the second site where bricks are formed using a tin mould. The third is the actual construction site where a professional mason has already prepared the foundation for the greenhouse before our arrival.
Our volunteer group is divided into three – Mud Mixers, Mud Carriers, Brick Makers. Ecosphere has also hired two daily wage laborers, one from Bihar and one from Nepal, who come to Spiti each year to escape their harsh summers to make a living. These two guys help us city-softened volunteers with the more challenging tasks.
On the first day, I was in the brick-making group. The target is to make 450 bricks over the next 3 days. This is backbreaking work requiring constant squatting, twisting, and kneeling. Also, altitude isn’t my friend. I am constantly breathless and need to sit back every few minutes. I am amazed at the energy and adaptability of the 16-year-old boys who are laughing and running around playing in the mud!
Over the next few days, I alternated between mid-mixing and mud carrying and learnt to appreciate the hard labor that goes into the simple structures we take for granted. I feel like my lungs are filled with mud despite a scarf tied around my nose. My clothes are caked in mud splatters, my hair is dry and brittle and covered in a fine layer of dust despite a protective scarf. Taking a full bath is a luxury. Every 2-3 days our host pulls out a traditional Indian hammam that uses firewood and heats up one pail of water every 10-15 minutes. There are 8 volunteers, our guide, and the host family, and all of us are usually covered in varying degrees of construction dirt every single day.
These are days when I am reminded of the privileges I have grown up with. Running water with hot and cold options, electricity, access to fresh vegetables, modern amenities that I take for granted.
Each evening, we stop construction at 5 pm and wash up with half a pail of freezing cold water. After an hour or so, dinner is served. Most evenings, I am just way too tired after dinner to sit around chatting and am usually back in the tent by 8pm, ready to collapse. It was no wonder I was waking up with the roosters every morning.
And yet, strangely, this is the most satisfying thing I’ve ever experienced.
As the greenhouse takes shape over the next few days, I am learning more about Spiti, its wonderful people, their rich culture steeped in Buddhist history, their ingenuity, their hopes and dreams for their children in the shadow of the constant struggle for survival. Yet, they love their mountains, its fresh air, its peaks and valley and this is their home, a place most would never leave.
Kipling was right. The Gods surely must have lived here once, but I have a feeling they left a long time ago, leaving behind only the stark beauty and none of the functionality.
Exploring the Mountains
After 5 days of construction, we have the opportunity to go deeper into the valley. This is the beauty of “Voluntourism”. You get to see and experience a new place, while being able to contribute in some small way to the local communities as a way of expressing your gratitude. Commercial tourism is all about take, take, take….but responsible tourism such as this one is a symbiotic give and take relationship.
Kunga, our guide from Ecosphere comes from the village of Komic, the highest village in the world accessible by a motorable road. He knows every mountain trail, and every hidden crevice in the hills. For the next three days, we experience the real Spiti and its traditional hospitality as we visited the villages of Langza, Komic, Hikkim, Demul and Dhanker and stay with the locals. Many villages participate in the Homestay programs set up by Ecosphere as a way of supplementing their livelihood. In 2016, when Spiti faced a severe water crisis, many farmers experienced crop failures. The Homestay program turned out to be a lifesaver as that was their only remaining source of income.
In those three unforgettable days, I experienced more and learnt more about myself than I ever have in all these years.
I trekked up and down mountains in pouring rain and snowfall, harsh sun and heavy winds, prayed at a sacred Buddhist site at 16800 feet altitude, visited the highest post office in the world, took a pottery lesson from the last surviving potter in the village of Langza, rode a Yak from the village of Komic to Demul, visited a number of ancient monasteries and interacted with the resident Llamas, had tea and biscuits with young teenage nuns at a local nunnery, and of course drank the highly potent local arrack which is brewed in almost every home as a means to stay warm in the cold nights.
I was truly out of my comfort zone and learning that I can adapt, and not just survive, but thrive. Our bodies (and minds) are capable of doing a lot more than we think, but we often never find out. It’s only by facing inconvenience, discomfort, and pain that we learn to exceed our assumed thresholds.
I didn’t collapse on that mountainside after all. Kunga, our guide magically appeared by my side and held me as I tried to gulp down the thin mountain air and steady my legs. He handed me what looked like weeds he pulled out from the trail but turns out it was snow mountain garlic which helps with altitude sickness. I sat there on the rocks with the snow falling on my face, chewing a pungent weed, while my body slowly found its equilibrium. Ten minutes later, I was back on the climb.
The Finale
Back in Pangmo after the amazing adventures around the valley, we are ready to put the finishing touches to the greenhouse. While we’ve been away the host family and the locals have incorporated the mud bricks into the mud walls and the main structure is almost ready. The next 3 days involve strengthening the structure, plastering, roofing and painting. By now, the team has developed a certain bond and it’s a lot more fun as we eagerly work towards completing the greenhouse.
On the last day, as I am on the rooftop painting the door of the roof hatch, I look around me at the village from my vantage point. Everything looks different from up here. The mountains seem closer, the river looks like a silvery web flowing through the valley, and the houses in the village look like Lego blocks. I breathe in the moment and send up a prayer of gratitude and appreciation for this experience.
It is a proud moment for all of us, when the head of the local monastery comes to inaugurate our little greenhouse. As he unveiled the signboard with the names of the volunteers and cut a ceremonial ribbon at the door of the greenhouse I’d painted just a few hours ago, it was an emotional moment. This is what we came here to do and now our work is done here. But a little piece of us will always remain here.
In the last two weeks, I have learnt that happiness has many different shades. The residents of Spiti have very little in terms of resources, but they have something that many of us struggle to find every day in our enriched city lives— genuine human connections and interaction, being present without digital distractions, an expanded consciousness of the world and the very real and meaningful impact of what you spend your time doing.
In the big city, my cell phone is my constant companion. I am on it all the time, reading, working, chatting, facebooking….. Before I got to Spiti I was wondering how I would survive living off the grid. Turns out it is not that hard. When you have something to do, you don’t need your phone as a crutch. Whenever we were free of construction duties, I spent that time just wandering around, talking to locals, taking photos, and sometimes just thinking. When you are forced to live distraction free, your thoughts start getting clearer and crisper.
There was no thunderbolt-from-heaven moment, but it’s more a mellow kind of realization that I am ok with being alone with my thoughts and they make sense.
Would I do this again?
Definitely. What Ishita and Ecosphere are doing in Spiti is remarkable. Commercial tourism focuses only on the positive economic impact, without taking into consideration the negative social, cultural and environmental impact. Ecosphere on the other hand helps local communities create sustainable means of living through its many projects, volunteerism being just one of them.
These two weeks have made me see that there is an entire community in my country that’s so cut off from the rest of the country, it has more in common with Tibet than with India. People here live a life that’s hard, tough and unforgiving. Their only source of modern entertainment is TV. I noticed Tata Sky has made deep inroads into Spiti Valley with dish antennas up in most homes in all the villages I visited.
Being able to go to a movie, or a restaurant, something we take for granted in the city is incomprehensible to folks here. Their days revolve around the fields, the cattle, the home and preparing for the long winter. (Winter is coming would be a very real phrase here). They have very little by way of possessions, but they share freely and always welcome strangers with a steaming cup of tea and a curiosity about life in the plains.
To anyone, who is seeking an unforgettable experience in one of the most beautiful places on the planet and is looking to do something meaningful while at it, I highly recommend checking out the options offered by Ecosphere in beautiful Spiti.
