Spiti

After a couple of epic bus trips, I've made it from the green Kinnaur Valley into the dry Spiti Valley. Each place I stop at seems to be more beautiful than the last.

My first stop was Nako, a town in the transition between the two valleys.


I managed to rent a room with a local family, fantastic except that electricity and water supply were intermittent at best.


I also did some more work on my herding skills. This time it was goats and I was quite pleased with my efforts. I was on a long walk when I ran into a goatherd who insisted on carrying my bag - in return for conversation.


The walk was stunning. Incredible new views lay around each corner but after walking five hours I was hungry, thirsty and exhausted and forced myself to turn around.








I moved on from there to Dhankar - a town towering over the Spiti River with an (almost) 1,000 year old monastery stuck on a rocky outcrop. Dhankar is quite a climb from the road which travels along the bottom of the valley and I was lucky enough to get transport up.


The monastery guesthouse seemed so luxurious (snow views, delicious food and occasional hot water and electricity) that I decided to base myself there and do the rest of the valley in day trips.

It's a little village. The only guesthouse is in the monastery and the guesthouse contains the village's only shop. The monastery is also the only place to get food, which comes only at set times. I've been very content just sitting around watching the light change throughout the day.














The monastery kitchen is a fun place to hang out and I'm guaranteed to get offered a cup of Tibetan salty tea.


I also love watching the goats and sheep get driven down from the hills at the end of the day.


And then watching the locals use various methods of rounding them up. Mostly, it's the grandmas job to lure their own goats into their pens with bits of bread. This girl had a more aggressive approach.


A huge advantage of Dhankar is that there are only a couple of other tourists there each night. I've now split from my little group and a lot of the other tourists around here are particularly annoying. About half the tourists here are from one country and they have a bad reputation. I've witnessed enough unpleasant behaviour to understand why.

So this is where I turn around and head back the way I came, stopping at smaller places along the way. I'm only just over halfway through the holiday but I know the next two weeks are going to go incredibly fast! I should be back in Kinnaur and online again in about five days.