Into The Vastness: Driving Through Spiti’s Stark Beauty And Sacred Stillness

There is no dearth of destinations to travel to. Most people like travelling to different places on different occasions. I, on the contrary, do not mind revisiting places that appeal to my senses. When I say I am going to Spiti, some of my friends react in one word: "Again?"

As a traveller, when one frequently revisits a place, it invariably connotes a deeper connection. It indicates a strong association with certain aspects of geography or culture. In the last one and a half decade, I have visited Spiti six times and yet I am not bored of it. I can go there again and again.

Romance and travel operate on a paradox. Irrespective of how you approach Spiti, it feels similar yet different. It is different not merely because of its geographical variations, but because things change each day, each hour, each minute. Those who are in love with the expansive barrenness of mountains know how moving clouds and their stark shadows alter the mood of the rough terrain throughout the day. The same stretch looks vastly different as lighting conditions and shadow-structures keep altering—all day. 

To be in Spiti or in Ladakh is to sense a series of perennial transformations and interplays. To do Spiti is to immerse oneself in an immense vastness and intense activity of nature.

It is live. It is cinematic. It is saturated. It is contrasting. It is sensual. And it is otherworldly.

Hence, I have always found it utterly meaningless to make Spiti destination-centric. Spiti is not about a specific point. In a narrative, usually there are protagonists and supporting casts. In Spiti, it is difficult to tell who holds the show. Is it the mountains, the cloud formations, their shadows, or the supreme source of light and energy—the Sun? Who are we to judge? 

Spiti is all about stretches. I often keeping driving back and forth in these spectacular stretches between Nako and Chango; the confluence of Pin and Spiti seen from the climb to Dhankar Monastery; Kaza and Key; winding routes to Langza, Hikkim, Komic and Kibber; Kaza to Mud; Losar and Kaza; Losar and Chicham; the descent from Kunzum and the first vast view of the Spiti Valley.  

Each time I have visited Spiti since 2011, the charm of these stretches has only intensified. I associate these stretches with certain unique and mesmerising geographical traits. I have explored them on public buses during my first visit and in hired taxis in the subsequent three visits, and in my Thar in the last two visits. The mode of transport definitely threw different kinds of hardships but it did not make much difference to the rugged beauty of the terrain.  

In 2022, I drove to Spiti on my fifth visit. Recently, I completed my sixth visit in June this year. It was a different sensation altogether. Earlier, as a passenger, I used to wonder: how is it even possible to negotiate the terrain and its upheavals? While driving, one lives through the bumps, rolls through the turns and navigates the narrow margins. That is why, as a driver, I have always disliked invisible bonnets. 

Spiti can be approached either from Shimla or Manali—though that happens to be a much longer route. Several tourists arriving from Shimla-Peo-Sangla halt in Nako, which is a high-altitude freshwater lake. One gets to view the first major barren vastness during the stretch that precedes Nako while climbing from Khab. Here, the river Sutlej meets the river Spiti, and there after it is a steep winding climb that gives one sudden sense of elevation, vastness and arid landscape. That glimpse magnifies into something grand in the stretch between Nako and Chango, as one sees the river Spiti meandering like a tiny turquoise ribbon amidst various shades of brown and ochre.

The Pin Valley is green—greener than any other stretch of Spiti. There are several habitations in Mud, Sangam, Kungri, Tailing and in other villages. Distance, solitude, silence, remoteness defines some of these villages. They are still untouched by an aggressive consumerist spree that can cover an entire mountain in no time.

Villages in Spiti do not aim to provide any respite to those tourists who demand fancy facilities and want all possible forms of domestic comfort to be recreated wherever they go. Living is minimal here but the views are extravagant.

I avoid staying in Kaza, which is very crowded. Why waste time in a town when it is surrounded by some of the highest habitations with motorable roads around? Komic (4,587 m), Langza (4,420 m), Kibber (4,270 m), Hikkim (4,200 m with world’s highest post office)—all offers scenic sensations by day and stargazing by the night.

Driving from one of these villages to another feels like driving on a plateau guarded by snow peaks. Like playing your favourite tracks in a loop, I keep hopping from one village to the other—not in search of any specific destination but lazily absorbing the pastoral dunes, the agrarian activities, people and their everyday life.

The widest view of the valley can be found as you descend from Komic and move towards the Key Monastery. I stop the car, step down and stand for long—looking in all directions and not knowing where to look or focus. Thankfully, we are gifted with a capacity called deep focus.

Downwards from the cluster of villages towards Kaza on the left takes you towards Tabo (which has the oldest monastery of this region and a museum). Driving straight will take us towards Losar and eventually towards the Kunzum pass. On the right, there is the Key Monastery and the remote village of Chicham. Length, width, height and depth converse with each other as the network of intricate river veins nourish the scattered green patches of vegetation in an otherwise arid and extreme landscape.

Above is the view from the rooftop of Key Monastery at 4,166 m over sea level. It is the largest monastery in the region with a rich history of survival, demolition and revival. Here, greenery has its ways of germinating, growing and surviving anywhere after ruthless struggle with extreme climatic conditions.

I wonder why we had to settle so high. Was it the human ambition, in search of a secure corner, or the desire for detachment from the rest of civilisation that drove our ancestors so high centuries ago? We cannot take a guess from a distance. What we know for sure is the presence of the dramatic sky above and a carpet of green below—completing the cycle of enigma that we choose to spell as Spiti.

Geography was my favourite subject in school, not because my mother taught the subject but because I was denied the permission to play as a kid. That's why I was lured by the idea of an atlas, which was my only window to the world outside.

Spiti is a geography lesson at every turn and I re-live that experience every time I revisit. Like a simulation, Spiti is more real than the real. Therefore, it is worth revisiting. The exceptional stretch from Kaza to Losar will surprise you with strange landmasses and rock formations.

Who knows what the above structures are, if at all they have a name or lineage, or any aesthetic or vindictive agenda. Ice, sun and wind must have crafted them rudely over the centuries. They were there before we were born and they will outlive us. We can merely witness and appreciate the elaborate works of unfamiliar erosion as we drive from Kaza to Losar.

These formations may halt you, haunt you, shiver and shudder you. Yet, it could be an alluring object of admiration. 

Chicham is mostly known for Asia’s highest hanging bridge. Most tourists visit Chicham after ticking off the Key Monastery on their itinerary. Rarely do they approach it from Losar; an unfortunate undertaking because no other stretch in Spiti is as spectacular.

Fortunately, we are not exposed to such hues, textures, tonalities and expansiveness in our everyday lives. Suddenly, you are endowed with the power and pleasure of a bird's-eye view when you are in Spiti. The landscape makes you feel terribly small and utterly insignificant. Spiti makes you recall its body and demands a revisit like a lover longing for "one more time." I'm neither a lover nor an admirer of the mushy green, so Spiti fuels my craving for rugged, barren, deserted beauty. 

The stretch between Losar to Chicham, particularly in the late afternoon feels like an alien set from a different planet. Strong and slanted ray of sun enhances the elaborate work of erosion even further. In this stretch, there are wide river beds, intricate flows, patchy marshes, multicoloured rocks, roads of human intervention embedded in extreme elevation. Combined efforts of ice, water and air have tirelessly sculpted something for which there is no proper adjective. There is a proper noun perhaps—Spiti. 

The descent from Kunzum is where Spiti ends or begins—depending on your approach. If you have entered the valley from Nako and are going towards Kunzum, this is the point where the climb for Kunzum starts. If you have come via Manali, this is the opening view of Spiti, where suddenly the landscape expands to a wider view and greener pastures. Like all good things, all trips come to an end. But the journey is always an ongoing one. 

The movement from the windward to the leeward side is also a journey from the arid to the moist, from the ochre to the green, from the high flying clouds to the low diving ones. So much of the difference between this and that side of the range alters the mood of the driver. Crossing Kunzum—one of the highest and treacherous motorable passes—leads one towards Manali, unless one chooses to enter Lahaul.  

Beauty is a basic pleasure. Beauty is an allure; a physical attraction—a matter of consumption. Beauty does not reside "within" or on the "surface" of the space or object, but in the beholder’s vision. It lies in my experience of seeing that beauty in anything or anybody.

The short stretch between Jispa and Darcha before the mighty Baralacha La pass stands tall with similar Spiti-like splendours but with a slightly soothing terrain. The bridge in Darcha is the longest bridge of Himachal Pradesh on river Bhaga. Soon after the bridge the road bifurcates. One goes towards Leh and another towards Zanskar Valley. 

In Spiti, the predominance of an all-encompassing arid beauty belittles every other creature—no matter how large or how cunning they are. Aesthetics of the landscape reign; life seems so insignificant.

How miniscule is a 70-year lifespan when compared to the mighty seven crore years of Himalayan rise?

Sreedeep Bhattacharya is a sociologist at Shiv Nadar University. He is an avid driver who loves revisiting the Ladakh range.