Woke up feeling blissfully better!

We were just enjoying a cool sunny breakfast outside the Deyzor, watching the world go, by when Anil arrived, on a motorbike! “How are you?” he asked in his characteristically direct manner.”Much better!” Said I. “Hop on!” he said, so I did! Off we went, me pillion along the street. Such fun! (Where had I been all my life?)

After breakfast we headed up to Langza, the home of Lara Tsering, through whom we had booked the whole Spiti Valley trip. At 4500m there were plenty more ‘hairy pin’ bends to negotiate en route, but we were used to that by now. The weather was bright sunny and glorious. We were looking out for ibex, but instead we’re rewarded by a glimpse of the occasional ‘blue sheep’ (not very blue)…

Langza (population 150) was a high collection of white painted mud houses, set into the barren hillside, and connected by steep dirt roads. Most were insulated overhead by a dense thatch of mud and twigs. The weather in winter would be unimaginably bitter with nothing to protect you from the wind and no cosy style western central heating!! Today it looked and felt a special place, a world apart from what we knew.

We walked up to and round the magnificent Buddha, looking out, lord of all he surveyed…

Lara was not there but his sister in law kindly invited us in to take tea. We were also shown round his house, which was quite big. One of the rooms was up a ladder! We sat cross legged on the some mats on the floor as is usual up there. Anil was served some hot food, but we had already had already eaten, so we kept him company while he gladly wolfed. There were a couple of little ones on the scene, a babe in a basket in the corner, and a toddler, who was strapped to the lady’s back while she went about her chores.

The raw remoteness of this place was somehow a force in its own right. Faces glowed. People smiled. There was just the matter of living to get on with.

Having bid our farewells to Lara’s house, we continued on our winding high altitude circuit to the village of Komic. This is the highest village in the world to be connected by road, at 4500m. There was a monastery here (4600m), which we were shown round by this lovely fellow.

Set round a courtyard, it felt more like an active monastic set up than some of the others that we had visited. A few boys were walking about in their red robes, and greeted us respectfully.

We then took some tea at a tiny cafe, where the main items on the menu seemed to be toast in various guises with either chocolate spread or peanut butter!! You would need it up there.

We took some sea buckthorn tea, it supposedly having special health giving properties. Three young motor cyclists were also there and we exchanged a few giggles and hellos.

The population of Komic was even smaller: around 100. Again my mind boggled at the tough and lonely life up there. But then maybe that is just my narrow western perception kicking in.

Next stop was Hikim, 4400m. Here we were taken into the world’s highest post office (a tiny room with one window, in a mud building) and wrote some cards home, duly stamped by the ‘post master’ who looked as surprised as we did that anyone was there. Who should we bump into again? The bikers. We were all bent over our post cards, hastily scribbled in a mild state of hypoxia.

Hikim was positively large: population 290! We had a (slow) wander round.

After all of that we headed ‘home’ and back to the Deyzor in Kaza. We had a spectacular drive down – you could see the whole of the Spiti Valley, the flood plain below and the receding snow on the Himalaya. Perhaps I shall write more about it more one day, but it was, in every sense of the word, and ‘awesome’ day.