The Sentinels of Baspa and a Little Paradise bordering Tibet
Baspa Valley & Chitkul
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बास्पा
Onwards Baspa Valley
Few things can make a good trip go bad. One of them is losing a camera or a phone, full of the trip’s memories. Hope of getting it back coupled with Aparna’s calm optimism encouraged me to go about as we planned the next day. Much to our amusement, a local astrologer on his way to a wealthy merchant’s house, hitch hiked onto our car. He sensed our gloom and gave us some predictions in Hindi —
“Your phone slipped away from your left hand! Before dark this evening, go to the spots where you last recall having your phone, with the same people who were with you. By tomorrow morning, the moon’s position would have changed and it will be too late!”
This unexpected encounter with an interesting character, uttering positive words with eyes pinned on us from above spectacles precariously placed at the tip of his nose, fuelled our hope for the best and to focus on enjoying the journey forward. We were going from Kalpa to Chitkul. Little did we know then about the honest and lovely Kinnauri folk who would make sure that the phone reached us safely in Bangalore. You can read about our journey in Kalpa here.
Coming down the Sutlej Valley from Kalpa 2960 mts, we reached the Karcham Wangtoo Dam — one of the few hydroelectric plants here. We took a left turn from this dam and went upstream along the rougher brother of Sutlej, the Baspa river on the Sangla-Baspa Valley. Travelling through some of the deadliest and also some of the most scenic roads, we came across a small Shiva temple. It was almost hanging on a cliff at the edge of the road. The priest was a traveller from Rajkot — a city in Gujarat — who got settled in the Himalayas. He stays at this location most of the year except for the winters. For his survival, he depended on the generous help from the travellers and passers by, in exchange praying for their well being and safety return from the dangerous journey.
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The Sentinels of Baspa
31°24'22.7"N 78°19'50.2"E
As we crossed Sangla, a stretch of giant sentinels stared down at us. We were in pure awe of this place and hung around for sometime wondering how these granites must have carved out from the earth over the years inch by inch. The razor sharped giant rocks cut the moving clouds which rolled over them across giving a very surreal feel to the whole setting. We took quite a lot of pictures of the rocks from all possible angles.
There were women collecting the fresh buckwheat produce of the season. Often mistaken for flowers, its the leaves of these buckwheat which actually give parts of the valley landscape, its beautiful red patches amongst the green, brown and greys. They are not cash crops and is only used for domestic consumption.
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चिटकुल
Chitkul
31°21'04.5"N 78°26'13.3"E
Chitkul — a small village of roughly few hundred humans, yaks, cows, mules and sheep is the last settlement close to the border with Tibet. We experienced quite a few seasons here in just a matter of 2–3 hrs. First, as we entered it was almost half past three and the sun though still in the sky was hidden by the huge mountains. Soon our camera lenses were getting moist with the sudden dip in the temperature.
Most of the settlements were locals and few Bengali run guesthouses. Bengalis outnumber any tourists in the Baspa and Sutlej valleys. You can find everyone in the Bengali spectrum here — the professional nature photographer, the intellectual writer, the sunglasses wielding aunts and uncles in crowded families, and the much in love-smitten honeymooners. Not sure as to what must have started this trend. But it can be safely assumed that the travel agents and their widespread networks in Kolkata and Delhi must have a deep role. It was interesting to see how only Bengalis gained the stature of monopoly business in the travel industry here much to the distaste of the local business owners in this area.
The Indian Tibet Border Police or the ITBP and the BRO, Border Road Operations are the few of the army settlements across this region. Serving their countries in some of the harshest regions and climatic conditions. Few of the jawans we met had just a mule and few backpacks to patrol around. Some were from Haryana, some from Rajasthan and some from Odisha. The ITBP has their last post a few miles ahead from Chitkul. People doing the Kinnaur-Kailash circuit has to cross the post with permissions.
Our time in Chitkul was only for a few hours but we managed to capture the most of it with a hot and spicy bowl of maggi and ginger-cardamom tea. Standing on the glacial eroded sediments carried by the Baspa over the years, we gazed at the valley and mountains beyond. Our hearts cried to venture upstream the valley, but without proper guide, equipments and, knowledge about the terrain with the fading light, we returned. We left our footmarks on the ages old eroded sediments of the Himalayas. We wished we could stay over for a few more days.
On our way back we came across a sea of sheep returning with their owners. A heavy traffic jam was caused by this. These were the same herd that we saw grazing at Chitkul banks. Though beautiful this caused us half an hour delay. It was getting dark and with hovering grey clouds over us the conditions suddenly turned bleak. Taraji, our driver had his doubts of making it back without any adventure on the road. It started drizzling, and then raining coupled with nice winds. He kept looking for possible rocks falling from the heavens of Baspa. We had our share of luck when we just managed to escape a few hundred grams worth of rocks. Just three of us. We had to keep faith in each other, the powers of nature and ofcourse the four wheel drive machine. Taraji took us safe back to Kalpa by dinner time.
FIN
Info
Stay & Food
Many people stay in Kalpa and visit Chitkul for a day trip. We recommend staying at Chitkul for a minimum of 2 days to fully experience it. Chitkul is at a higher altitude and the tempertature dips lower than Kalpa.
