Following the Old Hindustan Tibet Road

Being an account of our "discovery" of the pleasures of the old Hindustan-Tibet Road

It is early October, the monsoon clouds have finally disappeared, and we are off on a relaxed family driving holiday to the beautiful Sutlej and Baspa Valleys in Himachal Pradesh, with two weeks in hand. The National Highway (NH-22) that goes all the way from Shimla to the far corners of Kinnaur and then heads north into Spiti, provides the access to all the places we want to visit and will be our constant companion. Intrigued by fleeting references to an old Hindustan-Tibet road that heads in the same direction as the National Highway but with a different alignment, I also have a plan to check out this road, but this I keep close to my chest.

Sarahan is our first two-day halt. I am keen to introduce my family to more strenuous physical activity than the usual morning and evening strolls around the hotel. After some probing, our hotel manager gives us directions for a trail that goes all the way up to Wangtu that is over 45 km by the highway. We intend to walk along this trail for a few hours keeping enough time for the return before dark.

Shrikhand Mahadev Peak seen from Sarahan

The trail starts from within the gates of a Sashastra Seema Bal camp, about 3 km from the famous Bhima Kali temple in Sarahan. Magpies in beautiful plumage dart about the Apple trees that stretch on both sides of the road. At the gate of the camp crowded with colorful signs extolling the detachment, a polite Havildar allows us to pass through after a query, with a farewell handshake.

The road is initially a jeep track. After we break out from the camp area, the path hugs a mountain range to our right while to the left, is the valley where after a while, Sutlej is visible, far below. We cross a group of children from a village named Humtu going to school - two girls and a boy, rosy cheeked and obviously lacking the guile of city children. They smile when we claim that we are walking to Wangtu. When we hear the name of the next village, Hemtu, it is our turn to smile.

Sutlej from the Sarahan-Wangtu trail

The jeep road ends abruptly at a waterfall cascading down the mountain. A single wobbly plank bridges the stream, just before it falls over the steep hillside. Across the stream, falling rocks and mud have obliterated the road just where it would have turned the corner around the mountain face and I begin to think that this is the end of the road for us. Once I actually get on the rocks, I see the path around the bend and things look better. After I cross the stream and rock fall several times back and forth, it begins to look easy and my family gains enough courage to follow. We have crossed our first hurdle.

The trail we are on is part of an ancient route, going back several centuries, that linked the capital of the Bushahr kingdom (which encompassed the present day district of Kinnaur), Rampur and its summer capital Sarahan with its eastern territories and Tibet.

I later read the journal of British surveyor and explorer Alexander Gerard who traversed this route in 1817 (just 2 years after Bushahr came under British control), and the account of adventurer Andrew Wilson who covered the same route in 1873. It is between these two visits that this trade route became known as the Hindustan-Tibet road. The British, it seems, were keenly interested in Tibet, and Alexander Gerard, among others, attempted to enter Tibet several times under the guise of exploration. This interest was perhaps the motivation for the British to widen and improve this road in the 1850’s to make it suitable for riding. The work was carried out using conscripted labor under a system labeled begari under which villagers were compelled to provide services to the British at very low fixed wages. By this time, the British settlement at Shimla had become the summer residence of the Governor General. The road now connected British Shimla through Narkanda and Kotgarh with the Bushahr capital Rampur and then followed the old Bushahr trail towards Tibet.

NH-22 and the old Hindustan-Tibet Road

Andrew Wilson describes the road he traversed in 1873 in these words: 

“The cut bridle-path, which has been dignified by the name of "The Great Hindusthan and Tibet Road," that leads along the sides of the hills from Simla to the Narkanda Ghaut, and from Narkanda up the valley of the Sutlej to Chini (now Kalpa) and Pangay (now Pangi), is by no means so exasperating as the native paths of the inner Himalaya. It does not require one to dismount every five minutes…..Nevertheless, the cut road, running as it often does without any parapet, or with none to speak of, and only seven or eight feet broad, across the face of enormous precipices and nearly precipitous slopes, is even more dangerous for equestrians than are the rude native paths.”

Walking along an enormous precipice, we certainly are. Once clear of the stream and the rock fall, the path becomes quite narrow for a bit, a ledge cut into the sheer rock face of the mountain. Far below, the Sutlej appears as an emerald green streak flecked with white where boulders lie 

  

in its path. Across the valley in the distance to the north are the snow peaks separating the Sutlej valley from the Pin and Parvati valleys. The sky is azure blue with cotton wool clouds. Now a little hamlet – a maze of houses with tin roofs in the midst of green – appears in view. We cross a pack of mules returning after depositing their load. From Sarahan the trail passes through several villages - Chaura, Taranda, and Nichar - to descend to the Sutlej at Wangtu. However, tempting as it is walk until we reach at least the first of these, our time is up, and we must turn back. Clouds have begun to form and radiate outwards from the snow peaks. We stop to have our packed lunch sitting on a natural stone seat with a grandstand view of the Sutlej from 4000 or 5000 ft above and then make our way back slowly. Just as we reach 

NH-22 at the Sutlej gorge before Wangtu

the outskirts of Sarahan, we see the same schoolchildren, with apple on their cheeks, that we saw on our way out, this time on their way home. The same sweet smile appears on their faces when we tell them that we are returning from Wangtu. By the time we reach our hotel, we have been out six hrs and trekked 18 km today – by no means a mean distance for a metro family. Next day, driving to Wangtu along NH-22, it becomes clear why the old route is located high up while the highway is only a few hundred feet above the river. Sutlej forms a deep gorge here with sheer rock rising vertically up from its left bank. NH-22 has been made by blasting a ledge in the hard rock; the old track to Kinnaur sticks to gentler forested slopes at a height.

The next opportunity we have to explore another part of the Hindustan Tibet Road is at Kalpa. After crossing the Sutluj at Wangtu, the old road ascends on the other side to a height of 9000 ft and then winds around through Roghi and Kalpa. We wake up early and start from Kalpa towards Roghi. The road is motor able; however, we elect to walk. The first part of the walk is through Apple orchards, the trees laden with fruit mostly the red variety. To our left, the magnificent peaks of the Kinner Kailash range rising to 20,000 ft, keep us constant company. Leaving the village behind, the walk takes us through a beautiful forest of pine.

We pass a mountain stream coming down from heights above. I spot a white capped water redstart hopping on the rocks near the stream. There are no habitations visible above and we fill our water bottles with Himalayan mineral water. Where the road takes a curve around a mountain fold, we can see Sutlej almost vertically below us.

Kalpa village from the old Hindustan-Tibet road

Apple orchards and children in school uniform playing cricket on the road announce the arrival of Roghi village. Alexander Gerard records in 1817 that Roghi had about 20 houses. Nearly two centuries later, Roghi does not appear to be much larger. There is only one shop in the village where one can get a cup of tea. It is the height of the apple season and the workers – invariably Nepali - are busy picking the fruit or sorting and packing it in cartons. Men in Kinnauri caps - with the green band - are counting cartons being loaded in trucks for transport, mostly to Delhi. Beyond Roghi, the trail gets rough and starts climbing. One of us is already sporting a swollen ankle – so we decide to head back. The trek down to the Sutlej must be left for a future trip.

On the way back, we look at the Shivling, a pillar of rock reported to be 79 ft high on top of one of the lesser peaks of the Kinner Kailash range, that the locals have helped us identify. Through the binoculars, the pillar is gleaming gold. As we set out this morning, it was black. Sporting different colors at different times of the day is part of the lore associated with the Shivling.

Children of Kalpa posing

The ancient trade route to Tibet goes past Kalpa to Pangi, Pooh, and Namgya – the last major Indian village on the route – then crosses the Shipki La to Shipki village in Tibet. In the heyday of trade, Chini village (present day Kalpa) served as the gateway to Tibet and the British meticulously recorded the value of exports and imports here. The war with China in 1962 sounded the death knell of trade through Shipki La, which has not recovered even after the formal opening of the route for trade in the early 1990’s. Another effect of the war has been the development of the new road, the NH-22 which has allowed us to drive down here.  But Kalpa is as far as we go. 

Next morning, a couple of Kinnauri women hitch a ride with us while we drive down from Kalpa to NH-22 on the Sutlej. In conversation, they add the descriptor Khacchar rasta (Mule path) to the Hindustan-Tibet road. 

A few days later, on our return journey to Shimla, we get a chance to traverse a third portion of the Hindustan-Tibet road. This time, we are traveling from Sarahan towards Rampur but instead of descending to catch the National Highway at Jeori, we head towards Gaura. We are on a beautiful but narrow motor able road that hugs to the mountain on its left and follows a level contour around the folds of the mountain unmindful of the extra distance to the destination. 

A village just off the Sarahan-Gaura road

British era engineering is very much in evidence in the meticulous paving of the hill sides to prevent land slides. There is no traffic but for the occasional passenger bus. The road touches little hamlets with quaint names such as Kinnu and Mashnu on the way to Gaura. Waterfalls abound by the roadside. At one spot, we maneuver our car under water falling in a roadside shower to get a free car wash. We drive slowly absorbing the scenery, stopping often to capture the image, of a narrow trellis bridge spanning a deep gorge, a picturesque village on the hillside, of birds that do not fly by in the city. 

The descent to Rampur is steep with hairpin bends and offers dramatic views of the Sutlej valley in the waning light. This is a road less traveled, but all the more satisfying for it.