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.

Festivity in Chitkul

Deccan Herald Sunday Edition has published an edited version of my piece on Chitkul here. The original is reproduced below.

Getting to Chitkul has not been easy.

Chitkul is the furthest village one can reach by road up the valley of the Baspa, a river that originates in a glacier near the border with Tibet and flows through the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh to join the Sutlej. Chitkul at 3450 m will also be the highest altitude at which we will stay during this trip through Kinnaur.

First, there is the spine tingling drive on the narrow twisting road climbing the Baspa valley to Sangla, with numerous blind corners and long stretches where the road is just wide enough for a single vehicle, with the cliff on one side and a sheer drop on the other.


Then just as we sight the Baspa dam at Sangla and begin to heave a sigh of relief, we find ourselves in deep trouble. The mountainside has been crumbling and dumping tons of mud and rocks on the road, destabilized further by this monsoons rain. Unable to find traction on the loose mud while on an upward climb, our heavy Toyota Qualis starts digging itself in, and the engine cuts out. Conventional wisdom to provide the wheels traction does not work and I have the lurking fear that the rear axle of my car has been damaged. The queue of vehicles on either side is growing longer by the minute. I am almost at my wits end when a Sardar, with a military bearing, gets out of his car and walks over. A quick look and he has it all figured out. I am happy to let him take charge. He reverses my car a good distance, then comes racing up the slope in first gear, slithering and sliding over the loose mud, but in control, getting the vehicle across the hostile patch.

With the knowledge that the worst of the road is behind us, we enjoy the scenic drive along the Baspa through the lovely village of Rakcham and on to Chitkul where the guesthouse we have chosen to stay in marks the end of this road, literally.

We have the better part of the afternoon before us and decide to take a walk along the Baspa upstream. Brilliant sunshine brings out our glare glasses and the strong and cold  wind, caps and mufflers.

As we leave behind Chitkul, we are in a wide valley stretching out on the right bank of the Baspa. On the left bank, the mountain slopes right down to the river. We pass fields where men and women are digging out tiny potatoes. In front of us, Baspa snakes its way up towards the snow peaks. Red and yellow-billed 

Temple for Goddess Mathi 

Chough – locally known as Pahadi Kaua (Mountain Crow) - keep us noisy company. Ahead of us is an ITBP camp, an orderly grouping of barracks with green tin roofs. Just short of the camp, a bland notice states in English and Hindi that advancing beyond that point is forbidden without permission. There is no one visible in the camp – the terse notice is presumably sufficient to keep people away. We sit for some time to absorb the colors of the river and the mountains and then wend our way back.

There is still daylight and returning to the room will mean we will slowly freeze until dinner. We sense that there is something going on in the village from the arrival of some official jeeps. On making our way to a ground in front of what looks like a temple  pavilion, we find a large number of villagers assembled, dressed in traditional clothes. Both men and women wear the distinct Kinnauri caps – flat and round with the green band – with flowers. Some of the women are wearing elaborate jewelry. As we watch, the men, women and children join hands and, in a line, head towards the main temple. The men are in the front, the   

women in the middle, while the children bring up the rear. The man at the head has been honored with a garland of giant shalgam (turnips) that seem to have been freshly pulled out from the fields.

At the courtyard of the main temple, a slow rhythmic dance begins – everyone takes a couple of steps forward and then a step back in unison. A drum and a cymbal provide the music. The beat is slow and simple and has a hypnotizing effect. The musicians and the men in the lead seem almost in a trance, completely absorbed in the moment. A young man goes around with a silver jug with a large spout and pours out a liquid, into the cupped hands of the male onlookers as some sort of prasad. I get a taste of the 

  

clear and fruity smelling brew. It is heady. The swaying movement, including so many people old and young, remains graceful with everyone in step. It is now beginning to get dark and we leave, slowly making our way towards our guesthouse. We have indeed been lucky to witness the concluding festivities of the phulaich (festival of flowers).

Next morning while my family prefers to sit and enjoy the spectacle of the snow peaks at sunrise from the window of our room, I decide to trek to the peak overlooking Chitkul. The path goes by the monastery – a little further up from the temple. A villager indicates to me to go around the monastery from the left instead of the right. Always sticking to the left around holy places ensures that in a return journey, one would complete a clockwise parikrama.

Little Chitkul residents at the dance

 Hinduism and Buddhism coexist in these parts and everyone respects both religions. I walk towards the water source of the village as directed. A pipe captures water from a stream some distance above the village and fills a tank from which other pipes take it down to taps in front of the houses providing them unfiltered pure mineral Himalayan water. The untapped water follows a course through the village before flowing into the Baspa. Beyond the water source, a path of loose gravel heads up the mountain. I miss the fork to the summit of the hill I intended to climb, but the walk is exhilarating in the early morning cold and I continue until a point where the Baspa valley north of Chitkul unfolds before me in a grandstand view. After a few minutes absorbing the view, it is time to head back for my original objective. I scramble up the hill towards the prayer flags that mark the summit. Huge boulders lie helter-skelter at the top of the hill.    

There is no one I have seen since I left the village over 2 hours earlier. The prayer flags, though, give me a sense of human company, planted as they must have been by human hands. The return journey is easier than expected. I slide down the slopes until I reach the well-marked path to the village.

Walking down along the stream through the village, I find the answer to a puzzle. Last evening, walking around the village, we had wondered over the purpose of several single roomed structures on stilts. I now realize what these are – water mills located along the downward course of the stream. I peep into one that is in operation to see flour being milled.

Soon, it is time to leave Chitkul, but in the span of a few hours, we have collected memories that will last years.

Kamru Village, Sangla Valley

Early morning, we start walking from our Sangla guest house towards Kamru Village (left), perched on the hillside in the distance. We reach Kamru Fort ( now used as a temple) before 8 AM and find it locked from the inside. The two pujari's are still busy at the lower temple at the center of the village and the Fort will be opened only when they complete the puja there and climb up.

Baspa Valley

Sentinels of the Baspa Valley. Seen on the Sangla - Chitkul road, just before Rakcham village.

The emerald green waters of the Baspa at Rakchham village. The trail to Shonia thatch crosses the bridge and follows Baspa upstream till  a glacial stream that joints the Baspa near Mastrang village. From this point, the trail remains on the left bank of the stream and starts climbing.

Sarahan

A watercolor painting?

North view from Sarahan at sunrise. Is that the Shrikhand Mahadev Peak?

Hatu

North view from Hatu Peak (11152 ft)

Still thickly forested

Narkanda views in October

View of the snow peaks to the north from the circuit house at sunset

View of the Giri valley to the south from Hotel Hatu at sunset

Chail views in October

Sightings in Himachal

Village on the Kandhaghat -> Chail road

Instead of a registration number, this truck carries the warning "I am risky after whisky"! Spotted on the highway near Powari

Vegetarian chicken on the Shimla -> Delhi road

Bird spotting - Shimla district, Himachal

These birds were seen in the neighborhood of Mashobra

A Grey Bushchat (female) seen in mid October

Red billed Blue Magpie

Grey Shrike (to the left and below)

Bird spotting - Sarahan & neighbourhood

Grey headed woodpecker

Bird spotting - Chitkul & Rakcham, Himachal

Red and Yellow billed Chough

Bird spotting - Sarahan, Himachal

White Wagtail

Bird spotting - Sarahan, Himachal

Yellow billed blue magpie. Unfortunately, the blue of the upper side cannot be seen.

Goat farming

Investment opportunity - July 2010. Must remember to check out Beetal 3 years from now

Athirapally falls

Chalakudy river falls at Athirapally
Kerala monsoon road trip ( see a short description here)

Chamoli: Glimpses of village life

Walking on the trail from Lohajung to the little village of Didana on a bright summer morning, the fields on terraced mountain slopes, with houses scattered in between look pretty. They give the impression of prosperity. The little patches of land, irregular in shape have standing crops of wheat, munger (maize) and alu (potatoes).

Narrow water channels can be seen leading down the slopes to storage tanks near the fields – constructed from NREGA funds, we learn.

The patch of wheat (brown) is nearly ready for harvest

A double storied house – made of stone, with wood windows and doors and rafters and slate roof, a style commonly seen in these parts 

The beauty however conceals the low productivity and the harsh natural conditions of agriculture here. Retired army man J S Dana of Didana says his potato crop has been severely damaged by hail stones - the stones puncture the leaves of the plant leaving it frail. A few days later, we have first hand experience in Lohajung of a sharp hail storm.

J S Dana stands in front of his house in Didana village. Behind 

him to his right is his field of Alu that has been severely 

damaged by hail

A closer look at the wheat standing in the fields near Wan village shows the sparseness of the grains on the stalk. Government statistics also bears out that Uttarakhand has low food grain productivity, lower then the India average. The grains & pulses meet just local consumption needs. Only the pahadi alu which is highly valued in the plains is exported via the local market in Lohajung to Haldwani and onward. An 85kg bag of alu fetches a price of between Rs 1000 to 1500, we are told. But this year has been dismal for the local alu farmers. 

Tussar Silk

The low returns from agriculture means that people must look for other ways to supplement their farm income. Rearing silk worms is one option people have taken up. The Tussar worms reared here feed on Oak leaves (rather than mulberry) and these are available in plenty from the nearby Oak forests.

A Didana villager with his silk worms

An NGO – Appropriate Technology India - supplies eggs and buys the cocoons from the farmers. (See this Times of India report on why ATI they promote Tussar silk in Chamoli )

Jhoola


Some other ways to supplement income also depend on the forest. While making the steep climb through Oak and Rhododendron forest above Didana, we come across groups of girls sometimes accompanied by an older woman, all with sacks on their shoulders. Invariably, the girls greet the stranger with a namaste and politely converse, but decline to be photographed. The girls have rosy cheeks and unblemished skin and wear colorful clothes, earrings, nose studs and other trinkets. They are all collecting lichen from the ground - and sometimes even climbing trees for it - that they call Jhoola. One little collector, Lakshmi from Mandoli looks barely to be 8 years – but I could be mistaken as the people here have a slight build. Lakshman from Didana is also collecting. He studies in the 10^th standard and this is vacation time for his school.

He shows me a handful of jhoola pulled out from his bag. Descending to Wan village through an Oak forest a few days later, we see another group of collectors. A woman leading the group explains that lichen is available only at certain periods and that they come for collection when they are free from agriculture related activities.

Later, looking at some literature on the subject I gather that lichens are used in the preparation of perfumes, dyes as well as masala’s. Didana forest and Kuling forest are among the ‘hot spots’ for lichen in Chamoli district. The brown Oak tree of these forests plays the host to the lichen.

60% of the land in Chamoli district is classified as forest. The villagers depend on the forest for their daily fuel, for timber for their homes, for fodder for their cattle and for other forest produce that can add to their income. But the forests are also the major source of raw materials for industry and income for the state. The appropriation of the forests goes back to the colonial period. The forest department exercises a strong control over the lives of the people here by being able to deny then access to the forest. For example, it can prohibit people from collecting lichens – as it has done so in certain other parts of Chamoli. Large tracts of Oak forest between Wan and Lohajung look diseased - that does not speak highly of the state of forest management.

The bugyal of Ghesh-Balan (in the distance) seen from
Ali Bugyal

Some villages have managed to retail control over their common pastureland – we learn of the villages of Ghesh and Balan who have a bugyal for their exclusive use.

Sheep advancing in formation in Bedni Bugyal

The public-use bugyals are host to various quadrupeds – herds of buffaloes and sheep.


The shepherds live and move with the flocks along with their sheep dogs – Himalayan mountain dogs – resembling a black Labrador but more shaggy and with a curled tail. The dogs are apparently sometimes hunted by leopards (Baag or Baguwa) and wear metal collars - with jagged edges – and an attached bell. We are unable to spot the shepherds.

Dual homes

The villagers of Didana also maintain homes in Kuling village. There are about 60 families in Didana. They move seasonally – we fail to find out which season and why. When not in use, homes are left locked and unoccupied. I later learn that people in Mundoli also have homes in Kuling. Is Kuling a temporary residence for farmers to access their land on the hill slopes, perhaps in winter, I wonder.

The Keeda Jadi

Near Wan village, we meet Umrao Singh who has been on an expedition to the higher reaches of the bugyals to collect the Keeda Jadi. He allows us to examine one from the precious handful he has collected.

I learn that other names for the Keeda Jadi are Yartsa Gunbu (Tibetan) and the colloquial term of Caterpillar fungus; that it is a kind of caterpillar killed and mummified by a fungal infection and most commonly found at altitudes between 3500 and 4500m – that means in the higher reaches of the bugyals and up to the permanent snow line. (See this current science article written by an Indian researcher for more details) It is highly prized in China because of its use as an aphrodisiac and in traditional Tibetan and Chinese medicines. We are told that it somehow finds its way across borders and that it fetches a fantastic price (in the region of Rs 100000 / kg or more). The value of Keeda Jadi, it seems, has become known to the local villagers in this area for last 8-10 years. Villagers spend days out in the alpine meadows looking for the jadi and come back perhaps with 200 gms of the fungus.

Umrao Singh and his solar panel on backpack

Story of the Khacchar

The mule – Khacchar as it is known locally – is an indispensable for transporting goods in these parts. Raju, a tailor Lohajung who is ferrying our supplies for the last week owns two Khacchars and they are his pride and joy. Bunty and Babli are 15 and 20 years old and respond to their names.

The Khacchar is a cross between a female horse and a male donkey and does not breed. Raju tells us that his Khacchars will work up to the age of 40. A good Khacchar can cost up to Rs 60,000. It takes time to train them – as much as 4-5 years – before they become productive. They are loyal and can find their way on the trails even without guidance. Raju has lovingly put colorful collars on his two mules – but he is not an exception. All the mules that cross our path are colorfully decked and seem to be the pride of their owners.

The Guide

Pradhyuman Singh who accompanies us for the entire week is from Mandoli and has been working as a tourist guide for some years. He has an earnest look about him, a dignified presence, and is always helpful. We ask him if the villagers object to the rude intrusions of tourists. He believes otherwise. They are desperate for another source of income. Those employed – as porters, guides, cooks etc – get paid between Rs 250 - 300 per day. 

We find out that our porters may well be poor, but they wish to give their children the best education available - an English medium private school at Lohajung (fees 160/pm) rather than to the government school. Interestingly, Chamoli has a high literacy rate – nearly 90% among men and over 60% for women – far higher than the all India averages.

Just before we leave Wan village, I manage to take a photo of Bina and Deepa. They have not yet learnt that they must keep photographers at bay.