7 July 2021 - Chandigarh to Kalpa – 350 km - Day 5 of Spiti Valley Exploration

The stay in the ORH was comfortable and I was well rested after four days of driving more than 3000 kms. The caretaker helped me with a thermos of hot water with which I made a cup of coffee with milkmaid. My mother used to make coffee thus when my parents used to take us on annual Christmas vacation drives to Chennai from Trivandrum when I was kid. Whenever I make such coffee the aroma of the Bru coffee she used to make with such loving care wafts in the air.

I opted for a 4 am start because I had read and heard that Shimla and its neighborhood has been submerged in a deluge of visitors over the past few weeks. I wanted to make sure that I avoided the eager visitors swarming the hills. The four landing of NH5 till Solan is almost complete and the drive was smooth. Two tolls had to be paid, one manual and the other on Fastag. Traffic was very sparse and I stopped at Dharampur to tank up. I noticed that the fuel here was the cheapest since Chennai at Rs. 87.87. the road to Shimla is under major construction activity for four laning and upgradation of facilities.

The route I had opted for took me via Shimla and Kufri. At both places the hotels seemed overbooked and cars and supply vehicles lined up entire roads. I was happy that it was still early in the day for people to be about. However, supply vehicles and transport buses created enough chaos on the narrow roads. To top it all I took a wrong turn and ended up going on a lonely road for about 15 minutes. To reverse the car and come back on to the correct route was another task. In all I lost about a half hour.

I was motoring along quite merrily when I came across a Himachal Pradesh Tourism hotel in Rampur. The Hotel Sutlej View seemed perfect for bread and omelette. The breakfast did take some time to arrive but I found it quite good. The coffee was not so good though. Many power projects are underway and have been recently commissioned over the Sutlej River. The drive to Kalpa provided picture postcard moments all along the way. The overall condition of the roads cannot be faulted. It was indeed heartening to note that construction is underway on a large scale to upgrade the National Highway. When I reached Reckong Peo, the capital of Kinnaur District, I found it distressingly overcrowded. I has vacationed in Kalpa in 2012. The overcrowding seemed to have nauseatingly increased.

In 2012 I had stayed in the Circuit House in Kalpa for four days. I had then written about The Monk Hotel because I had met Prakash, the caretaker of the Hotel, on one of my walks in the area. The man fascinated me and filled me with information about the region. Ironically, on this visit I am booked to stay in The Monk Hotel. The sparse accommodation was more than made up by the smiling Aryan who helped me with the luggage and a hot cup of coffee. One has to expect sparse accommodation in such hill reserves. A distressing fact is that the pristine area is slowly, but surely, succumbing to the evils of tourism. Wanton construction and irresponsible driving are a couple of them.

Once I was settled in the hotel I decided to walk to the suicide point, which is where most tourist go to as soon as they land up in Kalpa. I was told that the point is just about three kms form the hotel. I walked and walked and never seemed to reach the place. A kind man offered me a lift up to the suicide point in his pickup. He told me stories of how people, mostly youngsters, come there to commit suicide. The sheer drop of over a 1000 feet was forbidding enough for me not to walk on that side of the road! Beyond the suicide point and about 2 kms away is Roghi Village, the last village in India. I decided to explore the village the next day as I could not foot it there and back to the hotel this day.

When I was at the Suicide Point a bus came along that was on its way to Reckong Peo. I hopped on hoping to explore the market in Kalpa. The market was more or less closed, save a few provision stores and butcheries. Even the Gompa, which is reportedly more than 500 years old, was closed. A feature I have noticed in Kalpa is the cleanliness. There is hardly any litter anywhere and people use the place responsibly. Even at the hotel there were instructions not to discard any garbage or litter anywhere except in the bins provided for them. The narrow streets of the market was clean too. Even near the butcheries there was no foul smell.

Once I was done with the market I had to get back and that is when the thought got to me that bus services would have stopped for the day. I had a long trek back to the hotel, maybe 5 km or more. It was not the distance but the steep terrain that was forbidding. I decided to try my luck at thumping a ride back. After a few unsuccessful tries I got a lift back to nearly a km short of the hotel. That saved my weary legs. Aryan promised me a hot meal of roti, rice, sabji, dal and egg curry. It was very tasty, but when the food was served in the room my appetite had all but vanished. I feel that I wasted what I should never have. I promised to order less the next day.