Kalpa And Sangla View Entire This is amongst the longest and my most memorable trips in the Himalayas. Ever since I did the Kailash Mansrovar Yatra 1998, my tent made Jayant Doshi and me were planning this trip. It eventually happened in July 2001. Spread over about 23 days our travel schedule was –
• Mumbai to Jammu/Katra by train.
• Jammu to Dalhousie by train/taxi. Saw Dalhousie, Chamba Valley and Khajjar.
• Dalhousie to Mcleodganj by taxi. Saw Kangra Valley and around as well.
• Mcleodganj to Manali/Rohtang Pass.
• Next stop was Keylong in Lahaul Valley.
• From there to Kaza in Spiti Valley.
• To Kalpa and Sangla.
• Took a twenty three hour bus drive from Kalpa to Hardwar.
• Rishikesh to Govindghat the base camp for Valley of Flowers.
• From there to Badrinath.
• Last stop was Kedarnath returned to Rishikesh.
• Took Shatabdi Express from Hardwar to Delhi and train to Mumbai.
Between Jayant and me we spent about Rs 18,000/ per head. Jayant was from London and could not believe that we spent so less. It is not that we compromised in any way. We travelled by taxi and bus and stayed at budget hotels that were amazingly clean as well.
We left Tabo at about 10am, got a bus with great difficulty and reached Kalpa (2960 metres) about 3ish. It was a great drive, very scenic. Just before Kalpa is the district headquarters Recong Peo. It is like any other town. A 20 minute drive from there took us to Kalpa. It is a very quiet and scenic place like a suburb of the district headquarters. We saw a number of hotels/guest houses including some where foreigners were preferred.
We eventually settled for Blue Lotus close to the bus stand. We got a well furnished room with running hot water for all of Rs 150/. The room opened out into a huge balcony from where we got a great view of the Kinner Kailash. The parikrama to Kailash takes about 7-8 days. From Kalpa you can go to Sangla, Chitkul and Raksham all on the old Indo Tibet road.
The first thing we did was to have good bath followed by some hot chai. The next morning we hired a Bolero and took off for Sangla. The terrain is quite difficult but drive through beautiful forests. Enroute our driver (an ex CRPF jawan) showed us the Sutlej river. He said that thanks to Chinese sponsored floods, bridges in Kinnar got washed away forcing locals to cross the Sutlej river (flows in from China, source Mansrovar) through hanging ropes as you will see in the picture section.
Sangla Valley is 2680 mtrs, 2 hours drive from Kalpa. If you thought Pahelgam in Kashmir Valley was beautiful forget it, Sangla is better any day. If you go further down Sangla you reach the old Indo Tibet road and reach Chitkul/Raksham.
Baya river flows by Sangla. We crossed the river and went for a walk deep into the forests. Loved it. Must have walked for about six kms. Saw a mini-power plant meets the electricity requirements of Sangla Valley. When we were thirsty a local lady was nice enough to give us river water. Ironically Jayant and I had a stomach upset on reaching Kalpa. May be our urban stomachs were not used to pure clean water.
On our return we went Nag Devata Mandir. There was a huge procession of people with a palanquin i.e. what attracted us to the temple. The entrance to the temple has some intricate woodwork. After an easy climb we reached Kamru Fort, palace of the former Maharaja of Rampur. It is a couple of kms away from main Sangla town. It gave us a breathtaking view of Sangla.
All in all Sangla is a must visit. A friend Dr Kulkarni who went to Chitkul/Raksham says that those places are out of this world. Wish had known before. After all one does not go this far often. Kalpa is 210 kms odd from Shimla and app a seven hour drive. I realized the need to research more before planning a holiday so that one covers all the interesting places in one shot. In this holiday we could have cut down on Badrinath/Kedarnath and seen more of Himachal Pradesh.
We left Sangla around 4ish to reach Kalpa by 6ish. Relaxed and went to bed. Our bus to Chandigarh was at 3pm so we had the morning to ourselves. We decided to go walking in and around Kalpa. There is a kacha (rough) motorable road. We saw a number of apple orchards, met villagers, saw snow clad mountains and were back by lunch. We caught the 4pm bus, reached Simla at 1am and Chandigarh at about 6.30am. From here we caught another bus for Hardwar from where we took an auto to Rishikesh. We reached the hotel by about 3pm an exhausting 24 hour journey. The drive from Kalpa to Simla is tough and prone to landslides. Enroute is the Shatrujeet Bridge one of the many made by the Indian Army i.e. the lifeline of Kinnaur
Acknowledgement: www.esamskriti.com
