Spiti Valley

Spiti — the name means 'the middle land' — sits between Kullu and Tibet, drained by a river the colour of wet cement and hemmed by ridges with almost nothing green on them. Kaza, the administrative centre at about 3,800 m, is a single street of guesthouses, a petrol pump and a bank; everything else is villages of ten to sixty houses.

The monastic record here is unusually old. Tabo was founded in 996 CE and its earthen assembly hall still carries its original murals; Key stacks whitewashed cells up a conical hill above the river; Dhankar clings to a crumbling spur that is slowly being abandoned for a safer site below. Higher again sit Komic, Langza and Hikkim, farming villages at over 4,000 m where the fields are barley and green peas and the fossil beds date to the Tethys sea.

When to go. The Manali approach over Kunzum La (4,551 m) is open roughly mid-June to mid-October. The Shimla–Kinnaur road via Nako stays open most of the year, which is how winter Spiti is reached — deep cold, ten hours of driving on ice, and the clearest skies of the year.