We were honoured to be the very first guests to live in Tirthview Homestay located in the lush Tirthan Valley in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh. And we stayed there for 2 wonderful weeks.
Sukhram converted his parents' home into a homestay for 2 key reasons: to have his brother-in-law, Hari, to be physically there to run the place and concurrently care for his aging mother and blind father; and to create income generation opportunities for his relatives and village community.
Although he works as an IT professional and lives with his family in Delhi, Sukhram's heart is with his family and community. He spoke of developing the homestay and peripheral services so that his relatives could play a part and he could one day return here to run the enterprise.
This was my first encounter with an individual who expresses a dream to evolve a 'community enterprise', not only for himself but also for his circle of relatives and friends in the village. In the capitalist world, starting a business is almost always to make profit for oneself.
Soon after, I came across the term 'Community-based Enterprise' in a Himachal Pradesh brochure, then at Ecosphere and again from the website of the Barefoot College. I know it's an idea for me to fertilize...
I like the idea of 'community enterprise'. It encapsulates a social aspect of involving and benefiting the entire or a portion of a community. It requires a non-self-serving entrepreneur to sieve out the 'unique selling points' of the community or in Sukhram's case the USPs of Tirthan Valley, develop the 'products' (homestay, places of interest, cuisines, walking trails, etc), organize the community to provide the offerings (homestay owners, guides, eateries, etc) in a corporative way.
As opposed to 'every-man-for-himself' in conventional businesses, a community enterprise is foundationed upon a 'loosely-coupled, strongly-aligned' concept involving cooperation among many people/families, each doing a fitting part to complete the whole. In conventional business, the boss commands authority due to the fear factor because he alone may hire or fire, give raise and promotion. For the community enterprise leader, he must win the trust and confidence of his community fellows through vision, plans, fairness and results. He has the advantage of the people already enjoying a community spirit that bonds everyone together.
I realize my business Scentalworld in network marketing is a sort of community enterprise. My community is my team of network associates, except that everyone has come together from different places and background. To ensure long term success, it's critical for us to nurture that 'community spirit' and the sense of belongingness to one another. In other words, the challenge for a network marketing group or any corporate group, is how to create a sense of bonding (team bonding) so deep and strong like that in a village where everyone knows and grows up with everyone else.
What really excites me about community enterprise is applying it to the tribal community in Jharkhand. Now that the pioneer batch of the Tribal School Project will soon reach college years, it is timely to ponder ahead what will these educated tribal youth do. If we work so hard to support these tribal children to obtain an education only to have them brain-drain away to work in the city and never to return to their tribal community, it would be a sad situation.
I see very exciting and worthy work ahead for those of us who are interested in seeding and incubating community enterprises in the tribal community, working with our tribal school 'graduates', nurturing them into youth leaders, imparting them useful business, management, organizational, marketing skills, supporting and hand-holding them in an incubative manner, and eventually letting them fly independently when we have finally work ourselves out of our jobs.
After 2 weeks' stay, it was time to bid farewell to Tirthview Homestay and be on our way to Kaza in the Spiti Valley.
Sukhram, the owner of Tirthview Homestay, arrived on 6 Jun with his family from Delhi. Robyn had a whale of a time with his 2 daughters, Vanshika and Yashika. Sukhram has a vision to develop his homestay to provide employment opportunity to his community. I enjoyed sharing with him some homestay ideas which I picked up from my years of travel in Europe and the UK. I look forward to return here.
Robyn and Vanshika.
Fried trout fresh from the river.
Sukhram
Vanshika
Yakshika
Sukhram's father who's blind.
Robyn, Vanshika and Yashika.
Robyn, Vanshika and Yashika.
7 Jun 2011: Kullu to Kinnaur (Banjar to Rampur to Rekong Peo)
Today was a long day of travel on local buses from the Kullu District to the Kinnaur District.
Sukhram and Hari sent us to the Banjar bus stand at 7am but we could not manage to get any seat for the 7.30am bus. So we stayed on and managed to squeeze ourselves and our luggage onto the 9am bus. It took 6 hours to journey through the 100km from Banjar to Rampur but the traverse across the Jolari Pass offered breathtaking views.
At Rampur, we failed miserably in battling the rushing crowd to hop on the 4.30pm bus to Rekong Peo. Fortunately, we met a good Nepali, Prem Sharestha, who helped us get a taxi, that we shared cost (Rs1500 each family) with another family of 4 to Rekong Peo. I offered Prem a free ride to his destination 10km down the road.
Rampur to Rekong Peo is another 100km, following the Satluj River that flows from Tibet. The view of the snow-covered peaks signalled a warm welcome to us into the Kinnaur Valley. We arrived in Rekong Peo at 8.30pm. Thanks to the driver, we were dropped off right in front of Ridang Hotel (Rs500) and where we filled our hunger with chowmein!
8-10 Jun 2011: Sangla Valley
In the morning, we were greeted by a wide-angle view of snow-covered mountains from the hotel balcony. They seem so near that we could just reach out and touch them!
Rekong Peo is an admin centre for the Kinnaur Valley so it is busy like Shimla. At the tourism centre, we discovered that we need a Inner Line Permit (Rs300 each) to get to Kaza via Chango and Sumdo which are checkpoints near to the Tibetan border. Had we taken the Manali-Kaza route, we wouldn't need the permit.
Rekong Peo is surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
"Don't miss Sangla Valley!"
We were advised, yet again, that we should not miss experiencing the Sangla Valley. So we packed, checked out and hopped on the 1pm bus from Rekong Peo to Sangla, arriving there at 3.30pm. We stayed at the Aman Hotel (Rs500).
< Sangla is a lovely village with traditional lifestyle. It was at Sangla that Robyn had her first taste of mutton chowmein.
On 9 Jun, we walked about the Sangla village and learnt how the folks there live simply but happily. We saw how an elderly lady skillfully spinning wool yarn in an admirably relaxed and joyful manner by her hut.
Women seem to be doing all the hard work, at home, in the farm and raising kids. We witnessed the woman folks hauling heavy rocks uphill, while doing knitting and tending to their children at the same time.
Mr Sangla.
Mdm Sangla.
Miss Sangla.
Mr and Mrs Yong.
Miss Yong.
Mrs Yong.
Kamru Village is a small traditional settlement 1km uphill from Sangla village.
We enjoyed the sights of some very old houses in traditional style architecture.
Temple with snow-capped mountains as backdrop.
Traditional temple constructed of wood and stones.
Fantastic valley view from Kamru Village.
> Situated at the top end of Kamru Village is an ancient temple, majestically overlooking the entire village in a somewhat protective manner.
We descended from Kamru Village in time to catch the 11.30am bus to Chitkul, known as the "Last Dhaba in India", i.e. this is where you'll catch the last Indian dhaba (restaurant) beyond which you'll see no human until you cross into the Chinese border of Tibet.
Everyone we met had so highly recommended us to visit Chitkul that we decided to stay an extra night in Sangla to make this day trip there.
Indeed, it was an unforgettable experience.
Chitkul is the last and a tiny settlement deep in the Sangla Valley, close to the Tibetan border.
The view from Chitkul is simply breathtaking and the land beyond has no more human habitation.
We were glad to have ventured to experience Chitkul, known also as the 'last village of India'. We then took the 5pm bus back to Sangla village.
The road is winding and hugging closely to the cliff edge.
But the sunset view from the bus was gorgeous.
12 Jun 2011: Rekong Peo - Nako
We got back to Rekong Peo from Sangla on 11 Jun hoping to catch the 12noon bus straight to Nako Village but discovered that there was no more seat. So we while the day in Rekong Peo and took the 7am bus on 12 Jun to Nako.
It was a jam-packed bus journey riding through a long winding road that hugs the cliff edge dangerously. The scenery took a drastic turn from greenery to desert-like with few trees growing on the hill slopes on either sides.
At Nako, we put up at Amar Homestay (Rs400).
Nako is a small village famed for its green peas.
Prayer flags fluttering in the wind.
The panoramic mountain scenery at Nako.
Robyn turning the prayer wheel.
We visited the Nako Monastery that is 1000 year old.
Nako Lake, a natural high altitude lake.
By the lake is a temple with Guru's footprint (left).
With our guide, Prem Singh, and Benedict and Wan Hui from Malaysia. Background is a residence built for the Dalai Lama when he visited Nako in 2007.
Lovely kids at Nako village.
We left Nako the next midday on 13 Jun for Tabo village in the Spiti Valley.
