Kaza, at 3700m high, is the main administration town in the Spiti Valley with government offices, hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and dhabas.
All round, there are barren cliffs and ridges, some still with patches of melting snow. This morning, we decided to take a stroll to the river bed to take in the wonderful sights.
> Kaza appears tucked so safely into
the butts of the mountains.
There are huge plots of farm and cultivated fields situated along the Spiti River.
< Jin and Robyn by the Spiti River.
The Spiti River flows through a wide and flat river bed. Unlike the crystal clear water that flows in the Tirthan River, the water here is greyish brown and has originated across the border from the Tibetan highland. The expansive view of wide river, vast land, majestic mountains and blue sky is stunting.
The Spiti Valley.
Let's seva ahead and enjoy the challenges!
We put up at the Le Karze Hotel during our half-month's stay in Kaza. The fully furnished and comfortable room became our 'office' where we continued our seva for Tribal School Project. Every morning, we exercised and did our pranayama and kriya up at the rooftop. Le Karze Hotel is owned and managed by friendly Yishe Chhopel.
> A few steps away from the hotel is our fav
prantha and chai store run by a friendly
gentleman who always serves with a smile.
Le Karze Hotel in Kaza.
Jin, Yishe and Alvin at Le Karze.
23-25 Jun 2011: Demul Village
Demul is a remote village at 4400m. Ecosphere targets to develop this as a model village. A coordinator in the village, Chhering, would allocate tourists to designated villagers' homestay on a rotation basis. For yak safari, the villagers also participate using their yaks so as to generate income. Fees are collected by Ecosphere and then distributed to the villagers.
This is an interesting manifestation of community enterprise, in which central coordination enables non-English speaking village families to partake in this eco-tourism income pie.
Tucked remotely into the mountain, Demul has no mobile nor Internet signals.
There's only one call-in phone serving the entire Demul village which has less than 50 families.
Postcard-like scenery surrounds Demul.
Our homestay host Tsering Tandup and his family.
Yher leaves are used to make into Momo filling.
We spent an hour harvesting Yher in the field.
We were proud of our harvest, enough to make 100 Momos!
Back in the homestay, we plucked out the leaves. Tsering boiled the leaves in a pressure cooker, and then expertly fried them in a wok over a stove that uses cow and donkey dungs as fuel.
We learnt how to make Momo and everyone had plenty of fun experimenting with all sorts of non-conventional shapes. After a short while of steaming, the Momo were ready and we enjoyed a filling Momo dinner with the family.
Father: Tsering Tandup who works at the post office
Mother: Chhering who tends to the farm
Daughter: Chhering, Yong Zom
Sons: Londen and a son who's a monk at the monastery
They have 10 sheep, 1 cow, 1 donkey and 1 yak. Everyday, they would milk the cow for milk. Every morning, their cattle and that of every other households would be rounded together and a Nepali shepherd would lead them into the hills for grazing.
We decided to follow and see how shepherding was done.
At 9am, over 450 animals assembled...
...taken care of by only 3 shepherds.
Grazing in the beautiful open grassland.
The shepherds leading the cattle back at 6pm.
Spitian Dance: thanks to the presence of a group of French tourists, we had the opportunity to enjoy a Spitian dance put up by the local ladies, one of whom is Chhering from our homestay.
Stunting backdrop and the graceful Spitian dancers.
10 Spitian ladies and 3 Singaporeans!
Yoga at 4600m: on the morning of 24 Jun, we took a high altitude stroll to take in the sights of Demul. It was certainly breath-taking and the journey up to the top of a ridge took us 2 hours.
Robyn and Alvin strolling and panting up to the ridge line.
Robyn, Alvin and Jin at the top of the ridge.
< Robyn with Demul in the distant background.
At the opposite side of the ridge was a lonely house (that tiny dot in the centre of the above photo) set in the middle of a majestic hillscape.
Alvin and the snow-cappies at Demul.
This was the highest point we'd been thus far - 4600m.
Yoga @ 4600m.
Yoga @ 4600m.
Solar Power Plant for Demul: We were fortunate to arrive in the midst of the solar power plant installation by a specialist team from Auroville, led by Kavit. This renewable energy project, co-funded by a philanthropist and the Demul villagers, coordinated by Ecosphere, would supply electricity to 46 households to power 3 x LED lights in each home. This is possibly the highest solar plant installation for a high altitude village located at 4,400m.
We learnt a lot from Kavit and Harsha who are solar specialists, and hope that we would collaborate for a solar project for the Tribal School in Jharkhand in the future.
All the solar panels were centrally installed on the rooftop of Norbu's house.
The Solar Power-up ceremony on 23 Jun at 12.20pm in the control room in Norbu's house.
26 Jun 2011: Yak Safari from Demul to Komic
We took 2 yaks and together with the French group, set off on a high altitude trek across valleys for Komic, a village at 4513m high.
I thought yaks walk slowly but in a blink, I was left far behind panting hard, trying to catch up with the contingent up the mountain slope. But that was also the bonus as I was able to take in the sight and feel at my leisure, all alone, in the silence amongst the hills.
Robyn on yak.
Jin on yak.
Midway, we trekked on foot for a distance.
Alvin rode the yak for 1/3 of the journey.
< Yaks are gentle giants. Although extremely tough, they are easily controlled once a rope is being threaded through their noses.
> On this wonderful day, the sun shone unusually beautifully for us all. A magical light ring was casted around the sun above the vast sky.
We trekked through postcard-like scenery. In this picture, Komic came into sight (centre) with the yak train strolling leisurely towards it at the bottom right.
Komic Monastery, another 1000-year old monastery, perched high up at over 4500m. From here, Ecosphere arranged for a taxi to take us back to Kaza.
22 Jun 2011 - Walkabout in Kaza, Spiti Valley
Father: Tsering Tandup who works at the post office
