Tour Diary-Trip to Spiti Valley-Day One

Day Zero

Ecstasy, emotions and happiness was all around because the car performed much better than our expectations, as it worked perfectly well on the not-so-perfect and 'not expected condition' of roads.

.The rest House.

We stayed in a Rest House at Dalang Maidan [दलंग मैदान] and decided to move towards Keylong early morning. The caretaker of the rest house was a cool man. His name was Nand Laal [नन्द लाल] and he helped us a lot by allowing us to stay in that rest house. The place was located on the banks of the 'Chandra River' and they were growing wheat and performed different experiments on wheat and its derivatives in their acres of land.

Early morning, we started moving towards Keylong. We all expected Keylong to be a great place and it turned out to be one great place as well. While moving towards Keylong, you reach a place called Tandi Pull [टांडी पुल] where the Chandra and Bhaga Rivers merge together and give birth to the famous Chandrabhaga River [चंद्रभागा].

..The Legendary Tandi Pul.

.Birth/Formation of Chenab.

The Chandrabhaga River then starts flowing towards Jammu and then enters into the Pakistan Region through Akhnoor Border in Jammu.[अखनूर]

On our way towards Keylong, we met three young guys going towards Keylong. The special thing about their journey was that they were all on a single bike and the bike was not a Bullet/Royal Enfield. They were riding on a 150 CC bike and they traveled 200 kilometers on that bike with only one driver among them. They were real crazy people and I thought no one could match us, as we had our Maruti with us :P

.3 On 1.

.Varun+Ujjwal.

Keylong is a small town with two banks and no ATM. The place has few temples, few hotels and a great bus station. The bus station of Keylong is far better than the bus stations of other 'major towns' of Himachal Pradesh.

.Welcome to Keylong.

.Wherever you go HRTC Follows.

There in Keylong, we decided that Leh would be an atrocity for the poor Maruti and moving towards Leh would be a fatal mistake [which turned out to be one the many wrong decisions of this trip, which we realized later]. There we decided that we will go to Kaja and from there we will go to Shimla through the mysterious Kinnaur District. On our way, we got to know about the Udaipur Town and the Trilokinath Temple. [त्रिलोकीनाथ]

However, considering the heat[ yes it was hot there] and the tough road conditions, we decided to call it a day and returned towards our rest house. Trilokinath was still 20 Kilometers away and we did not feel like going there. The last petrol pump you will see in that place is located near Tandi Pul and you will have to pay two/three rupee more per liter of petrol.

There we saw a signboard pointing towards a monastery and we started climbing uphill. The name of the monastery was Tupchiling Monastery [तुपचिलिंग] and it turned out to be a beautiful place.

.Incredible India.

.Tupchiling Monastery.

Informational Content:
Do not drink and drive :P
Take a break at Tandi Pull, you will love the place.

Note: Second day was quite an uneventful day because we expected Keylong to be a snow covered region and it was not. We thought of visiting the temple and we could not. So this post consists of more pics than text.

Day Zero