words from the world

We keep on dreaming. A dream we live with widely open eyes. The magic of the travel. A valley drives another one away and the jeep softly passes from the Kinnaur valley to the Spiti valley. The vegetation faded away, the sunlight strokes the rock and filters onto the sand-hued land. An even color, gigantic spaces, mountains as titans, only landowners of this corner of the world.




Next to the river, a few souls clustered together in the village of Tabo we spend the night in after visiting the old Buddhist temple. At the end of the afternoon, a power failure deprives us of a symbolic event : the final of the cricket worldcup between 2 formerly unified countries, India and Pakistan.



The next day, we get back on the road alongside these self-coloured slopes which bring an intense feeling of well-being. Some tree attempted to grow close to the stream but the yellowish leaves, as a warning shriek, show the adaptation difficulty in the hostile interstices of the rock.



The main attraction of the day is a monastery built on the crest of a rocky hill. Hairspins and winding bends,we win a few meters over the mountain and the road gets more aerial. The view clears and unveils some white-stoned houses in the convex slope of the hill. The jagged peaks with the azure sky in the background were tamed by the monastery. Perilous access by a cobbled uneven-stepped stairway. We look downward and the ecstatic sensation to dominate the broad valley which the unpredictable expression of the river appears in with several ramifications that split out and converge again. We look skyward, the snow-capped outline of the mountains not high enough to go down to posterity.









It's not far from one of these snow-sprinkled peaks we spend the night by. The crinkled yellow paint of the welcome sign displays 225 souls at the entrance of the tiny village of Mudh. A whitish spot among the gentle slopes of the valley.
A gasping panorama.
Pins and needles in my legs, I go stepping this land. More I walk ahead and more the scenery extent expresses itself. Quiet and carefree, I wander about up to the dusk.








Towards Kaza, a large village at the crossroads of the Spiti valley, the perched Ky monastery and the highest village in the world, the 4200m-high village of Kyber. This unknown road is a patchwork of intoxicating feelings which fill our spirits.
From Kyber, we walk down to the Ky monastery. Our steps clung to the bit of asphalt, our eyes wander, scan, contemplate. We delight in this barren incredibly beautiful nature. Shape harmony that fades into the heap of buildings erected on the top of an embankment which tolls the end of our stroll.








We leave Kaza and the snow gets more and more stressful up to getting intrusive. The road slowly raises up to the Kunzum pass. Red, white, blue, green and yellow praying flags wildly flicker. A small Buddhist monument to remind we are in the Himalaya, the spotlessly white peaks remind us even more.









The snow dims and the greenery reappears while we go down to Manali. End of a beautiful trip out of the lively activity of the Indian cities. An interlude in another world some people have chosen to live in.