SANGLA AND CHITKUL

Sangla or Sangla valley as most of the people call it lies in  Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh in India.Chitkul is the last village in this valley before China(Tibet). Sangla is more developed with a petrol pump, ATM machine, medical stores, bars etc. to fulfill demands of  tourists and so a more comfortable place to stay for tourists coming to this part of the world. Even accommodation wise, Sangla has far better staying facilities among the two. Chitkul has very few hotels, not the kind one would really enjoy on a vacation.

Sangla valley, at a height of about 8800 feet, used to be an old Indo-Tibetan route for trade long back and was actually a prohibited area till 1989 due to its location which is close to China border. The valley is connected to National Highway 22 at Karcham. The roads from Karcham were the only sad part of our journey as they were in bad shape, partly due to construction of the dam and hydro power project in the area and partly due to occurrence of landslides.

Sangla Valley

 A right turn at Karcham across a bridge, took us to a beautiful valley lined up with Deodhar trees, apple orchards and occasional waterfalls. Here too the roads were a bit bumpy but we were really too busy watching the scenic beauty around us. The Baspa river was showing us the way as it followed us most of the time. As we approached Sangla, we could see tall snow capped mountains further enhancing the magnificent beauty around us.

We stayed at Hotel Prakash Regency. It was a very clean and comfortable hotel, offering us multi cuisine restaurant. The owner of the hotel Mr. Mohan Prakash, who in fact arranged our trip to Kinnaur district personally took interest to make our trip comfortable.

Chitkul village.

Baspa river in Chitkul valley.

The next morning we left for Chitkul.The road to Chitkul was lined with a series of snowy mountains. We reached Chitkul in about an hour or so.

Chitkul, at a height of about 11300 feet, presents a picturesque view of tall snowy mountains, Baspa river flowing through it and tall Deodhar trees stretching across the mountain slopes. The pale green Baspa river flows at amazing speed through the valley. Its a pleasurable experience sitting on one of the flat stones lining the side of the river and enjoying the flow.

The village Chitkul looked very clean and sparsely populated. There's a temple of a local goddess called Chitkul Maathi. The temple is called Mata Devi Mandir. A couple of small hotels facing the river where few snacks and tea were available are some of the things we came across here. We can walk up further to reach a base camp where permission for tourist ends as the border approaches.

Mata Devi mandir.

After a couple of hours at Chitkul, we came back to Sangla. We were lucky to get good weather, as Chitkul is said to be notorious for sudden change to snowfall and bad weather. The journey to Chitkul and back took about four hours but it was a refreshing one, for sure.

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