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Fernweh. Google translates this German word as wanderlust. But the English equivalent does not entirely express its meaning. The word does not merely mean a lust for travel. ‘Fernweh’ is built on the word ‘fern’ (far) and ‘weh’ (pain), which expresses an emotion, that is slightly more complex. It is the longing or pain for faraway, even unvisited places. The first time I experienced fernweh , or at least, my earliest memory of it, was as a kid through Ruskin Bonds’ writings on Dehradun and the mountains. Ruskin Bond’s description of the mountains, the culture in the mountains, the wildlife there, and the locals up on the hills, made me fall in love with all of that, as a kid. I was so into the books that I felt more a part of that world than the real world. Nevertheless, I stopped, not deliberately, romanticizing the hills after the transition from childhood to adolescence. Then a trip to Lahaul and Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh (India), last year, made me reminisce about the books and its characters, and the effect their lives in the mountains had on mine, a few years back. Spiti which means ‘middle land’ (between Tibet and India) is a sub-Himalayan desert with extreme weather conditions, and hence one of the least populated regions of the world. It isn’t one of the places that are usually featured on the ‘10 best summer destinations in India’. A raw, untouched beauty dominates this desert mountain valley high up in the Himalayas in the northeast part of Himachal Pradesh. The gurgling, jumping, happy Chandra River was the only sign of life for miles as we bumped along some of the most treacherous, rocky paths. To call them roads would be a travesty; those were at best mountain paths cut out of the upper Himalayas. An abrupt change of landscape right after crossing Rohtang Pass towards Lahaul and Spiti side caught me by surprise. The green mountains before Rohtang, now give way to their brown and arid counterparts. After being mercilessly jolted over stones and rocks for miles, the sudden sight of Yari Khoksar, an idyllic looking village next to the Chandra waterfalls in Lahaul, made us sit up. Kids scampering across the stunning waterfall. A man driving his kids to school in a weathered old red Maruti 800 with a few baskets of vegetables in the backseat. The amused smile of an old lady as she watched me descend a small rocky slope extra cautiously. These sights conveyed to me the true spirit of the place. Next morning, we set off for Chandertaal- the Moon Lake in Spiti, so-called because it is shaped like the crescent moon. If I thought the path from Rohtang to Lahaul was bad, this was even narrower and more damaged, at times disappearing under the ice-cold waters of a waterfall rushing to fall over the cliff to join the happy river below. My group and I drove through that, heart in mouth and a prayer on the lips. Chandertaal is stunning in its aquamarine glory, seeming to lend the sky above it a unique color. Such tranquility needed time to be absorbed, so we struck camp at 14,000 feet, in temperature plummeting to between minus 6 and minus 4 –not an easy feat considering ours was a rapid climb to the elevation. Our next and final stop was the Kee Monastery, as much steeped in history and culture of Spiti as everything else there was. It was humbling to observe that the rivers that flow through this land and the majestic mountains are the same that find a mention in Vedic times. To be in the presence of such history, such raw untamed beauty and some of the world’s most amazing scenery in one of India’s most treacherous terrain was a strange combination of an exhilarating, and yet, a humbling experience. I might not have visited the same place as those in Ruskin Bonds’ books, but the profound longing I had for it was cured, albeit temporarily, by Spiti. It was the relaxing sights of Spiti that transported me to an unknown, yet a known place.