V4Nature

by Sreejith E Karunakaran (India)

A leap into the unknown India

Being a traveller, I love to travel to the hill stations especially if it's a trans-Himalayan region then nothing else needed. I always prefer to drive with my four-wheeler. The reason behind this is to explore each and every place I travel. I have driven at a stretch 8340 KM covering eastern India till the south and coming back through the stretch of western India. I believe everyone have their own favourite destination. and mine is Himalaya. I know it's very big and vast to travel to every place in Himalaya. But I can say I started, out of my visited destination. Spiti Valley amazes me with the beauty, history, culture, tradition and off course adventure. Especially if you are driving. Spiti Valley is known for its beauty and adventure. My travel to Spiti Valley through the worlds most treacherous road is an unforgettable experience. After referring and did some desk research, I started my travel. But there are so many unexpected things come in between as natural and man-made. As an adventure, I love taking the risk on my travels. Even the researched travel blogs suggested me not to travel after 6 PM. I forced to decide to travel because of blasting and road construction on my way. My next destination arrives after 125 KM but in the meanwhile, I stuck because of rock blasting (Usually happen in the hill stations for constructing roads). It took 3 hours to complete. The time was around 7 PM and there is no hotels or homestays nearby. If I need to find one, I need to travel another 6 hours through the mountain where there is no human settlement in-between. In my story, there are two characters, I and my wife. My wife starts worrying because now there in nobody expect me my wife and mountains. The road was very narrow the only one vehicle can go if some vehicle comes opposite both will be stuck. When my wife starts concerning. I suggest her to sleep for a while and she likes my suggestion and I continued driving. In some point of my travel. The road diverted into two and I prefer the first left. But I couldn't able to see in front of the road after a point of time. I stopped my car and saw what's in front. The visual in front of me almost stop my heartbeat. The road ends and it was a deep trench. If I go 100m, I might not have written this application. I reverse my car and took another road. Still, my wife doesn't have any idea what's happening outside. She is in good sleep. Now we are almost cover three mountain and the time is 10 PM. I start seeing snow on the road a very little. and the sharp curve roads started. After some point of time when I took one of the sharp curve roads suddenly, I found that part of the road was slippery because of snow and I couldn't able to control my car. The car starts slipping behind and suddenly rotate the steering as the road is designed. If I didn't turn my car at that point of time we would have met with a big disaster. By the time my wife wakeup are asked me why you stop the car. Innocent lady, I don't want her to give my experience at that point in time. We continued travelling and reached the first village called Nako. We didn't find a place to stay. We end up reaching a monastery and planned to sleep inside the car. The temperature was -9 and my wife couldn't able to admit it. So I decided to find some stay again. We find some people coming out and asked for a stay. That point of time they seem like a god for us. In the morning we wake up and saw outside. Unbelievable!! we felt like we are in heaven. There are no words of beauty I can explain here. Our all adventure worth seeing that place. We spend a good amount of time exploring Spiti. I added my experience in my blog too, https://www.v4nature.com/