In ‘Mythical’ Apple Country, Time Stands Still

There are many interesting facets to the life of the Kinnauris. People here enjoy their local alcoholic beverages like the grape-based an-goori and the apple and chulhi-extracted arak. As part of the overwhelming hospitality of the region, guests are offered these home-brewed drinks in most Kinnauri houses.

And as for a taste of the Kinnauri style of ar-chitecture— which, for all its elegant loftiness, is labelled ‘Indian Gothic’—I got to savour it the next day. This, while visiting the old pic-turesque Narayan temple in village Roghi, some seven kilometres from Kalpa. The build- ings I saw were made with alternating layers of wooden planks and stones, their wooden exteri-ors thickly carved, heavy doors with circular iron handles and long and irregular slate-tiled roofs. Another poignant peculiarity of this re-gion that revealed itself to me during this tem-ple visit was the harmonious blend of Hindu and Tibetan beliefs that goes into the making of the Kinnauri religion. It is quite the norm in old Hindu temples here to have a modern Bud-dhist shrine with its yellow tin pagoda-roofs, and most of the rituals in temples are per-formed by young lamas.

The day after, I rejected earnest proposals by the hotel staff to guide me to the open area above the mountains called Chaka and the nearby Nagas Lake. Instead, tell me how to get there, I insisted. And here’s the roadmap they shared with me: Follow a zestful stream nearby right up to its source for about one-and-a-half or two hours. As I hiked up, the scenery above the pine-forests grew decidedly sparse, re-placed by thorny bushes and thick alpine grass. However, about three hours into my now-doubtful endeavour, and very fatigued, I quit after I realised I had lost my way. After three nights in Kalpa, I made a two-hour journey to Sangla village on the other side of the Satluj in the Baspa Valley. And the many legends I’d heard about the precariousness of the road leading to Sangla, came alive. What with the bus I was in travelling coming within inches of the unbridled edge on a road barely wide enough for one vehicle to pass through. A part of the mountain was jutting out above the roof and dropping off 1,000 feet or so into the tiny meandering Baspa below.

Sangla turned out to be much more touristy than Kalpa. The main bazaar here is lined with cafes offering ‘Banana Honey Toast’ to ‘Cheese and Coconut Pancakes’. There’s also momos and thukpa on offer.

At a 45-minute walk from Sangla is a village called Kamru on a hill majestically overlooking the valley. It is here, perhaps, that I got to sam-ple the finest of the old Kinnauri rural life. The lanes leading up to the Kamru fort, lined with old Kinnauri houses, had women on the wooden balconies participating in their daily chores. The fort itself was quite striking, being the old seat of the rajabhishek (coronation) of the Bushahr maharajas.

The journey back to Shimla was about steep gorges falling into the furious Satluj river. They remain my last memory of Shangri-La.