Spiti means the middle land — between India and Tibet, between earth and sky. It is the emptiest place in this country, and the hardest to leave.
Spiti is a cold desert, which is a phrase that means very little until you are standing in one. There is no rain worth the name because the Himalaya blocks it, and no trees because nothing grows at fifteen thousand feet, and the result is a valley of bare brown rock and startling white monasteries with a green river running through the middle of it.
It was closed to foreigners until 1992. Culturally and linguistically it is Tibetan; politically it is India; and geologically it is the floor of an ocean that closed fifty million years ago, which is why the mountains are full of ammonite fossils and children in Langza will sell you one for the price of a coffee.
The villages are the point. Komic and Hikkim sit among the highest inhabited places on earth. A hundred people, a monastery, a post office, and a horizon that goes on for sixty miles.
Nine days sounds long and is not. Three of them are spent gaining altitude slowly, because the alternative is spending the trip with a headache, and because Spiti is not a place to arrive at in a hurry. At night the sky here is as dark as any accessible place on the planet.
What you will see
Key Monastery Key Monastery
A thousand years of monastery stacked on a crumbling ridge, white against brown, photographed at dawn from above rather than below — the standard view is the wrong one.
Chandratal Chandratal
The moon lake, at 14,100 feet. Still enough to double the sky, and dark enough after ten o'clock that the Milky Way is bright enough to read the ground by.
Komic and Hikkim Komic and Hikkim
Among the highest permanently inhabited villages on earth, with the world's highest post office. People send letters from here for no reason other than that it is possible.
The fossil ground at Langza The fossil ground at Langza
This entire valley was the floor of the Tethys Sea. Children sell ammonites they picked up walking home. The mountains are made of the seabed.
Where you stay
4 places, chosen one at a time.
Property to be confirmed Heritage hotel
Shimla — acclimatisation
Property to be confirmed.
1 night
Property to be confirmed Valley lodge
Kalpa, Kinnaur
Property to be confirmed.
2 nights
Property to be confirmed Village guest house
Kaza, Spiti valley
Property to be confirmed.
3 nights
Property to be confirmed High-altitude camp
Chandratal, 14,100 ft
Property to be confirmed.
1 night
What is included
Return international flights are included.
We book them with the journey, from your nearest major airport. Travellers who would rather use their own miles, or fly from somewhere we don’t serve well, can simply opt out and we adjust the rate.
Included
- Return international flights, in the cabin of your choosing
- All transfers from your door — car to your home airport included
- Private guiding throughout, and a Shunyaway lead on every journey
- All accommodation, and all meals taken together as a party
- Permits, entry fees and internal travel
- 24-hour contact with the person who designed your journey
Not included
- Visas — we prepare the paperwork, you make the application
- Travel insurance, which we require you to hold
- Personal spending, and anything bought for yourself
Practical
- Duration
- 9 days
- Highest point
- 15,060 ft / 4,590 m
- Open
- June – September
- Travel
- Overland, four-wheel drive
- Pace
- Honest acclimatisation; three nights before altitude
- Party
- Eight travellers maximum
Rates on request
A door-to-door journey cannot be quoted until we know which door, and which cabin. Design yours and we will price it, or simply write to us.