2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 3: Serene Sangla To Nippy Nako

Day 3

A self-induced epiphany could be as cruel at times as finding yourself a seat with a cactus growing out of it. But with a focused mind, you can transform that cactus into a bed of marshmallows. Allow me to explain. 

Trying to sum-up the experience in Sangla was tough for a person like me who had never seen beauty like this outside a movie. A photograph of a bird on one of my hotel room walls helped me. Name - Stonechat. It is called so because its alarm call sounds similar to two pebbles clicking together. Its species are mostly found at altitudes as high as 15,000 feet and in the southern ranges of the Himalayas.

On a normal day, I wouldn’t have bothered to read about a shy and tiny bird. But I did, because Sangla introduced it to me. To sum up, Sangla has been deciphered from a book on the most beautiful places on earth. Every single aspect, right from the endless soundtrack of the river, the massive mountains to the colourful plantations and the extremely courteous people, made my experience a memorable one.

By the time I finished loathing about the fact of leaving Sangla, my co-driver took the keys and rightfully drove us out with the convoy. The lead warned us of bad roads and temperatures dropping down to single digits, thankfully on the positive side of the scale. 

Nako was 133km away and a place called Spello, chosen for our lunch halt, was 66km. As soon as we took the road towards Nako, the tarmac, sort of, disappeared. The patch of road, which was wide at first but got thinner as we drove on, was treacherous to say the least. All of a sudden I was thanking the team for pushing us to have a heavy breakfast. The jiggly ride helped us digest everything in about an hour’s time and I found myself looking for something to munch on in our goody bags, which were given to us in Chandigarh.

To make the drive more adventurous, a convoy of army trucks and cars came from the opposite side. That’s not what you want when you are on roads without a boundary railing and just about wide enough for one car to roll on. Still, we dragged ourselves unscathed one by one and before we had the time to recall the experience, we reached our lunch halt.

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My eyes were searching for any kind of establishment but the only thing that I could remotely relate to was a pile of rocks, arranged as seat. That’s when it struck me. While I was sobbing in Sangla, I heard something in the background about how we’ll have a packed lunch today. Since the outside temperature hadn’t started dropping much, Spello was an ideal place to stop before it did.

After we gobbled on our, what felt like, refrigerated lunch, I took over the wheel and we continued our drive towards a place called Poo. That’s where we left the Sutlej river and officially entered the Spiti Valley. From there onwards, we climbed from about 7,500 feet to over 12,000 to reach Kinner Camps in Nako. The drive towards Nako was straight out of a racing game. The tarmac was back and with it came sandy mountains, hairpin turns and swooshes of perfect road patches.

In the excitement to relive Need For Speed (Canyon Racing without the drifting part because, cm’on, Scorpio!) for real, I completely forgot to keep myself hydrated for the steep climb. That, with the 10-minute trek through the village to reach our night halt, ganged up on me with breathlessness and a bad headache.

As soon as I entered the allotted tent, I dozed off for a while. I woke up just to find myself craving for something to eat. Since the camp was spread on the side of a hill, I had to trek again to reach the bonfire area. After I found myself a place to sit, I was then told more about Nako by the support team. The village is located at the east end of Kinnaur Valley and is the last point of interest before the landslide-prone area of Malling Nullah, between Kinnaur and Spiti Valley. It is also home to a monastery which dates back to 1025 AD, and in front of that our entry car’s herd was tucked away for the night.

Knowing that we’ll be leaving for Kaza at 8 am the next day, I gulped some brave pills and was the first one to call it a night. In my defence, I was cold, broken and since there were no private telecom operators connecting me to my wife, a bit wife-sick as well. But did I get sick? Well, not technically!

Part 1: 2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 1: Cheerful Chandigarh To Neat Narkanda

Part 2: 2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 2: Neat Narkanda To Serene Sangla

Part 4: 2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 4: Nippy Nako To Killer Kaza

Part 5: 2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 5: Spiti Valley Explored

Part 6: 2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 6: Killer Kaza To Majestic Manali

Part 7: 2017 Mahindra Himalayan Spiti Escape Part 7: A Day In Manali And Then Back To Chandigarh