Archive for September, 2008
Now that’s Bureaucracy
By Tony on September 23, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Tabo Monastery Dances
By Thomas on September 21, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Tabo Monastery is one of the oldest and best preserved Buddhist gompas we have seen. It was founded over a thousand years ago, and while the exterior is quite basic, the interior walls are covered with extensive, well-preserved Indo-Tibetan murals. The unique paintings clearly deserve their World Heritage status and are worth the long journey to Spiti.
But our trip to this remote region was rewarded with far more than murals. While we were visiting the gompa, we were lucky enough to observe a 2-day festival which included local folk songs and dance routines showing off the traditional dress and jewelry as well as the fascinating masked Chaam dances performed by the Tabo monks.
Witness this colorful spectacle for yourself and get a glimpse of Spitian culture in our video of the festival.
Running for Our Lives
By Tony on September 19, 2008 | No Comments »
Could the roads get any worse than I previously described in On Edge? Absolutely. In fact, the entire road can collapse and you can be stranded on the wrong side – oops. That’s exactly what happened to us as we attempted to travel from Nako to Tabo.
After tearing out my hair on the nightmare roads from Rekong Peo, I had convinced the others to shell out the dough to hire a car to drive us on into the Spiti Valley. We had found a jeep, bargained out a decent rate, and were ready to go, when a local informed us that the road had partially collapsed and even jeeps were unable to make it over the rubble. Quite used to these kinds of scenarios, it was decided » Continue reading this post »
Inner Line Permit
By Thomas on September 17, 2008 | No Comments »
India without paperwork wouldn’t be India. Before setting off to Kinnaur and Spiti, we had to obtain inner-line permits, which would allow us to stay in this remote region for 2 weeks.
Why all the fuss? The road winding precariously along steep and narrow gorges north of Kinnaur into Spiti is as close to Tibet as you can get in a vehicle from the Indian side. Only a few kilometers from the border, the region is dotted with old » Continue reading this post »
On Edge
By Tony on September 16, 2008 | No Comments »
Over the years, we’ve seen the world’s worst roads. Rock-strewn trails from the Sudan to Tibet. Muddy nightmares from Guatemala to Madagascar. Don’t get me started about central Africa. But nothing could prepare us for the journey from Kinnaur to Spiti – pure vertical nightmare.
During the last year, we’ve been on a tour of the world’s most terrifying mountain roads from Sichuan to Tibet to Nepal. You really would have thought that we would have experienced the worst of the worst when it comes to mountain roads. WRONG! » Continue reading this post »
