03 Udaipur
A backpacking tour over 3 Passes in Himachal Pradesh ... using Local Buses & Share-Maxx'es. A non-touristy route from South of GNHP (Great Himalayan National Park) over Jalori-Pass, then crossing Rohtang-La to Keylong in Lahaul and then West into Pangi Valley, almost to J&K border ... and then south crossing over the rarely used Sach-Pass to Chamba and Dalhousie.
In this page:
Day-5, Part-1 : Keylang > Udaipur
Pangi Valley is the east-west valley along the Chandrabhaga River, running west of Keylang. It is a nice valley, but a remote area with just a few tribal villages and hardly any tourists visiting the area. The road along Chandrabhaga goes all the way to Kishtawar in J&K. In recent years the road over Sach-Pass has opened up going south to Chamba; but is still a rough road open only in summer months.
The following quote from HP Tourism website:
"Full of grandeur and tribal majesty is the land locked valley of Pangi, 173 km from Chamba via Sach Pass (4414 m). It is one of the sub-division of Chamba district surrounded by the Pir Panjal & Zanskar ranges. Killar is the sub-divisional headquarter of Pangi Valley. The native Pangwals and Bhotis are robust, hardworking, handsome people who keep the valley’s unique culture alive in folk songs, music and tribal dances. Beyond the reach of tropical monsoon rains, the valley is one of the off-beat and challenging tourism destinations in the State. Approach to the Pangi valley is across the high mountain passes like Sach, Chehni and Rohtang Pass. The Valley remains land locked for about six months due to heavy snow fall.
There are beautiful valleys within Pangi region like Sural, Saichu, Kumar-Parmar, Hundan and Sechu. All these valleys are connected with Zanskar. People of Pangi valley are mainly Hindu with a small population of Buddhist. These people with Mongolian features are called Bhots and they live in higher reaches of the valley called Bhatoris such as Sural Bhatori, Hundan Bhatori, Parmar Bhatori, Chasak Bhatori and Hilu-Twan. There are number of exciting treks from Pangi valley to Keylong (Lahaul valley), Manali (Kullu) and Kishtwar in Kashmir."
30th July 2011: I planned to catch the 6:30AM HPRTC bus to Killar today. So got up early at 5:00AM and checked out. A big Leh group in the Tents was also leaving early and so there was a huge commotion and noise in the Hotel lobby early morning. I walked down the short-cut trail to the bus-stand but there was no sign of the Killar bus. I bought a Rs 158/- ticket to Killar and waited for the bus; it came finally at 7:15AM and we left by 7:30AM. We first headed south to join the main road coming from Rohtang and then turned West, towards Tandi along the river.
8:30AM - Looking back from where we came
The slow moving Himachal Roadways bus afforded easy to shoot amazing valley scenes. Initially the road till Udaipur, though single lane was pretty Ok; but beyond that it is only a dirt track throwing up huge amounts of dust as we moved along at a slow average speed of 15KM, stopping every now and then, to pickup or drop local passengers.
At Jahalma village we stopped for breakfast - a roadside shop serving aloo paratha and tea. At 10:00 we reached the junction of Triloknath Temple which is a further 6Kms away on a side road.
As we enter Pangi Valley near Tandi
The valley belt along the river were green and growing several crops; but the mountains were many shades of brown/violets of stratified rocks
Typical scenery along Chandrabhaga River
The Triloknath side road - looking back after crossing it - about 10KM before Udaipur
Looking back .... towards East
10:30AM - Udaipur is coming up ahead on the Chandrabhaga river bank
SBI Branch at Udaipur (SBI is everywhere!)
We reached Udaipur at 10:30Am and stopped here for 10 minutes for a Tea-break. The rest of the journey to Killar (pronounced as 'Killaad' locally) is continued in next page.
9:15AM We stopped at Jahalma for breakfast
Scenic Valley & Miyar-nalla joins here near before we reach Udaipur
The rust-orange dress worn by this lady seems to be special dress for some special occasion
A collection of 4 Albums of all Pictures of this Tour are in this collection: