himachal

The Eurasian Magpie, or as I like to call it, shalgam (turnip).

I was looking for another pic when I came across this 😍

#Village #Kaza

Moo time

Because you people like #cows so much

The #flowers of #Narkanda

#rose

At the Café #Deyzor in #Kaza, junior had the delectable #muesli with #fruits and #yogurt.

We had a lot more food there, that I did not take pictures of. Excellent food, excellent service. And then they let us park 🏕 our #caravan in their backyard and use their pit toilet. For free. Best people ever.

The #naughty #kids of #Pooh. My kids made good friends with them.

#eagle #snowcappedmountain #Spiti #SpitiValley #Kaza

Now we are #driving through the #hills of #Chail while it lightly #drizzles.

It's over and out for us from #Kufri.

These #insects made the kids #jump. Even though they are sitting perfectly still. They're a little more than an inch in length.

Managed to take one photograph without any trash visible. Now to get out of here real quick. 😷

The #hills of #Kufri are full of #trash, #tree #stumps, #people and #cars. Sad.

The #drive and the #road are amazing, just like @deepankarbasu had said.

Like, literally? सेब नियंत्रण कक्ष!
The #apple #uprising is coming. We need to keep the apples under #control. 🍏 🤪

M2: is this where they imprison apples?

All #fruits for #lunch

January and February is ski 🎿 season in Narkanda. You come to Narkanda town, and 500 meters from it is the ski place. Snow is two to three feet, but they pile up snow at places for skiing.

For hotels, it is an off season 😲. Rates are lower than they are now, which is peak season. The cost of skiing and equipment rental for half a day is ₹1,000. The national highway is pretty clean and snow is removed from it regularly, so it's easy to drive up.

Why do I not know of this? Who wants to come ski this winter? Decathlon was even selling skis when we visited them a week ago. But why buy when we can rent?

दीपक का मिट्टी का मकान।

आसपास सभी के मकान अब concrete और ईंट के हैं। मकान का क्या है। दिल बड़ा होना चाहिए।

कुछ दोस्त उम्र भर के होते हैं और कुछ दोस्त, पल भर के। मगर होते तो सारे ही प्यारे हैं ❤️

A #primary #school. Eight students. Good use of our tax money 😀

The most #amazing #breakfast setting ever 😍 🥣

#hammock time

I've been out camping and RVing through Himachal Pradesh. If you aren't already, please do follow me on @caravahan and view the whole story.

In a hurry last night, we had pitched tent on a slight slope. The upper half is on a slope, the lower half is flat.

When we tried sleeping, we were rolling all over the place 😂. So we turned 90°. This morning the kids had slipped halfway to flat part of the tent.

Not a good way to sleep. So I'm letting them sleep in this morning. They need the rest after all the traveling down from Kaza.

सेब ही हैं 😀 🍏
छोटे से

Good morning y'all. Sending good vibes from our cherry and apple orchard to you. Not sending any real 🍒 or 🍏 though 😀

#moonrise over the #campsite.

View from our #campsite for the night. Gotta scramble and #pitch #tent.

#happiness

#cherries #vanlife #HimachalPradesh

Deepankar, Shushmita and Isa Basu sent us this pic shortly after our chance meeting, with the caption "join us?". OMG omg omg #goals #love #soawesome

Send them oohs, aahs and cheers, everyone.

The #drive from #Rampur to #Narkand is what #mountain dreams are made of. #Smooth #tarmac, wide #road, breathtaking scenery.

#stepfarming the #rocky #terrain

#painting or #photograph?

People have made great use of the terrain

A weathered tree at the Tabo monastery.

#Tabo #monastery #tree

#portal ?

Bridges were crossed.

Better pics in the DSLR

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

And sometimes the hunter is hunted, unbeknownst to him

❤️

An interesting #traffic #jam

#trafficjam #yak

Steep glacier

Shallow glacier

Sometimes you see a burst of green between the unrelenting rock and snow. And you know a river flows nearby. And a farmer toils hard to protect his field.

बड़े बड़े पहाड़
छोटे छोटे घर

People will make anything home. The human spirit is just wow. These houses have been around for thousands of years.

Pin Valley was something else.

If you're short on time and want to experience the essential #Spiti Valley, just drive from Shimla till #Tabo and return. The road is mostly awesome. There is no need for you to go to Sangla, Chitkul, Nako, Pin, etc. After the awe of the Nako to Tabo section, everything else is a variation of the same theme.

We had to turn back from Kaza because the Manali route wasn't open. Therefore we also missed Ky and Kunzum Top.

M2 cleans utensils in a natural stream.

No soap was used in the making of photograph. So chill 😁

You would have seen images of villages and monasteries perched precariously at the edge of mountains. Usually people post about Tiger's Nest in Bhutan. Come to #Spiti and you will see this everywhere. Not every village looks down a mountainside. Some look into a green field, if there is a river flowing nearby to feed the field.

#Sagnam

The restaurant at the end of the world.

Or #Nako

Same thing

#portal #Nako

#portal #Tabo #monastery

More of these #portals that don't seem to safeguard much.

You see whatever this is that nature has carved into a mountainside.

You see vast #ridges

I'm going to now try and take you through the grandeur that is the #SpitiValley between #Nako and #Tabo. We did the route on Tuesday, but I've been avoiding putting up pics.

Pictures and videos are too small the capture the vastness, the other worldliness of this place. The only way to know it is to bite the blue pill and come on over to see it for yourself.

M1: How does dad look?

M2: Obese

#savage #burn #thuglife

M1: So rude.

M2: There was this chart in school with height and recommended body weight and according to that chart I think dad is...

Me: Do you know what B.R.O. stands for?

M1: Bro seriously?

The kids have not watched a single minute of T. V. or video, or used a smartphone, since we started. All kids need is constructive engagement.

M2 noticed that this is how our #route looks in #satellite view.

Been #riding beside the #sutlej for an hour now.

Now accepting #roadtrip #song #recommendations

Nowhere near the most spectacular #overhang we have encountered so far. But the one safest to photograph 😀

This is a very #scenic, #idyllic spot. I'm unable to capture its #beauty with my phone. There are some winding stairs, a narrow path, a stone cabin. A stream flows through the place. The kind of location authors picture with words in stories.

We are #ontheroadagain. Let's see where we reach today.

Last night when we came back from dinner, we found our #caravan boxed in by a couple of other cars. We were anyway gonna sleep here tonight, so it didn't matter. However, being a city dweller, I was quite uneasy about being trapped in my spot.

In the morning I asked someone for help. She pointed out that most cars have the cellphone number of the owner printed on the car. And yes indeed, the cars blocking me were stickered. Before I could call the owner, he came and took his car away.

#Himachal is so safe that people put their numbers on their cars 😲. In Gurgaon you'd get stalked.

What's the first thing you see when you slide out of bed in the morning?

#cowsofinstagram 😂

दरवाज़े और दीवारें #doors and #fences

Monster flower gonna get you tonight.

#HimachalPradesh

Tonight we #dine at a #fancy #buffet. A little luxury doesn't take away from the #vanlife #experience.

Since you people are clearly suckers for the #sound of #flowing #water

#HimachalPradesh #experientialtravel

More hero गिरी

#kidsofinstagram #kidstravel #travelwithkids #HimachalPradesh

लकड़ा हमारा hero है

#kidsofinstagram #kidstravel #kids

As you folks would have noticed by now, we went for a #village #walk.

Walking through villages is always the high point of any trip I make to the mountains, whether it is Himachal, Uttarakhand, Meghalaya or Assam.

We made friends with some boys from the village. 5am tomorrow they're gonna take us to a glacier nearby. Can't wait.

#HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh

#Moar #trees

#TheHiddenLifeOfTrees

#GooglePhotos has been itching to get in on my #Instagram game

आज हमने कई दरख़्तों से दोस्ती की 😊

#TheHiddenLifeOfTrees

#dogs #dogsofinstagram #goodboy #HimachalPradesh

बड़े बड़े ताले और छोटी छोटी खिड़कियाँ। क्या हैं यह?

#locks #lock #window

#HimachalPradesh

#ताला #lock

#गाँव #village

#apple #orchards

+1 would make this the logo for our products. Rugged like these rocks.

For #geography wonks. In this one pic you see #clouds, #snowcappedmountains, #glaciers, melting #snow and #moraine, a glacial #stream, and a #river

Like a #painting

We are all tired this morning. Sleeping in the #tent 🎪 wasn't anywhere as comfortable as sleeping in the #van 🚐. In fact I have had better sleep 🛏 in the #van than I usually do at home. It was chilly at night, but were warm in our bags. It is super hot this morning - the air is cool but the mountain 🏔️ sun ☀ is beating down on us.
The kids are sleepily stuffing the sleeping bags. I can't be bothered to arrange the #gear exactly as I'd originally laid it out. The crate wasn't letting the shotgun seat slide back as much as it can, so we've put the cooler (which is smaller) in its place. The books in the crate are now in the cooler 😬

The crate and the table are now on top of the bed. This likely will #fail on broken roads. But it's worth a try. Anyway no one sits on the bed while we are moving. Per @umeshunni 's suggestion I've tied down the table.

So we've prioritised passenger comfort over gear stability. Let's see what happens.

#mountains #snowcappedmountains

Kailash Parvat

कैलाश पर्वत

The awe of it

I think I'll just let the kids sleep in this morning. We are on #vacation. Why the rush?

#campinglife #vacationwithkids #campingwithkids #kidstravel

I like our Coleman instant tent, because it's literally instant. Up in sixty second. But it has no rainfly. Which means all night it was soaking in dew. This morning it's dripping wet. You touch it from the inside and water drains on to you, your electronics and books.

Gotta fashion a rainfly for this guy.

Late start to the morning. Gotta unpack and go now. Chitkul calls.

#vanlife #campinglife

After holding things back for an hour, I crawled out of my sleeping bag and tent to take a leak.

On the way back, I swung my head around because of a noise (of course I'm jumpy when it's this dark). And lo and behold. As I swung my head, I noticed the night sky. *low whistle*

You would not believe what I saw. Its aglow.

So, I'm wearing shorts and I'm cold. The tent is wet with dew. But I still go back in and fish my specs out.

Then I look up again.

The stars. The milky way. Oh the glory of it all. It could make anyone believe in higher powers.

So, see the attached pic. The Innova came with a DSLR. I've never used one. I have no clue. And yes, I did make one shameful attempt with my phone camera, only to get a completely dark picture. So I go into the car and fish it out.

It won't work. I read some tutorials. I actually stackoverflowed Nikon D90s. It won't work. When I point it at the sky and press the shutter button, it won't click. I tried M A P S. I fiddled with the ISO.

It obviously works in full auto. I took some pics during the day (not showing ya 😜). It only doesn't work with stars. I can't practice the settings during the day because in the day it works. And in the night it's cold and... You get the drift. It's late and I'm incoherent but I need help. I'm likely headed to Tabo people. I gotta make this useless heavy piece of metal photograph night skies.

OK. Good night.

#NikonD90 #nightsky #nightskyphotography

It's time to call it a night.

The kids decided to do a bit of cleanup around the #campsite. They'd already cleaned the spot where we pitched #tent.

There was endless commentary about the kinds of garbage people had left

The colours that come out at this time of the day here are to die for

How does one post a wide/tall pic on Instagram?

Anywhoo. Witness some watermelon devourment 🍉

M1 slaughters the dinner. M2 prepares to impale it instead.

#dinner #camplife

#washbasin

#camping #vanlife #roadtrip

Reporting live from the road to #Chitkul. The scenery has now left us speechless.

Instagram wanted to filter this pic 😲

Those of you who are following us on Insta and Facebook, would you please share the link https://www.instagram.com/caravahan/ on these mediums.

We are trying to get to a critical mass of people like minded people seeing our posts. What we are doing is highly unusual for India, and we can use all of the advice and support we can get.

We crossed Nathpa shortly after noon. We should have eaten lunch here, because we found no restaurant after this. At Karcham we turned off of the National Highway towards Sangla. The road quality immediately dropped. I had to be attentive at all times. We are carrying a lot of food, but there wasn't enough space beside the road to stop and eat it.
It's 4pm now and we are having lunch at Sangla. We will head on further after this and hopefully find a good place to pitch tent and set up camp.

I must acknowledge the very useful advice and tips I've received so far from Preeti, Rahul, Gargi, Aman, Chaitali and Priya. More advice, and warnings about road conditions, would be very useful, so do share the link https://www.instagram.com/caravahan/

Thanks much for reading.

Freshly showered.

Yesterday we started from Kasauli at day break, and reached Ponda after sunset. Since we were on the road all through, with the occasional meal break, we didn't have a chance to shower.

This morning we saw people, mostly truckers, showering by the side of the road. How could we pass up the opportunity? What's more, the water turned out to be refreshingly warm. Perhaps a hot water spring was the source.

We have been brushing and going to the loo at temples, monasteries and such. Restaurant washrooms are a hit or a miss, so we avoid them.

Thats what #vanlife is about, I guess. If we build ourselves a proper #caravan, a toilet, shower and kitchenette will be the things we will add in over and above what the #van offers.

#HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #Kinnour #Sangla #SanglaValley

The monks at the monastery saw us using their restroom and have invited us in for breakfast. Everything you've ever heard about Buddhist monastery hospitality is true.

Seen here, juxtaposition of the traditional with the modern.

M2 is awake. M1 refuses to rise. He slept an hour after us. Says he was looking at the #stars till the windows #fogged up. Sounds so #romantic.

#vanlife #HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #Kinnour

The kids will soon wake up to this view.

The three of us squeezed in at the back tonight. M1 just snuggled in between me and M2 after we had slept. The idea always was for one kid to sleep on a fully reclined front seat. But we were quite comfortable. The 4.5'x6' bed is adequate for the three of us when it's cold outside. Inside it was perfectly warm and cozy.

OK. The boys are stirring. Gotta go.
#nofilter #Kinnour #HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #vanlife #caravan #roadtrip

Our first view of #snowcappedmountains had the kids yelping with joy.

#roadtrip #HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #Jakhari

Ha ha ha ha ha (maniacal laughter)

Now that I've ensnared you all into following me, I unleash my diabological plan. One of you will use your Google foo and find us a lovely campsite that let's us open camp with our own van and tent. We reach Rampur Bushahar by 4:30pm. Somewhere near there will be ideal.

Pretty please. With sugar on top.

#HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh

I thought these boxes were used to make concrete blocks. M1 correctly identified them as #bee keeping boxes. Zoom in and see the #bees buzzing.

#HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #Narkanda

Are we in #cherryblossom country?

#HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #cherries

Yes yes, at some point we will start cooking our own food. Till then we enjoy local cuisine in a #traditional #thali.

#HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #SanglaValley #vanlife

Someone asked for a pic of the outside of our #van. Here it is. We have made no changes on the outside (yet). Not even a carrier. Indian authorities are notorious in this respect, always picking on people who mod their vehicles. So we are playing it safe.

#vanlife #caravan #roadtrip

@fakeera_baanwra I fed the 🐒s #watermelon for #lunch. Does that make you happy?

#vanlife #Theog #HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #roadtrip

Just saw another guy who lives and works out of a bus and tent. #vanlife doesn't seem so aspirational any more. 😅🎪🚌

Dad got us a full set of #Tintins because he always wanted them as a kid. We aren't allowed to read in the moving car so we read when and where we can. We love him. Dad things Herge is racist, but we are smart enough to not pick up on the stereotypes.

Changed the organisation of our gear a bit. Let's see how this holds up on the #windingroads of #HimachalPradesh

#vanlife #caravan #caravaninteriors

We are leaving this behind and moving on

#Kasauli #HimachalTourism #HimachalPradesh #vanlife

We woke up like this 😁

#mountainmornings

Good #morning. We are still #sleepy. Fresh #mountainair.

#vanlife #caravan #Kasauli

Had to drive all the way up to #Kasauli for #dinner. The weather is good. We can see things getting #chilly in an hour.

#vanlife #roadtrip #HimachalPradesh

देखो, देखो वोह आ गए

The mountains are here

#vanlife #HimachalPradesh #HimachalTourism #roadtrip #mountains

If we cross #Kasauli today, we can sleep in the van without air conditioning. That's another two hours of driving. And the sun would be about to set. Let's see.

#vanlife #HimachalTourism

M1 poses for the public. Our departure got delayed because we were arranging things in the car, and my body was hurting from two days of work. Instead of 3am, it is a noon departure now. Let's see where we reach.

#camping #caravan #vanlife #HimachalPradesh

The red ones are our trusted #sleepingbag s. I think they'll hold up in #Kaza's cold. The second pic is of our spare sleeping bags. They'll probably end up as spreads over our mattress, or extra insulation if the mercury heads south.

#campinggear #HimachalPradesh #vanlife #camping

This is an inflatable boat with paddles etc. Should we carry this with us? Will there be any water bodies between Kalka and Kaza where we can safely use it? Safety first, after all.

#boat #vanlife #caravan #inflatableboat #Kaza #HimachalPradesh #Chitkul #Sangla #Nako #Tabo #Narkanda

Here is the gear we will be taking with us to #Kaza #HimachalPradesh. Suggestions on what else to include or exclude are very welcome.

#camping #campinggear #vanlife #backpacking #backpackerlife

This is what our route looks like. #Gurgaon to #Nako in #HimachalPradesh, and likely on to #Tabo and #Kaza. Looks like the #KMPExpressway will let us bypass all of #Delhi.
#experientialtravel #vanlife #mosttreacherousroadintheworld