Visiting CHITKUL - "The Last Village of INDIA"

Hello Hivers,

Hope you all are doing fine. This blog will be about my visit to Chitkul village of Kinnaur District of Himachal Pardesh. I will be sharing my travel story and experience with some of most important information about this place so that it could help you if you want to visit this place in future. I was going through my hard drive the other day and was able to find this trip photos so what could be an better opportunity for writing blog about this place hence here it is.

Chitkul is the last village of the Baspa Valley and the last village on the traditional Hindustan-Tibet trade route, located on the right bank of the Baspa River. Chitkul village is only 90 kilometers from the Indo-Tibet border. Beyond Chitkul, all civilian movement is restricted. Chitkul is known as India's last village for this reason. It is well-known for its Phulaich Fair, which attracts a large number of Hindu devotees and is one of the top things to do in Chitkul. This temple is easily accessible by vehicle or bus. Other temples in Sangla village include Badrinarayan ji and Vishnu Narayan ji. Chitkul offers unmatched views from its soft position on the Baspa River, with Kinner Kailash visible in the background. Snow-capped mountains may be seen on the left bank of the Baspa till pigs start flying, while an expanse of orchards can be seen on the right bank.

Summer months, particularly April to June and September to October, are the finest times to visit. The exhilarating roads of the Hindustan-Tibet Highway leading up to Chitkul, combined with the brilliant blue skies, make for the ideal experience, with just enough safety thrown in for good measure. Apple harvest season, on the other hand, is August through September so you might face traffic in these months. Chitkul is about 250km from state capital Shimla and you will find many cities between this journey such as Rampur, Reckong Peo and Pooh.

It was summers of 2018 and I was on holidays from College. My friends came up with a plan to go for a trip to Chitkul and then what, the next day we were ready for this. I would never say no to the opportunity like this to explore new places. We planned to meet at a friend restaurant (NEW GAZEL) in Bithal, near Rampur on our trip day morning. You can also visit New Ghazel Resturant and have your any meal of day, it has amazing Indian menu and you can also avail refreshments. It was the of the day of trip so I woke up early and by 10 am I was at my friends restaurant. We all eight friends gathered and had our breakfast at restaurant. We packed our things in cars and started our journey by 11am. We had one SUV and another was an sedan as known that the condition of road was good for Chitkul.

We were traveling side by side of Sutlej river from Rampur to Juri. After some time of travel we came to place known as Tranda Checkpost where you have to do your entry for vehicle and give details of passenger. Then we crossed Tranda and witness an amazing road geography where road is carved in mountain. It was awesome place for photography and I took some of pics as below.

It was an amazing place and now we started for our next stop at Reckong Peo. We took our lunch at Reckong Peo and by 2pm we was at Karcham, place from where you have to take diversion from NH22 to Sangla road. We took some pictures at Karcham Wangtoo Dam.

It was so windy at the Karcham bridge and we injoyed the view of Wangtoo Dams lake and after some time started to enter the Baspa valley at the end of which is Chitkul. Through our uphill road we witnessed dangerous road and then greenery of the valley with apple orchards farming following with another Dam named as Baspa dam.

We didn't stop at Baspa dam as it was getting late and we have to book rooms for our night stay ahead. We reach at Sangla at 4pm and booked our rooms for night and then move ahead for Chitkul. Chitkul is about 28 km from Sangla so we planned to go and come back for night to stay at Sangla. We did experience many beautiful landscapes while going towards Chitkul.

We reached at Chitkul by 5:30pm in evening and it was a love at first sight place for me. I couldn't imagine that the place like Chitkul is so easily accessible via vehicle, usually the place like this is found after a very hard and difficult journey. I read a fact about this place that Chitkul has the India's cleanest air and I have no doubt about it. The place was covered with deodar trees on one side of valley and beautiful terrace farming on other with Baspa river separating them.

We took some amazing pictures and explore the place. You can also witness snow in Chitkul if you manage to visit this place in early winters or early summers. Now it was slowly getting dark and we were getting late for our travel back to Sangla so we left for Sangla by 7pm.

We reach at Sangla by 8pm and then took our dinner. It was an amazing day and in night we changed our plan to go for Nako village in the morning. I will be covering my next day journey in my next blog as it would become so lengthy to cover in a single blog.

That is all for this blog.
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