DELHI – SHIMLA – KINNAUR – SPITI – KULLU VALLEY – VILLAGE FARMHOUSE – KANGRA VALLEY – DHARAMSALA/MCLEOD GANJ – HERITAGE VILLAGE – AMRITSAR – DELHI
About traveling in the Himalayas with us:
"...hundreds of wonderful memories (and thousands of pictures!). Your planning for the trip was excellent; the guiding you provided throughout made the experience truly meaningful, and memorable. And no less important: you were fun to travel with! Thank you so much for making all of this possible." Ed Knapp
"The trip was fabulous. It went beyond expectations and we thank you for the immersion! I have been to India many times and this was a new perspective. The Tibetan villages exquisite...just hanging there...the people were great...managed to take in a festival at the farm house village...have already recommended it to friends...enjoyed traveling with M&C...great discussions that opened the mind..." Ellen and Bob Ansel
"My trip with you replays itself in my mind quite often and makes me more eager every day to go back to India. I have been on quite a few tours and trips, many purported to be "educational" about history and culture of an area. None of them came close to yours. In the end, the leaders of the tour are the key to the experience."
Barbara McDonald
"Simply cannot wait to put on my India travel shoes again and, best of all, experience the wonders with you two at my side."
Margrit Vogt
It seems amazing that the mighty and rugged Himalayas were not only traversed by numerous ancient caravan routes but also sheltered powerful kingdoms, rich from trade in pashmina wool and silk, salt and tea. The caravans followed some of Asia's major rivers: the Sutlej, Spiti, Chenab and Beas, and so do we, as we drive through river valleys and over high passes of the Indian Himalayas. We'll walk through forests of cedar and pine, high-altitude meadows with staggering views, rustic mountain villages, and visit age-old Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and wander through fascinating bazaars, ancient stopping places on the old trade routes.
We travel by chair car and toy train from Delhi up to Shimla, former capital of the British Raj, and drive into the Himalayan kingdoms of Kinnaur, Spiti, Lahaul, Kullu, and Kangra. The gods and goddesses are still powerful in these regions. Unique cultures and archaic forms of Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism flourish in these valleys, only recently opened to the outside world. Ancient nature spirits live under venerable trees. These regions and their people have a timeless, untouched quality. Villagers transport their local divinities on shoulder-borne palanquins to visit neighboring gods, accompanied by musicians playing drums and massive curved brass horns. We hike to a sacred lake inhabited by a snake demon. Finally, we visit the Kangra Valley with its ancient temples and fort and Dharamsala, current home of the Dalai Lama and headquarters of the Tibetan exile community.
In remote villages clinging to mountainsides high above rivers the people of the forested Kullu Valley live in granite-roofed stone and wood houses and weave colorful woolens for their traditional dress. Slate-roofed, cedar-timbered temples overlook the villages and vast terraced patchworks of rice paddies and cornfields. The valley is lush, with towering cliffs, virgin forests, powerful rivers and waterfalls pouring out of the mountains.
Driving across the Great Himalayan Range, we linger at 14,000- and 15,000-foot passes strung with Buddhist prayer flags, and take in vistas of peaks and glaciers that spread out to infinity. Spiti is a land of raw, naked, mountains with illusionary rock formations. A magnificent region, this is the place where the Indian subcontinent first made contact with the Asian mainland in that long-ago collision of continents that created the Himalayas; and it looks it. The region is home to people following a distinct age-old culture and one of the few places left where archaic sects of Tibetan Buddhism still flourish. Here 1000-year-old monasteries are filled with treasures of Tibetan Buddhist art, and we visit several of the greatest, still active religious centers. The flat-roofed Tibetan-style houses are white, ochre and black, and the carefully tended terraced fields of barley and peas are irrigated with channeled snowmelt.
In the Kangra Valley, we visit a wonderful 9th-century stone Shiva temple and stay at the summer palace of the former maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, now a heritage hotel still operated by the royal family. At Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj, two small hill stations in the Kangra Valley, the Dalai Lama established his residence after leaving Chinese-occupied Tibet. Here, with the hospitality and generosity of the Indian government, a mini-Tibet flourishes. Tibetan Buddhist monasteries have been reestablished; refugee monks, nuns and lay people practice their religion and their trades; a Tibetan government-in-exile functions; a Tibetan hospital, medical and astrological research and training institutes, a university, library, archive, and a handicraft training and production center all thrive. All this of course is centered on the person and office of the Dalai Lama, just as life had been in old Tibet. And appropriately, his residence, office and temple are situated right in the heart of McLeod Ganj. A hub of spiritual activity, there are daily services in the temple and in the evenings students fervently debate doctrines of Buddhist philosophy. Monks and nuns stroll the streets; Tibetan Buddhist temples, stupas, colorful prayer flags and rows of prayer wheels punctuate the scene. Not far from town, an impressive modern monastery, temple and residential complex is home to the Karmapa, second most spiritually revered figure in the Tibetan Buddhist world. We will attend an audience with him.
(Note: There is a good chance that the Dalai Lama will be in residence during the time when we visit Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj.)
We visit one of India's most sacred goddess temples, a place where tongues of flame burn on stone walls and a pool of cold water boils. We stay in a nobleman's home, now an atmospheric heritage hotel, and explore the quaint village and bazaar just outside the grounds.
Before returning to Delhi by cahir car train we visit the Golden Temple, sacred to the Sikh religion.
On this trip we stay in charming, well-appointed hotels and mountain lodges, a very special farmhouse lodge, heritage hotels in the Kangra Valley; and in McLeod Ganj, a unique Tibetan guesthouse decorated and furnished with traditional Tibetan art and handicrafts.
Notes:
Airfare is not included in the tour price.
The price is $3950, which includes all accommodation (all rooms with attached bath), meals (B, L, D), entrance fees, internal travel by rail in a/c chair cars and by SUV, transfers and is based on double occupancy (add $950 for single supplement) and a group size of 8-10 members. Carol and Martin will guide you throughout the trip.
Also see tour packages in:
Asia
India
Cultural Journey
Ecotourism
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