Spiti in nine days: what actually happens
Altitude, not distance, is what makes Spiti difficult. Here is the honest version of the route, including the day we tell you to do nothing.
Most Spiti itineraries on the internet are written by people who have not been to Spiti in June. They put Manali, Kaza, Chandratal and Tabo into five days and call it done. You can do it. You will also spend two of those days in a car, one of them above 4,000 metres with a headache, and you will finish the trip having seen four car parks.
The route we run takes nine days, and two of them are deliberately light. That is not padding. It is the difference between a trip people remember and a trip people survive.
The first two days are not on the schedule for a reason
You arrive in Manali at 1,530 metres. Most itineraries have you driving to Kaza the next day, which means crossing Kunzum La at 4,551 metres roughly twenty hours after landing. A lot of people get altitude sickness here and most of them assume it is bad luck.
It is not bad luck. It is a 3,000-metre ascent in one day. Spend the second day in Manali. Jog Waterfall in the morning, Solang in the afternoon, dinner early. Your body will thank you on day five.
What Kaza actually looks like
Kaza is a small town at 3,600 metres with two hotels that have hot water on a good day, a Dzong on a hill, and a main street where you can buy everything you need including the oxygen cylinder your guide is already carrying.
We spend two nights in Kaza rather than one, and the second day is for Key and Langza. Key Monastery is twelve hundred years old and you will have it almost to yourself. Langza has a set of a hundred Buddha statues on the crest of a hill at 4,400 metres, and the walk up is about forty minutes.
Dhankar and Tabo, and why they are worth two days
Dhankar Monastery sits on a spur of rock above a river confluence, and it was built in 1190. Tabo has been in continuous use since 996 CE, which makes it one of the oldest continuously functioning monasteries anywhere. The murals in the temple at Tabo are the reason serious people come to Spiti at all.
Most itineraries give you Tabo as a two-hour stop on the way somewhere. Give it a night. The second evening in Tabo, when the tour bus has gone, is the Tabo people actually live in.
Chandratal, and getting there honestly
Chandratal is a lake at 4,300 metres with no road to it and no permanent settlement on its shore. You either walk in from the roadhead, about two hours, or take a jeep on a track that is not a road by any definition.
We give you the choice. People who walk in are quieter for the rest of the evening, which I have always thought was the point.
Key Highlights:
- Keep the second day in Manali, whatever the brochure says.
- Two nights in Kaza, not one.
- Build the descent day as gently as the climb.
- Carry oxygen. Ask your operator where the oxygen is, before you pay.
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