Chitkul Village

Chitkul is the last inhabited village in Sangla Valley on the old Hindustan Tibet road. It is a quaint little village that is now becoming a major tourist hub and you can see its landscape getting dominated by garish colored multi-storey hotels. Located at a height of 3450 m, it is a good testing and acclimatization place for your lungs before you move further up in the Himalayas. The beauty of Chitkul lies in the vast valley with a clear view of the Himalayan peaks with the Baspa flowing at its base. My fondest memory of Chitkul is sitting on the colorful stones on the banks of Baspa with my feet in its ice-cold water. You can walk from Chitkul to places like Nagasthi that are further close to the border or stop on the way at Rackham village, which is crowned as model village and has a lovely top view of the flowing Baspa and small bridges that connect the two banks of the river. On way to Chitkul you see lot of pine trees, small rivulets on their way to merge with the Baspa, you cross many small metal bridges built across these streams of water. It is a pleasure to stand on these bridges and look at the water making its way through the tough rocks.