As giant, cotton puffy clouds travel on the blue canvas of the sky, parts of the valley down below are swathes in shade. As the clouds retreat, the valley reveals the box-shaped, white washed houses and monastery, hanging off granitehewed cliffs. No other place in India offers this ‘sky and clouds affair’ as splendidly as Spiti valley.
    We, a group of six, had not undertaken this travel from Delhi to Spiti, considered another barren Tibetan region, to watch clouds but for various other reasons. Some had come with hopes of chanting Buddhist mantras at the oldest and holiest monastery in the Himalayas, the Tabo Monastery, dating from 996 CE, which is often visited by the Dalai Lama. Some had accompanied to pick up fossils belonging to the Mesozoic era, and some to catch a glimpse of the rare ‘Tibetan

Wolf ’. Whether each and every member of our group was successful in his/her mission issanother story.
    What makes a visit to Spiti special is that it’s among the few unexplored areas in the world as the temperature can vary between -28 degrees to plus 28 degrees. That makes it most inhospitable, but an awe-inspiring place. Tucked away in the interiors of the Trans-Himalayan belt of Himachal Pradesh, this high-altitude cold desert region has only recently been opened to the outside world. Foreigners still need visas. Spiti remains cut off for most of the year by the high mountains that encircle it, thanks to the snow. Due to its relative isolation, various unique and rare aspects of the Buddhist culture (Tibetan Buddhism) are well preserved in this valley.