By Melanie Brehaut
It is the dust that remains with you in Spiti Valley. It remains in your memory and it remains all over you for weeks afterwards.

But it is the friendliness of the people, together with the tranquillity and beauty of the harsh, dry landscape that is most memorable.

The Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh, northern India, is relatively unknown. Located 150km and almost a day's drive from Manali near Tibet, and at the foot of the Himalayas, it is often missed by visitors who travel further on to the more popular region of Ladakh.

Mountains are all around, some of the higher ones capped or lightly dusted with snow. It is like a desert, but instead of sand dunes there are miles and miles of rock - parched and barren.

It is a windy place, especially evident in the eroded sandstone pinnacles that line the grassless banks of the wide and deep river bed. Several streams of water run alongside each other, a dirty grey colour, glacial melt mixed with sand and dust.

Greenery from the villages brightens the valley - irrigated fields and orchards. There is little greenery for decoration.

A Buddhist region, Spitians are mostly of Tibetan origin. Photos of the Dalai Lama feature not only in the monasteries, but also in shops, homes, schools.

People lead self-sufficient lifestyles. They tend their animals - goats, sheep, yaks, and work in their fields during the short summer season. Barley is the primary crop and was the staple food, until imported rice was introduced later.

Local arrack made from barley is consumed with relish by the locals.

The valley is isolated for eight months of the year during the winter months. This remoteness seems to have preserved the region's culture and religion.

Transport is limited to travelling by foot or by horse; bus services stop due to the roads being blocked by deep snow.

The villages look similar to those seen in pictures of Tibet.

Communities live closely; all the homes together, sometimes balanced precariously on a mountain top, with a monastery as the prominent feature.

Nearly all monasteries are ancient, 100-years-old or more. They come in all shapes and sizes. Often the highest point in a village, most are like large house complexes with several shrine rooms for prayer and meditation.

There are statues of the Buddha and Hindu deities, and colourful thankas, and frescoes painted on the walls.

Small villages without monasteries have gompas, a prayer wheel, or a well-worn stupa instead.

Houses are square with small ornately framed windows and flat roofs to cope with heavy snowfall. In summer the rooftops are used to dry food.

Made from mud and whitewashed on the outside, houses have a separate space for animals to live inside during winter, while the main room of the house is a kitchen cum living area cum sleeping room. It may have a wooden stove in the centre, but it's possibly only used in the cold season, as gas is now more convenient for cooking. The room will be filled with copper cooking pots handed down from generation to generation.

Hospitality is sincere and generous. Many cups of tea are provided, more often than not by strangers, sometimes served with butter, a good luck offering.

People seem to be always cheerful, their faces weathered and worn from the unforgiving environment. They are quick with a smile and a friendly "juley", the universal greeting for hello, goodbye, how are you?

Spiti is reached by road from Manali or Shimla, India's version of Bandarawela - the honeymoon capital.

The road out of Manali is lined with signs warning motorists to take care: "After whisky, driving is risky"; "If you be brash, you crash"; "Mountains are for pleasure if you drive with leisure".

The road leads to Rohtang Pass, at 4112 metres above sea level, the most accessible place from Manali to see the mountains. Vehicle loads of Indian day-trippers make the 51km journey for their experience of the Himalayas.

They hire long fur coats and rubber (Wellington) boots, take a short horse or yak ride to see, touch and have their photographs taken in the snow.

One of Spiti's smaller villages, Chichim, is sometimes accessible by road. On this occasion it is not, landslides preventing vehicles from plying the narrow road that clings to the side of the mountain.

Instead we reach it by walking from the village of Kibber (4205m and one of the highest villages in the world) across the valley. For those not accustomed, walking at high altitudes is difficult.

At the top of Chichim are its monasteries. One is over 300 years old.

A huge prayer wheel dominates the inside of the small and darkened room. The wheel is cylindrical, made from wood once painted in bright colours, now faded and worn.

An old woman sits with her back to the open doorway, a pile of clean white stones on the ground at her side. She pulls the rope attached to the wheel, each time it completes a circuit, a small bell rings and she takes one stone from her right side, places it on her left, chanting all the while.

Chichim's newer monastery on this day has been hosting a pooja to bring rain to the village.

The monastery's sole lama (monk) is watering flowers when we arrive, then serving chai to the young boys and a few men from the village who have gathered at the temple.

The 10 or so boys, aged about eight or nine, are asked to perform a dance for me, the foreign visitor, but they are shy and all run away to hide. Some are persuaded to return and as the drumming starts they dance against the backdrop of majestic mountains.

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