This is my second post with photographs from Nako, a small Himalayan village perched at 12,000 feet (3,700 meters), just below the Indian-Tibet border. I had joined Ride Expeditions for ten days of touring by motorcycle in northern India, mostly through Spiti Valley, high in the Himalayas in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In my previous post I shared photographs of some of the people I encountered.
Nako has only about 130 families and is purely agricultural. The village has no internal streets – it’s simply a collection of stone structures and pathways, with small stone cow pens nestled in between the homes. It feels quite isolated, and the road that skirts the village is closed during the long winters. This photo group shows scenes of the paths, the buildings, and the views to the steep terraced slopes above. The awesome surrounding mountains are visible in almost all the images.
The first few images below are panoramas of views from the village to the surrounding terrain. Because the panoramas are long and narrow, about 4 times as wide as tall, I’m not sure if these scenes can be appreciated on smaller devices – but let me know what you think. Panoramas are really the only way to convey the relationship of this village to its mountain home – turn your phones sideways!
Nako sits high on a range of mountains right at the Tibetan border. The terraced plots on the slope above the town were being harvested of their pea crop at the time we visited.
Larger fields of peas have been fit into the glacial terrain at the level of Nako. This is a view to the north that shows the slope of the mountains rising out of the Spiti Valley to the far left. These structures were at the periphery of the village.
Another view to the north shows a glacial moraine, a deposition of rocks and sediments left by earlier glacial activity. If you’re building a wall or a house in Nako this would be a place to get your stones!
Looking west across the Spiti Valley to the flanking mountain range at sunset. The red structure is part of the Nako Monastery, which dates to early in the 11th century AD.
A typical stone pathway with a view up the surrounding mountain slope.
Stone is the building material here, sometimes finished off to form a smooth paintable wall. A double door on this path is surmounted by a stone arrangement to enhance the entry.
In this photo a rough arrangement of timber materials above forms a roof sheltering the front of this structure. I imagine this area would provide a little respite from the deep snow which must blanket the town for much of the year.
A small bright green tree appears at the top of one of the steep paths.
Roofs are a combination of flat stones and thick masses of timbers, sticks, and thatch.
The terraced slopes above the town are visible from this narrow pathway. The whitewash brush strokes on the wall at the left may have some decorative purpose – I saw them on a number of walls on my walk through the village.
This small group of newer structures was set just above a large field of peas at the uphill edge of the village. You can see that concrete is being used to build the structural framework of the building in the center. The building at the right, with its projecting balcony and roof, also appears to have been built of concrete – an advantage in a region prone to earthquakes.
A boy with a bucket walks on a path above an area used to enclose one or two cattle. The brick material in the building beyond was a little unusual – signifying that it was a relatively new structure.
Small stone pens in the center of the village enclose cattle. I was told that in the winter the cows are kept in stalls below the living areas.
Another small stone pen encloses a cow. This pen was actually pretty generously size compared to others. Nice view for the cow!
These simple structures show how basic the building techniques are. Roofs made of flat stones piles high with twigs and branches. Maybe the snow settles into the thick thatch to provide for some insulation in the cold months?
This small square structure with a bright blue door was at the upper edge of the village – it had the feeling of an outpost. Patties of cow dung are being dried on the top of the near wall, and have also been applied to the foundation under the roofed open area.
A view of the road skirting town and a gate that is probably associated with the adjacent Nako Monastery. The sun is setting to the west, across Spiti Valley, deep and narrow at this point.
