Sagnam: The land where the rivers meet

My second visit to Tabo was just about 2 years after my first one but in just these few years a lot had changed. My quaint old gompa town had been hijacked by the banjara camp people and not only were there Biharis crawling out of the woodwork, the whole place was littered with half finished monuments. Fortunately, not too much had changed near the monastery, the hotel remained the same (tho' the room rates were no longer negotiable - I guess the monks had learnt some business tricks), the mud floor of the gompa had the same feel and smell and the engraved carvings on stonme templates retained their mystique. It was so good to be back!
After the mud floor of the monastery, my second favorite place in Tabo is the cold windy cemetary (Shamshan Ghat- tho' don't think they burn people there anymore). That place has a strnage charm - it's always very windy I guess because it;s surrounded by rocky mountains, the brown spiti river runs alongside one edge and there are lots of big rocks perfect for sun bathing! We would sit here and watch the cave like structure on the other side of the river, sheep and starnge furry animals come to drink water and throw s million stones into the murky water below. It's so unbelievably peaceful there that you can't even read a book or listen to music - you just have to focus on soaking up the silence!




Next stop was Sagnam in the pin valley. Pin valley is adjacent to spiti but unbelievably different - the sparse rocky terrain is replaced by green green meadows. The place we stopped at was at the confleunece of two rivers and the meadow behind our guest house (the only one there) had a view I would never forget - 360 degree of the most amazing terrain, rivers on one side, different colored mountains, and on two sides meadows of the most colorful flowers imagined - pink, purple, maroon, white and yellow scattered all over the green meadows... I swear to you, it was like a dream. I wish I had photo graphs of that place, why don't I?? Oh ya, P ran out of battery.