Although the train was supposed to reach Delhi in 18 hours, it was 4 hours late and arrived in 22 hours at 8 pm. I rented an Ola cab for 100 rupees and reached Delhi Hotel Area Pahartali with 1000 rupees for AC room hotel and slept.

I woke up the next day, had breakfast, and rented an auto for Rs. 400 to tour the city of Delhi, see the Lotus Temple, Delhi Gate, President’s Building Qutub Minar, return to the hotel at 3 o’clock and catch a bus to Manali from Kashmir Gate at 5 o’clock with a ticket of 365 rupees. When the bus reached Kullu around 8 in the morning, I got a chance to take a break for 1 hour to change the wheels of the car and take a look around Kullu.

Arriving in Manali around 9 am, I rented a hotel for 600 rupees, rented a car for 800 rupees (going and coming) and left for Solang Valley. Private car reserve fare can be taken from or the fare will be 10 to 12 thousand rupees or Shimla-Ryangpio-Spiti Valley can also come on this route.

The bus was supposed to arrive at 5:30 in the morning but it arrived at 6:30 in the morning. Most of the foreign tourists were in the car. After a while, the car started moving along the Akabaka road in the mountains, which I fell in love with long ago. Going to Rothangpas around 10 a.m. gives us 30 minutes to get around. Although we took a lot of time by requesting the bus driver, it was a lifelong memory that those 30 minutes was the first time we saw the snow near Rothang Pass. The car is moving, sometimes at 13,000 feet, sometimes at a height of 14,000 feet, taking the narrow road from one hill to another. At 3 o’clock on the way to Batal (I don’t remember the name of the place) gave us a 30-minute break. If you want to see Batal Lake, go down here. Batal can go to Kaza or Spiti Valley from 1 day to the next day. It was 6:30 when we reached Kaza. The funny thing was that at 6:30 the evening sun was still clear there and every village road ghat Spiti river was so beautiful that it looked like we had moved to another planet. As soon as I went to work, I got a very nice dormitory room for 200 rupees per person.

There are many popular places in Spiti Valley such as Key Monastery, Langza Village, Komic Village which is the World Highest Village, Hikkim Post Office, Kibber Valley, Pin Valley, Chicham Bridge, which is the highest bridge in Asia, world Highest Petrol Pump. I hired a private caravan for 2500 rupees.

All the places were visited around 3 pm so I went to see Dunkar Lake with another 1500 rupees. It takes about an hour and a half of trekking down Dunkirk Village to Dunkirk Lake, which is about 14,000 feet in height. It was a bit difficult to reach Dunkirk Lake. However, seeing the beauty of the lake, it didn’t seem like much of a hassle. I got down from the dunk and had tea and left. It was night when I reached Kaza for the purpose. The next day at 5:30 in the morning I came to the bus counter and after getting on the bus after buying the ticket of Ringpio, I found out that if foreigners want to go on this route, it takes Inner Line Permit which we did not get, but in Manali, we don’t really need any permit. You have to cross the Chinese border when you come to Kaza to Ryungpio, so maybe you need a permit for this route, but we reached Ryongpio without a permit. We reached Ryungpio around 7 pm. On the way, the bus stopped at two places and the foreigners saw the permit. This road is so beautiful that it cannot be said that this route is only open to come to Kaza in winter season and no permission is required to come. There are actually many places to visit in Spiti Valley. If you plan a tour here, it should be done in 4-5 days.

I reached Shimla again at 4 am by bus from Ringpio at 6:30 am. I wanted to stay in Shimla for one day but due to lack of time it didn’t happen so I got on the train at 8 am and reached Kalka at noon to see the beauty of Shimla hills. We had a train to Howrah at 11:50 pm so we spent the rest of the time resting in the waiting room. Finally, at 11:50 our train left. After a journey of 36 hours, we reached Howrah very well and ended a journey that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

The Kolkata-Delhi-Manali-Spiti Valley-Shimla-Kalka route cost us Rs 11,000 per person. Most liked to travel by bus from Manali to Spiti and from Spiti to Ringpio route.