Spiti valley means many things to many people. Originally known as Piti before the Tibetan dialect influenced the local language, Spiti is a land of stunning beauty for some people. For some others, it’s the cold desert up in the Himalayas where you find the peace within yourself.

On the climb through to Spiti through Rohtang pass, we got stuck almost three hours in the middle of the nowhere. It's seems there's been a traffic block for last one week on a regular basis. Bad weather and total mis management on the road leads from one block to another. Finally where the authorities failed to make any difference, we saw a bunch of travellers who got out of their vehicle to clear the traffic by literally pushing trucks and jeeps on their own. When the command control of the administration collapses, the public always takes care of things in India. Simply fabulous! Once we got out of the mess, it was just breath taking views for another 10 hours! In company were a team of Tibetans including a monk who was chatting non-stop. All that sounded like hymns to subdue the tough terrain we were driving through.

Rain is so scarce in cold deserts of Spiti Valley. Surprisingly it started raining in the evening for almost 30 minutes filling in my mind with nostalgia of rains that I am used to. We were inside the Tabo monastery when it started drizzling and it was such a great feeling to sense the trickling of drops on the tin sheets. Tabo monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in this region dating back to 1011 years. The whole place had a ‘Celtic’ feeling to the atmosphere. May be it was the architecture.

A young monk took us around explaining various aspects of the stunningly beautiful wall paintings and murals originally done by Kashimiri painters who were brought in exclusively for this purpose thousand years before. The wall depicts various phases of the life of the Buddha and images of various offering deities. While walking through the dimly lit monastery listening to the monk, for some reason, my mind refused to go into the details of the paintings and all those information he was providing in his halting English. I just wanted to absorb the whole feeling and be there at that moment. I still don’t know if it was me absorbing the feeling of the place or whether it was the place that was absorbing me. Like how the mountains sometimes have taken me in to their depth and intricacies!

The Monastery has suffered damages during the 70’s earthquakes and some of the murals and sculptures have been destroyed beyond repair. Still it has survived all the onslaughts of nature and not much damage has happened to the basic infra structure. May be modern architects should take a cue from this indigenous knowledge before recommending any more earthquake resistant building techniques!

After stopping at the monastery for few minutes, we trekked down to the valley and then started the slow climb towards Langza. During the walk through the entire stretch, we saw several hundreds of fossils, which looked almost like a work of art. Considered to be one of the most fossiliferous regions of the world, Spiti Valley tells us the story behind the trilobites and ammonites that were formed after the collision of Indo-Eurasian sub-continent.

While observing the beauty of the fossils lying in the streams and nearby valleys, one can't just stop for a second and think, 'Oh my, how could I believe that this entire mountain stretch that we stand now at around 4,300 MSL was part of Tethys sea some 200 million years before!' Geologists say that the larger continent of Pangea started to split into various land masses as a result of which, the two main land masses of Indian and Eurasian subcontinent started depositing large amounts of sediments into Tethys. Further collision over the period of time helped form the present Himalayas and those marine animals that we see now as fossils including the ammonites used to be present in the Tethys at that time.

While we stood there breathless thinking about the entire process, we heard stories of local boys who collect the fossils to sell it to tourists from different parts of the world. What should be priceless is sold for as cheap as less than a US dollar! It seems there are tourists who proudly announce that this is their 3rd or 4th visit to collect fossils in the last couple of years!

The story wasn't much different even in the small town of Kaza where you can see the fossils kept amongst the antiques on sale for a dollar or two! It seems there are discussions of setting up a geological museum so that at least what is remaining can be preserved. With an un-patrolled area as vast as Spiti valley and irresponsible tourists searching for fossils, it makes more sense to have a museum where these fossils can be displayed.

It will be sad if this happens as I personally prefer to see these fossils in its natural ambiance where responsible travellers and the locals understand the importance of the existence of these fossils to the evolution of the entire mankind and the earth itself. Close networking between NGOs like Ecosphere and locals have created certain level of understanding and now there are restrictions on tourists wandering through the place on their own.