While in Spiti Valley in Himachal Pradesh the majority of options of stay are Home-Stays except few hotels in some of the core parts of the valley. And if you start comparing hotels of this region with Home-stay, you would certainly see value in opting Home-Stay as this is certainly a very different world from lifestyle and culture standpoint. And Homestays are better options if you want to observe some of the lifestyle and cultural influences of the region.
During our week long trip to Spiti Valley last year in summers, we hadn't done any advanced bookings but we had tentative stoppages in our heads. Most of the times we landed at the destinations late in the evening and then we used to search for a homestay.
Related Post - Road-Trip from Shimla to Nako through Kinnaur : Spiti Diaries
Related Post - Road-Trip from Shimla to Nako through Kinnaur : Spiti Diaries
As we entered into Dhankar Village after seeing some spectacular views of Spiti river surrounded by huge mountains covered with snow and with thick shadows of the clouds around the valley. We saw a Monastery which is almost at the entrance of the village and it's comparatively new. We walked down to check if there are rooms available but then found that space was not that great and the manager was expecting more than what usually the charges should have been for that kind of space. We moved on.
After roaming around for a while we found one of the best locations in the village to stay. It was located on the other extreme in terms of height and the boundary of the village. The homestay offer complete view of the the village downwards and there is nothing up :), along with view of the other side is deep valley meeting the Spiti river.
Related Post - Basmati Dhaba at Badhal, on the way to Spiti Valley & Kinnaur from Shimla
Above photograph is clicked from the front-yard of Eay-ma-ho home stay and you can see village houses spread over a radius of 1kilometer or little more. The mountain on the left takes to the beautiful Dhankar lake and some of us trekked to the lake early in the morning from our homestay.
Related post - Road-trip from Nako to Kaza via Gue Monastery, Himachal Pradesh
That's the early morning view from our room at Eay-ma-ho home stay. These snow covered peaks look even more beautiful when you are wrapped in warm blankets. It's chilly wind outside the room and being on top of the hill it was very cold especially when there was no sunlight. During the day, it's sunny and pleasant during summers. One needs to take care of the skin if you plan to spend lot of time under sun in Spiti.
Related Post - How to reach Spiti Valley from Delhi and things to do around Kinnaur/Spiti in Himachal Pradesh
Here is Dolma aunty who runs this homestay with the help from her daughter-in-law. In above photograph her grandson was making some demand to her. This is shot when we were having our dinner in their kitchen. That was first moment and I would say the special one, when we saw how Kitchen look in Spiti and there is this special technique to keep different rooms warm through a steel pipe which goes through every room and at the bottom of it there is a place where wood is burnt.
Tariffs & other related stuff : I think we paid 1200 Rs for a night and got 2 rooms, with one extra bed. This also includes dinner and breakfast :). You heard it right. Most of the stays in Spiti valley are pretty reasonable unless you are there in some festive time or peak season. Even then I would not expect it to be very high. During one of the discussions, the owner of the home-stay told us that usual tariff of one room is 400 rs.
That's how the sky looked after sunset at Dhankar and shot from Eay-ma-ho home stay. The homestay is very close to a steep mountain.
Above photograph shows the frontyard of the homestay and snow covered peaks in front of it. If you go further, you see the whole Dhankar village in the valley and the Dhankar Monsatery on the right side.
Related Post - Road Journey through Kaza, Key Monastery, Kibber, Langza, Koumik & Dhankhar in Spiti Valley
That's the breakfast we had at Eay-ma-ho home stay and I loved it. Everything organic, fresh and delicious. That's the curd made of Yak Milk. The Chatni is finely cut onion, tomoatos, garlic and some local herbs. The break is made of some special technique which is hard for me to explain.
That's the panoramic view you get from front-yard of the Eay-ma-ho home stay in Dhankar Village.
Related Post - Dhankar to Kalpa - Back journey from Spiti to Kinnaur region of Himachal Pradesh
Related post - Kalpa to Shimla - Last leg of our road trip to Spiti & KInnaur in Himachal Pradesh
Ok, are you wondering what is it in above photograph. That's a toilet which is different from what you see in other parts of India. And there is reason for this. Water is a severe issue in these terrains of Spiti Valley. Although there are multiple rivers and lakes around but building a good water supply system is a challenge. So these folks use water is a very optimized way. Toilet is a place where lot of water is used.
In above toilet, there is a huge tank below these 2 hole and you see some sort of soil around one of the corners. There is a bucket and a mug on other side which you don't see in this photograph and a tap just outside this toilet with handwash. I don't think I need to explain the whole process now. Basically instead of flushing water, you put this soil when you are done :).
We had a very relaxing stay Eay-ma-ho home stay in Dhakar and we certainly recommend this homestay to folks visiting Dhankar and plan to stay here.
And that book is "Know your Worth"
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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