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[dawadaparkhang]

I have been to this Monastery so many times now and yet I can never find myself on time to be here when it's open. A fairly new one, Sakya Monastery is a typical Tibetan Monastery with intricate and beautiful murals. It is also 5-7 mins away from the world's highest petrol pump in Kaza! Not in many itineraries, but you can visit it if in the capital. 📿

#kaza #tibetanmonastery #instahimachal #spitivalleydiaries #spitivalley

[dawadaparkhang]

Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.

This quote has been with me throughout the years, sometimes versions of it scribbled on the back of my journals, sometimes on social media captions and sometimes inscribed on the walls of cafes in the mountains. What has it taught me? To not lose hope, for people, for things, for nature... That one day I'll be back in those places and they'll welcome me with open arms- without any hesitation and far far away from this civilization.

#guevillage #buddhistmonastery #spitivalleydiaries #instahimachal #himalayasarecalling

[dawadaparkhang]

Lobzang Angmo and her orchard 🌳✨

Did you know that Spiti apples are usually exported due to their premium quality. Tabo is the Himalayan village famous for its delicious apples. 🍎

🚨 But I want to bring it to everyone's attention that there's a climate change happening in Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir Valley. This is killing bees! 🐝 And, this is affecting apple growers in the region. While apple production is estimated to decrease by about 30% this year in Himachal, a loss of 20% is expected in Kashmir as well.

This decline in native and foreign bees is due to change in weather and use of pesticides. One apple grower says that when it rained in mid-April, bees in their garden died in their boxes, they didn't get a chance to come out, and when they didn't come out, their apple crops could not be pollinated- due to which incurred a 30-35% loss.

A local made an observation that April was extremely cold, and the last time it happened was 37 years back. Almost all apple growers in HP are distressed about the changing weather and so are the native farmers who grow regular crops - this changing weather has brought about heavy losses and affected their livelihoods.

Even my family in Himachal tells me about how they couldn't grow anything, whatever was in the fields was all destroyed due to rains and what little they had left was eaten by animals. What are we doing about this #changingweather ? On one side there's a bee apocalypse, we cannot grow seasonal/regular crops and on the other side some people suggest that either mother nature is improving or it's an outcome of our actions. 🌡️☔

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. 👇🏼

#himachalapples #savethebees #bees🐝 #himachalnews

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Tashi Delek / Julley / Namaste everyone! 🪷 Do you like posts like this? If you do, then please follow me on Instagram and support my page. Don't forget to like, save and share this with your friends. Let's spread the message. 🫰🏼

[dawadaparkhang]

Here is what snow-covered mountains in Roghi village region near Kalpa, Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh look like.

[dawadaparkhang]

From the windowpanes of the old Lalung Monastery — this elderly woman was making her way through to the monastery above, where I stood and was capturing her, to her surprise and awe in the second picture, she posed frantically. 📿

One of the first monasteries to be founded in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh, was Lhalung Monastery, also known as Lhalun Monastery or Lalung Monastery (also known as the Sarkhang or Golden Temple). The name Lhalun literally translates as "land of the gods" (lha = deities, devtas; lung = land, region), and it is believed that the Lhalung Devta, who emerges from the Tangmar mountain beyond the settlement, is the main Devta/deity of the valley. According to legend, this mountain's colour changes according to the emotions of the gods or devtas; red is thought to represent wrath, yellow, joy, etc.

Tashi Delek / Julley everyone! 🙏🏼Comment below if you liked the story and please share it with your friends and family. Do support my blog and check out my social on Instagram too for exciting fresh content. 🤌🏼✨

[dawadaparkhang]

Story of Palzom Deckey; A Handicraft shop owner in Tabo, Spiti Valley (the trans-Himalayan region) in Himachal Pradesh

“I first came to visit Tabo in 1989 and saw how remote and otherworldly it was, I was so mesmerized - shortly after that I left."

I came back again in 2007, during the time my father-in-law used to run this shop, and shortly after that, I and my husband used to handle this handicraft shop. When we started, there was no connectivity to the town, and we didn't really have a proper shop.

- From one of the first shop owners in a remote Himalayan region where only offbeat travellers dared to visit.

We used to have a tent cloth (tarpaulin) which we used as a roof over our head for the shop, after a long while when we both had a hard time convincing our landlord that we are facing many issues as we have to wrap up everything by 5 pm in the evening, we need a proper structure and dimensions for our shop, and after continuous efforts, we built this shop that you're seeing today. And this was all back in the year 2009!

It took us 3-4 hours every single day to set up our shop, back then it used to be on a woven cot. The types of items we sold were antique pieces and handicrafts from Nepal, Tibet, and regional India. When we started in Tabo, it was extremely remote than it is today. The streets were empty, they were not even built. There was no connectivity and the only shop that existed was mine alone. There was the Tabo Monastery and its guest house. During that time, his Holiness Dalai Lama initiated Kala-Chakra and I met him for his teaching. Majorly foreign tourists visited for 'off-beat travel' in those days. There were no apple orchards, homestays, or any vegetation. Life was different and serene back then, my business boomed and has boomed since then, though after the pandemic hit it has been difficult to sustain the business, as I run a shop here in Tabo in the summers and at Goa in winter.

A self-made woman in business, a daughter, a mother, and a grandmother, and our very own sweet and loving aunty, Deckey Palzom.

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Tashi Delek / Julley everyone! 🙏🏼Comment below if you liked the story and please share it with your friends and family. Do support my blog and check out my social on Instagram too for exciting fresh content. 🤌🏼✨

[dawadaparkhang]

The rescue story of a stranded dog in the Himalayas

The dog mentioned in this incident is Buddy (our one-year-old Labrador). On 6th Aug 2022, Buddy went missing. He lived with us at Namsay Homestay & Cafe in Tabo, Spiti Valley, Himachal Pradesh. He's a one-year-old playful lab, who just one day decided to vanish into thin air. Even though Tabo is a small remote town in the Himalayan region, we went looking for him everywhere and it seemed endless. Everyone became tense by the third day and even lost hope of him returning.

The locals told us that maybe some tourists took him since he was not a native breed, or maybe some wild animal (snow leopard) devoured him. We didn't lose our wit, somewhere deep down we knew that he hadn't left us, and we were ready to prove everyone wrong! On the third night, some construction workers informed us about an unusual barking down by the riverside towards the outskirts of the town. We all visited that place and found our little baby, crying for help and appearing so tiny from far away.

On the fourth day, we decided to feed him to get some food in his belly. We tried throwing food from far away so that it reaches him. The shore he was stuck on had dangerous water currents for anyone to cross or even think about crossing. There was no possible way that we alone would have been able to rescue him, so we just managed to console him, and feed him whatever we could.

On the fifth day, when we had contacted almost all our connections and there was no possible help, I contacted Spiti Ecosphere (Ishita) who assisted me and worked with me throughout the journey. They gave me the contact of (Abhishek sir) Additional Deputy Commissioner, Kaza (Kaza: capital of Spiti Valley) to whom I explained the whole issue, and he informed me that he has notified the police and they'll be in touch with me. This happened just in an hour!

The next thing I remember is that, a letter was issued in my name via Deputy Commissioner and that rescue soldiers were on the way. The rescue team was ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) soldiers. They first analyzed the whole situation and then came with all the rescue equipment and saved our Buddy on 11th Aug! He is now back with us, happy and safe. This did leave him with a traumatic episode but he's doing great as of now.

Thank you so much ITBP Hurling, ADC Kaza, and even Spiti Ecosphere for all your kind assistance. We all are very grateful for your service! This spectacular rescue mission became viral not only in the town but in the whole state of Himachal Pradesh. Buddy is our very own internet sensation now. Here are some of the popular regional and national news/media channels that covered him.

(Disclaimer: I have the sole intellectual property rights to all pictures/videos used here and by multiple media channels, they refused to give me any credit despite my constant efforts to contact them. Nonetheless, let's take a look!)

Aaj Tak, Him Anchal News Facebook, ETV Bharat News, News 18, Dainik Bhaskar, News Buzz Live, Time Tv, Pahad Prime, News Lions, News Flare, and many more local channels.

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Tashi Delek / Julley everyone! 🙏🏼Comment below if you liked the story and please share it with your friends and family. If you want some exclusive video footage from the rescue then check out: allwaswell. Do support my blog and check out my social on Instagram too for exciting fresh content. 🤌🏼✨