We had just finished the Batal stretch on one of our Spiti trips when the group finally reached Chandratal for our first Chandratal lake camping night. Everyone was tired. Dusty. Running on whatever was left after three days of mountain roads. The walk in from the parking point is about two kilometres and by the end of it the energy was purely functional, just enough to get there. The first ten minutes were predictable. Photos, reels, drone footage, everyone trying to get the

Most people who come to Spiti come for the roads. The high passes, the river crossings, the stretches where the tarmac disappears and you are driving on whatever the mountain decided to leave behind. That is what fills the Instagram feeds and the travel group conversations before the trip. Then something happens around Day 4 or 5. The roads start to blur together. The passes start to look similar. And the monasteries, which most first-timers treat as a five-minute photo stop