We leave the colonial hill station behind and follow the Sutlej upriver into Kinnaur — apple country, where the orchards run in terraces up impossibly steep slopes. Pine gives way to a deepening gorge, and by evening the road turns into the Baspa Valley, where the river runs milk-green past wooden Kinnauri homes.

Begin at Chitkul — the last inhabited village on the old Indo-Tibet road, beyond which there is only mountain and border. From there we climb to Kalpa, cradled in apple orchards directly beneath the Kinner Kailash range. If the sky is kind, the evening light on those peaks, and the sunrise the next morning, is the sort of thing that quietly rearranges you.

Today the world changes colour. Past Khab — where the Spiti river meets the Sutlej — the green simply stops, and the land turns to high-altitude desert: bare ochre mountains folding away under an enormous, cloudless sky. We pause at Nako, its small lake and mud-brick village clinging to the slope, before rolling into Tabo as the light goes gold.

The morning belongs to Tabo Monastery — founded in 996 CE and so rich in murals it is often called the Ajanta of the Himalayas. From there to Dhankar, a fortress-monastery clinging to a spur of rock high above the Spiti–Pin confluence, with an optional hour’s walk up to the still, blue Dhankar Lake for those with the legs for it.

The signature day, and the one people carry home. Key Monastery, stacked like a white dream on its hill above the river. Kibber and the Chicham Bridge, strung across a raw canyon. Hikkim, where you post a card to someone you love from the world’s highest post office. Komic, the highest village in the world with a motorable road. And Langza, watched over by a great golden Buddha, its hillsides scattered with marine fossils from an ocean that vanished millions of years ago.

A long and magnificent crossing. We climb to Kunzum Pass, prayer flags snapping in a wind that seems to come from everywhere, then detour to Chandratal — the crescent Moon Lake that glows an unreal blue against the scree. The rough Batal stretch, with its legendary little dhaba, finally gives way to smooth tarmac at the Atal Tunnel, and we drop out of the desert into the pines of Manali by nightfall — where a warm room and a hot, home-style dinner are waiting at our own property in Prini.

After the high, thin air of Spiti, Manali feels lush and generous. A gentle final morning: the cedar-shaded Hadimba temple, the hot springs at Vashisht, the cafés and lanes of Old Manali, and a wander down Mall Road for last souvenirs and slow coffee. When it is time, we drop you at the Volvo bus stand for your onward journey — a little altered, we hope, by where you have been.