The borders of India, a gift from the heart for six globetrotters

Muriel is well known in the village for her activity as an energy coach. She is also passionate about India. And returns from a two-week trip to the confines of the Himalayan lands, near Tibet. This is her eighth trip to India but the first with five friends including two nurses who had taken a stock of medicines to distribute while everyone had brought books, pencils and toys for the children.

The discovery of another way of life

Rohit, their guide, took them aboard a 4×4 to distant villages unknown to tourists. Following recent floods, the roads on the mountainside were impassable and it was sometimes necessary to walk at an altitude of more than 4 m. It was finally after a 000-hour journey from Delhi that these ladies arrived in the Spiti Valley.

“We felt dizzy, we had trouble breathing sometimes, it was cold but we were so happy, like a revelation, we will never complain again in our lives”, says Muriel. In these hilltop villages of 2 to 300 inhabitants, often Tibetan refugees, self-sufficient life takes place cultivating wheat, beans and spinach, raising chickens, sheep, yaks and cows. Young people who have gone to work in town or even abroad help their families there. There are now solar panels and often a tractor in the village. As for the water, it comes directly from the Himalayas, “we didn’t even use the disinfectant filters anymore…” And the adventurers were “touched by the kindness and generosity of the villagers despite their hard lives”.

They also went up to the village of Hikkim where the post office, created in 1983, is located at an altitude of 4 m, making it one of the highest in the world. And in these places of Buddhist tradition, the sight of a particularly well preserved mummy in the village of Giu amazed them. He is a 400th century monk discovered by Indian soldiers building a road. At the end of the journey, they arrived at the native village of their guide, Janglikh. There, no one had yet seen any Westerners. “There were beautiful old men, centuries old, and children who didn't know how to use pencils and notebooks. And they all opened their hearts and homes to us. We even learned how to make chapatis! »

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