Kibber Village of Himachal Pradesh - A magical place with stunning landscapes, unique monastery and the popular wildlife sanctuary of Spiti Valley

During our Spiti trip in Himachal Pradesh, we went to various villages and preferred to stay in home-stays of these villages instead of hotels. Although we didn't stay in Kibber but this is one of the most beautiful villages to explore in Spiti valley of India. Kibber is also called as Kyibar and this beautiful village is located around 4200+ metres or 14,200 feet in Himachal Pradesh in north India. This blogpost will take you to this altitude and share more about the village and what makes it so special.

Above photograph is of Kaza where we were staying the night before visiting Kibber village. Kaza is pretty big and this is main commercial hub of Spiti valley. Most of the stuff is brought to the Kaza and then folks come here for shopping. When it comes to shopping, I got to know that wood is very expensive in Spiti because of lack of trees. And wood is consumed in different forms - for building houses and for fire. There are special instalments in the houses of Spiti where raw wood is burnt to keep the houses warm during winters when all these mountains are covered with white snow. All these photographs are clicked in summer so it's not pure white, otherwise it's white everywhere in winters.

We started early in the morning from Kaza for Kibber village. Kibber village is approximately 20 kilometers from Kaza town and it takes about 40 mins to reach there. It seems there is a one public bus operating between Kaza and Kibber. That bus leaves from Kaza at 5pm and reaches Kibber in one hour or so. And the same bus has night halt at Kibber village. The next day morning, bus returns from Kibber at 7:00 AM. That's mostly for villgers of kibber it seems - for folks who want to go to the town in the morning and return back by evening. This is one aspect which is still not very clear to me and I am very curious about how public transportation system works in Spiti valley for locals. How much do these people commute between the places and do they rely on public transportation, own vehicles or hired vehicles. I have some sense but would like to understand more by spending good amount of time there.

Related Blogpost - Spiti Valley Travel Guide - Stunning Landscapes, mind-blowing travel hacks, Snow leopards/Himalayan-Ibex stories and Unforgettable lifetime experience

As we crossed through the Kaza town while driving towards Kibber village, we hit a point from where Kaza town was looking beautiful. We took a pause and thought of clicking few photographs. Above is one of the photographs of Kaza town from the road which connects Kaza with Key Monastery and Kibber village. If you planning a visit to Kibber village, don't miss this wonderful monastery at a small detour.

Kibber village has a civil dispensary, a high school, a post office, a telegraph office and a community TV set in the village. Kibber Monastery was founded by Serkang Rimpochhe of Tabo and it's unique in many ways. You have to visit it to believe it.

As you drive from Kaza towards Kibber village, soon after the Spiti river was again pretty close to us and now it was much wider than what we had seen in previous 2 days, before hitting Kaza. And these bridges over the river were very fascinating for my travellingcamera.

The Kibber village has around 80 houses, with wonderful architecture as they are made of stone instead of mud or brick used extensively elsewhere in the Spiti valley.

Spiti is also famous for it's old & different styled monasteries. After driving for few minutes, we hit a place from where we could see the Key Monastery. There is a small village on the way which is gradually converting into bigger town with modern buildings under construction. This photograph is clicked from the same village. There is also a primary school in this town. I clicked few photographs of the kids doing morning prayer but haven't processed them yet. Will try to share those in one of the other posts about Spiti.

From Key monastery, you see brilliant views on the left. There is huge agricultural land with snow covered peaks & the Spiti river in background.

When we start listing down main places to visit in Spiti Valley, Key Monsatery is must visit place and is very well connected with Kaza town. Road condition is much better than the other roads which lead to Kaza from other parts of the country. Above photograph shows the gate for Key Monastery which is near the main road going towards Kibber village from Kaza. First we visited the Key Monastery and then planned to visit Kibber.

These were some lovely scenes but hard to capture them in real sense. This one is shot from the moving car. These ladies were socializing on the road-side with stunning views all around. If you notice, most of the ladies cover the whole face in Spiti and that's because of very harsh sun. And the sun-burns can be very bad in this region. Skin literally comes out because of the burns and kids & ladies take special care of that.

After visiting Key Monastery, we started heading towards Kibber which was a little steep climb in comparison to the climb we had to take for reaching Key Monastery. And I noticed this village at a distance, which is not kibber but some other place. It looked very beautiful from a distance and hope that above photograph give you some sense about the placement of these houses w.r.t. these huge mountains.

Finally we reached Kibber village and above is a closer shot of the Kibber village. These is an open place to park your vehicle and then roam around the village. We didn't spend much time inside the village but wanted to have tea break here. We noticed one shop but didn't want to delay our next journey towards Langza, so headed back. One needs to take the same road till a point and then again start the up climb for reaching Langza.

Here is a photograph shot from Kibber village but it shows some other village and I am not aware of the name of this village. Kibber village has a monastery and the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. I so wanted to explore the wildlife sanctuary and that demands long stay around this region with good amount of paitence. And probably right season as well.

The Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary was established in 1992, which spans over an area of 2 thousands+ km2 of land. The elevation range of this sanctuary is 3600-6700 meters above mean sea level. The vegetation here is sparse and have high medicinal properties. Eight rare and endangered medicinal plant species have been discovered in this sanctuary.

Kibber village of Spiti valley lies in a narrow valley on the summit of a limestone rock. It is located 20 kilometres from Kaza and a bus service connects them in the milder summer months. Agriculture forms the backbone of the local economy and lush green fields are abundant. Villagers count on the 3 day traditional trade route over Parang La to Ladakh to barter their horses for yaks or to sell for cash.

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.

Related Blogposts :

Langza Village - Popular place in Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh known for huge Buddha Statue at an altitude of 14,500 feet and spotting wild animals like Snow Leopards & Himalayan Ibex

Just skip if you are not interested in exploring some of the great places around Kaza town of Spiti Valley in Himalayan State of India

Why nobody talks about unique Dry Toilet Technology of Spiti valley in Himalayan state of India, while Japanese toilets are discussed at length?

Key Monastery : Biggest Monastery of Spiti Valley with Stunning Architecture and an Excellent Training Centre for Lamas

There is an Echosphere cafe in Koumic and I was super happy to find boards of Echosphere all around. I got to know about this organization in one of the TEDx events in Delhi and how this organization helps in building sustainable means of generating energy got this region through solar equipments and there are various initiatives.

Spiti Valley Travel Guide - Stunning Landscapes, mind-blowing travel hacks, Snow leopards/Himalayan-Ibex stories and Unforgettable lifetime experience

Recently I was talking to one of my friends from US, who has been to India but not to Himachal Pradesh. During the chat, I was trying to explain him and then realised that videos can be a great medium and all the videos in this post are not edited and shot at various parts of Himachal Pradesh. I feel diversity can be improved but till then watch Himalayas through this set of videos and provide your inputs through comments section below.

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