Exploring Kothi, Gulaba and 14 Mod. The road that leads to the ancient Rohtang La.

Namaste Everyone 🙏

Greetings from high Himalayas!!!

Hope you all are doing great.

Last week, I had a week long trip to high mountains of Himalayas to explore different places and cultures these high mountains had to offer. I can’t wait to show you guys all my adventures!!!

Today’s blog is going to be about my trip to the old NH21 of India towards Rohtang Pass. When Atal Tunnel was not constructed, everyone needed to cross the Rohtang Pass to get to remote regions of Lahol, Spiti, Leh and Ladakh. Now after the construction of Atal Tunnel, this road is only for the people who come here for experiencing the beauty of this place.

From Manali to Kothi-

We started from Manali at about 9:30 AM in our SUV. It was a good day and sun was shining brightly over the mighty Himalayas.

Sky was as blue as it can be and the bright shining sun took all the colours out of everything. Everything was shining as bright and vibrant as the sun.

People were getting freshen up for their day. Some were brushing their teeth, some were doing laundry and some were enjoying the warm sunlight of that beautiful morning.

Kothi is a small village with 10-15 houses and hotels. This is the last settlement on this road and after this, there are only army camps and temporary shelters of workers working for the repairs of the road.

The condition of this road was not so good as this road is now a secondary option for reaching out to Lahaul Spiti and Leh. Apart from that, the heavy snowfall makes it difficult to maintain this road throughout the year and because of that, it closes for 4-5 months in winters.

As soon as you cross Kothi village, you are welcomed by this beautiful bridge that extends this road further.

Kothi Bridge

From Kothi to Gulaba-

Now we were entering the restricted area of forest department of Himachal Pradesh. There are no houses beyond the Kothi bridge and the land is under the control of government authorities.

You can see the boundaries that are made by the government to protect the forest areas.

As we were gaining elevation, we were able to see the mountains clearly. At this time of year, mountains are covered with lush green meadows and a little snow on the top. In coming months, all the mountains will be under snow.

There were no sign of any clouds that day and this allowed me to capture these stunning photos for you guys.

Everything felt so fresh and refreshing. There was a cool breeze flowing through the Deodar trees that added a nice sound too.

There I saw that the workers working for the construction of the road were drying their clothes on roadside taking advantage of the sunny day.

We were now about to reach Gulaba checkpost. To get beyond that point to Rohtang Pass, one needs to take permission from local authorities as they are working hard to protect this sensitive area by allowing only 200 cars to enter beyond that point per day. As we were not going to Rohtang, we needed to have one receipt to get to 14 Mod instead of full permission that’s issued by the authorities. So we paid 50 rupees to get that receipt to get to 14 Mod.

From Gulaba to 14 Mod-

Mod means turns in local language and this place is named 14 Mod because it takes 14 turns to reach here from Palchan village from where this road starts.

The road was getting repaired in full pace here as you can see the construction material is on the side of the road.

We got off our car to witness the amazing views that this place has to offer. It was around 10:30 we reached there and the views were just mesmerising from there.

Some people were flying a drone there to capture the stunning valley in its full glory and I managed to capture a photo of the drone.

We parked our car in roadside and went a little uphill to enjoy the vibe of this mesmerising place.

While standing on the top, we could see the Manali town and Palchan, Buraua, Shanag villages too.

The view that we were witnessing was looking like it was out of a wallpaper. We started our one week offbeat journey from here and climbed above the mountain to witness something very special that I’m going to document in coming blogs.

Thanks for your time. That’s all for today.