THE VILLAGES
Scattered
throughout the hills of the Kullu Valley are beautiful villages, made
up of ancient wooden houses where people still live a more or less traditional
way of life. Often inaccessible by road, villages remain as self-reliant
as they can, meeting their basic needs from the surrounding land. See
'society and environment' section
for information on the villages.
ABOVE THE VILLAGES
As one climbs higher above the villages, the pine
forests give way to oak and rhododendron, which then give way to green
meadows beyond the tree line, full of colourful wild flowers during
the summer and covered with deep snow fields during the winter. At 3600m
is the Chandrikhani Pass and the breathtaking views of some of the highest
mountains in Himachal Pradesh. Over the 
Chandrikhani
Pass is a very steep path down to Malana, an isolated village with its
own language, its own system of government and its own unique rules.
Plenty of wildlife exists in the surrounding mountains, but apart from the monkeys and birds, the larger animals are rarely sighted. On the higher slopes lives the Himalayan brown bear, many jackals, some wild cats and deer. The region to the south-east of Chandrikhani Pass is famous for its variety of migratory birds that arrive in the spring. Sadly much of the wildlife has diminished during the twentieth century, as have many of the forests that inhabited them.
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