In Spiti grannies are the backbone of the family. They are wise, they are calm. And have a fund of knowledge. They are teachers of the grandchildren and have time to cherish them with lots of love. Spiti grannies when they grow too old to work in the fields and help with the household tasks,…

Families prepare for Losar in advance as we do for Christmas. The homes are thoroughly cleaned and decorated with flowers and auspicious signs are painted in flour on the walls. Cedar and juniper branches are gathered for burning as incense. It is important that debts are settled, quarrels are resolved, new clothes are acquired and…

In collaboration with Transindus, Joan Pollock introduced a brand new tour covering the fabulously beautiful, rugged and culturally fascinating state of Kyrgyzstan last summer. As expected the tour was a great success and Joan has offered to repeat it in this coming summer. This year the Telegraph have chosen to feature it in their roundup...

Last winter, in February, the day before I was due to leave Spiti and travel to Shimla, on the first leg of my long journey back to my home in London, I was asked by one of his relatives to give Tenzin a lift to Shimla in my jeep. While chopping wood for the family...

A lady called Janet came with me on a couple of my Spiti visits. While sitting in the jeep during the long road journeys, she knitted children’s sweaters while in the jeep as we travelled along the bumpy roads to Kaza the capital of the Spiti Valley. Another passenger, Madeleine was very taken by this...

Help us to raise £5,000 for vital eye testing equipment. We are delighted to launch our first ever Christmas Appeal to fund the equipment for a much needed Eye Treatment Centre, to be based at our Eco Community Centre, in Kaza,  the main town in the Spiti Valley. We are grateful to have already sourced...

The Kaza Eco-Community Centre recently won the Award for Low Carbon Building at the United Nations Climate Change conference in 2016. PROPOSAL TO ESTABLISH A VISION CARE CENTRE It is estimated that there are thousands of blind people in the region, with about 2,500 people requiring cataract operations and refractive treatment. This number would double...

In the spring, usually in April when the snow has melted and the new shoots of grass appear on the hills, the sheep, goats and cows are brought out to graze once more. The sheep are sheered for their wool in April, and after the autumn harvest the women will wash and dry the wool...

This animal is essential to all households for providing a means of farming for those living in this mountainous region. The plough is attached to this animal for ploughing the land, helping with the harvest and carrying heavy loads. The Yak gives milk for drinking, making butter tea, and cheese, dried in the sun and...