Introduction-Komic
Spiti Valley has truly been a bag filled with uncountable surprises. Every turn lands you onto a new mountain, every step brings you to a different pattern of landscape, every village has its own specialty of its own. This is the major reason why people take a longer duration and cover almost all the major tourist places on their trip here.
The trip also would be totally incomplete because one would definitely regret missing the left out thing though they would have visited a lot of other places because every place is unique because of its own thing and has an identity of its own. There are a lot of such places in and around Spiti Valley and Komic is one such beautiful place.
About Komic
Located around 23kms away from Kaza, Komic is a very tiny village located at a humongous altitude of 15,025 ft above the sea level. Kaza is at a height of 12,200 ft and one actually gains around 3000 ft in just a span of 23kms.
The entire surroundings of this village is covered by dark brown cold desert kind of surface and mostly its flat though its at a very high altitude. There are very few houses in this village and Hikkim and Langza are the other nearby villages to Hikkim.
The Highest Village in the World Connected by Motorable Road
The most important reason to visit Hikkim is The Highest Village of The World. At a height of 15,025 ft, no other Village in the World is at such high altitude connected with a motorable road. It’s a matter of pride and honor about BRO because they are constructing and maintaining roads at such high altitudes for ease of the localites and also for the movement of troops.
Highest Post Office of the World, Hikkim
At 3km from Komic is the Village named Hikkim, which has the Highest Post Office of the World at a height of 14,400 ft. This has made it very easy for sending and receiving money for the villagers, also the network has been recently set up here in Hikkim and Komic. So this was the only mode of communication for the inhabitants of this village back then. So this has been a boon for all the villagers around.
Weather
Due to this such insane altitude and proximity towards Himalayas, the village experiences extremely cold climate round the year. During our visit in October at 3PM, the temperature was -7°C and its even worser in the night. It goes upto -30°C and the dry climate makes the condition extremely bad.
The tourists face AMS as they gain altitude very soon from Kaza. If any of you are planning to visit here, just make sure you take all the precautions without fail. There is good Jio network in all the surrounding villages.
Food & Accommodation
As it’s a very tiny and remote village, there are a few hotels and places to eat. You can find Maggi, Tea shops here and there. It’s not an ideal place to stay because the nights are extremely cold and it’s very difficult to survive. So tourists usually plan a one day trip from Kaza. Though there are a few homestays and also few local people allow tourists to stay at their homes, you can enquire there.
One can find the World’s Highest Restaurant once they enter the village with the signboard. There is a monastery right in front of the restaurant as well.
Life in Winters
As heard by the villagers, the winters are a nightmare in these villages. The entire area is completely covered with thick snow and there is almost no road, no connectivity here. The roads are blocked for almost 4-5 months. The villagers pile up all the things before winter and spend entire winter in their house itself.
How to Reach Komic
The road from Kaza is a very good single lane road till Komic. Only the road being diverted to Hikkim is a bit messy, none the less other road is totally fine. There is only one bus from Kaza, which leaves Kaza in the evening and reaches Komic in the late evening. This bus travels via Langza-Hikkim-Komic and departs back to Kaza in the morning.
Ideal Plan
One can plan to visit Langza, 12 kms from Kaza, then to Hikkim around 4-5 kms and then finally to Komic, the The Highest Inhabited Village in the World Connected by a Motorable Road and then get back to Kaza by evening. This is an area with a very cold atmosphere and as the cold is mostly dry, tourists usually feel health issues even in the daytime and it’s not at all recommended to stay at any of these villages at night.
Conclusion
This was about one of the most beautiful villages in Spiti Valley with a great tag of being the Highest Village Connected to Motorable Road of the World. Don’t forget to add Komic to your trip plan and make the most of your trip to Spiti Valley. Do share your experiences during your visit to Spiti Valley and also comment below if you need any more information regarding Komic or Spiti Valley.
