The Himalayas, over the centuries, have attracted trekkers, mountaineers, pilgrims and ascetics. Its rugged heights crowned with snow and draped in vast glaciers.
Below the snowline at 18,000 ft, nature appears to relent and from the austere magnificence of the heights brings down to a different world of cascading water falls, lush green forests, flower-bedecked meadows and a variety of flora and and fauna. Here the rivers flow clear blue and icy.
Here nestle small villages and hamlets with their diverse local customs, dances, folklore and architecture. The people are as vibrant as their surroundings and in many cases innocent of the sometimes dubious benefits of modern civilization.
Hill people are traditionally very hospitable and this adds pleasure to trekking in the Himalayas more than anywhere else. Even at a height of 12,000 to 14,000 feet in secluded valleys, there are small village settlements tending their flocks of sheep and goats or herds of Yaks of nomadic shepherds and Gujjars. Even in the remote areas one can easily mix with the people and 'live off the land".