Field notes from 1,740 metres

Red rhododendron blossoms against spring foliage

Field notes12 April 20266 min read

The year the buransh came early

Three weeks ahead of the usual bloom, which sounds charming and is not. What an early rhododendron season means for the bees, for the honey, and for the four families who make squash from it and sell it at the Thursday market.

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The last six entries

Longest first, because the long ones are the good ones.

12 April 20266 min read

The year the buransh came early

Three weeks ahead of the usual bloom. What that means for the bees, the honey and the people who make squash from it.

Rows of tea bushes on a terraced hillside

28 March 20269 min read

Who actually drank Berinag tea

A colonial planting record, a shipping manifest, and the strange afterlife of a hill estate that once exported to London.

The Milky Way arching over a dark hillside

3 February 20265 min read

Why the winter sky here is so absurdly good

Low humidity, no valley light, and 1,740 metres of atmosphere already below you. A practical guide to what to look for.

Cooking over a traditional wood-fired chulha

19 January 20267 min read

Kamla's bhatt ki churkani, written down for the first time

She does not measure anything. We stood in the kitchen with a scale for two hours and worked it out anyway.

Rain clouds drifting low over deep green hills

22 August 20258 min read

In defence of the monsoon

Everyone tells you not to come. Here is the case for the four months when the valley is loudest, greenest and emptiest.

Walking a stone path between village houses

7 July 20256 min read

Harela, and the day we plant things

The Kumaoni new year festival, what the seedlings mean, and why the whole lane smells of marigold for a week.

Sunbeams falling through a dense forest canopy

A small hill market with produce laid out

Written in the two hours between Bhagwati going to bed and the house going quiet.

I write these after nine, when the house is quiet and nobody needs anything. If they read like the thoughts of a tired man, that is because they are.

Deepak Pant

Letters from the valley

Six emails a year, sent at the change of season. What is flowering, what is ripe, when the peaks are clearest, and whichever journal entry went up that quarter. No offers, no availability alerts, no unsubscribe-bait. We have never sold an email address and never will.

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Berinag Home Stay

The Berinag Journal

The year the buransh came early

The year the buransh came early

Who actually drank Berinag tea

Why the winter sky here is so absurdly good

Kamla's bhatt ki churkani, written down for the first time

In defence of the monsoon

Harela, and the day we plant things

Letters from the valley