This gravel track is the main highway to the Spiti Valley from Manali. Its closed by snow for 8 months of the year - its still closed at the moment.
You bump and bang along at 5mph, through rivers, holes in the road, inching past other vehicles not daring to look out of the window at the drop, switch-backing up and over another high pass, it takes forever.
I really feel for Spitians who have been trying in vain to get the road improved - to be honest it looks pretty much the same now as when I first travelled along it in 1998.
The other road into Spiti, from the Shimla end, is pretty much the same, with added landslides. Everything in Spiti that isn't home-grown or home-made - people, commodities, food, all of it - has to come along these roads. They aren't just roads. They are vital threads linking Spiti to the rest of the world.