Himachal
Travel Tips & Guides
Kullu’s Hidden Parbhi Village: No Outsiders Allowed
It’s not Malana village. This one is Parbhi village in the Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh that doesn’t allow outsiders and enforces a strict ban on tobacco, alcohol and articles made of leather.
If you are that intrepid mountain traveller, who likes to stay away from the crowds but loves to explore the traditions and culture of a place then this blog piece is meant for you. Especially if you want to hike and explore the unexplored places in the Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh.
Like anywhere else, Kullu, has also not remained untouched by the changes that have taken place in the name of the development in the last around two decades. Actually, this place has turned into a concrete jungle mainly due to the tourism boom.
But there are still some villages left that have so far managed to preserve their old way of life or are at least trying to. The villages where there still are wooden houses, built in the traditional Kath-Kuni architectural style with log beehives in their balconies and where you can still witness traditional water mills at work.
Parbhi is one such village.
And last month I tagged along with three of my friends for a day hike up to this village and beyond.
Location
Parbhi village is located at an altitude of around 2500 meters and literally in the lap of the Western Himalayas. The village is not connected by road (this is the main reason why it’s still the same) and to reach here you have to do a short trek of an hour or so.
The nearest other known village to Parbhi is Raison, which is located around 14 kms from Kullu on the Kullu-Manali stretch of the national highway. We hired a cab from Raison and a link road took us up to Karal village, the starting point of our trek. Karal village is located around 10 kms from Raison.
A watermill on the way
After the cabbie dropped us off, we started hiking at around 9 am from near the Karal village. It was late March of 2025 and the surrounding mountains were still mostly covered with thick snow especially the Fungani mountain. For the initial 15 or so minutes, it was a steep but lovely hike as we kept admiring the surrounding snow-covered peaks. As we went up the views kept getting better and better.
Halfway, to our amazement we stumbled upon a Gharat, a traditional wooden flour mill in which water from the streams is used to grind grains into flour. Once, the eco-friendly Gharats used to be part and parcel of villages in Himachal Pradesh. But today, these old landmarks are almost extinct now.
The village
Within the next half hour, we were at the boundary of the Parbhi village. A word of caution here: the villagers here don’t allow tobacco or alcohol consumption and even carrying them in Parbhi village is nothing short of a crime. Also, outsiders are not welcome here exactly and you need to take permission from villagers before entering the village as a warning signboard outside the village made it amply clear. You are also not supposed to carry any leather items like wallets and belts etc into the village. As we were about to step inside, a villager also sounded the warning.
Another village in Kullu where outsiders were not welcome was Malana in the Parvati valley. But these days Malanis don’t stop outsiders from entering their village.
Anyway, finding ourselves moving through Kath-Kuni wooden houses was a unique experience. Just like in the old days, many houses had log beehives for keeping desi madhumakhi or Apis Cerana bees and large and heavy wooden boxes in their verandas for storing grains. In front of another house, a row of pattus, the traditional hand-woven cloth, hung from a line.
Near the village temple and in front of a natural drinking water source, we were clicking some images when a village elder woman appeared and scolded me for not removing my shoes. “You can’t go near the sacred water with your shoes on,” she told me. I stepped back and apologised.
The remains of a fort
After spending some time in the village we moved further up. It was early spring but there was still snow on the ground due to recent spells of heavy snowfall. The snow was slippery and some of us fell more than once to the amusement of others. We ate our packed meal on an awesome meadow, in the backdrop of mighty white Fungani mountain. After resting for a while, we kept climbing up and reached a snow-covered ridge. From here, we followed a narrow path through a snowy forest that went further up.
After many slips and falls in the snow, we finally managed to reach at the Garh, the remains of what once used to be a mountain fort. Such forts were built centuries ago by local chieftains on mountain tops and acted as watch towers. But today only their remains remain in the form of crumbled stone walls. For locals, a Garh is a sacred place and visited annually as part of age-old traditions.
Descent
After visiting the Garh, we were back on the ridge. From here, we could have returned the way we came up or taken another path. We chose the latter and decided to circumambulate the mountain.
After some more rest, we went down a snowy slope on the steep side of another mountain. After walking for an hour and crossing through a lovely forest, we emerged in Flayan village on the other side. Interestingly, Flayan village is a popular paragliding take off site. What better name for a flying site than Flayan! It was a windy late afternoon when we reached here and nobody was flying.
Our knees hurt and we were feeling tired by now. We stopped here for some tea. A road could have taken us down to the main highway through Fojal village but decided to walk all the way down. After around an hour, we reached Bhatgran village and by the time we were near Shirar village, the sky began to pour.
We called a cab and also called it a day.
