Photos show life slowly returning to abandoned Himalayan villages in India

MARTOLI India AP Dozens of dilapidated stone buildings are what is left of the once-thriving dividing line village of Martoli in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand Nestled in Johar Valley and surrounded by Himalayan peaks the the majority notable being Nanda Devi once considered the tallest mountain in the world this village had traded sugar lentils spices and cloth for salt and wool with Tibetans across the margin The nomadic occupants of several villages spent the winter months in the plains collecting goods to be traded with Tibetans in the summer But the dividing line was sealed after an armed conflict between India and China in disrupting life in the high villages and leaving people with little incentive to return Kishan Singh who was when he left with his family to settle in the lower village of Thal still returns to Martoli every summer to till the land and grow buckwheat strawberries and black cumin At he has a grinning ruddy face His ancestral home has no roof so he sleeps in a neighbor s abandoned home for the six months he spends in this village cooking for himself and farming I enjoy being in the mountains and the land here is very fertile he says In late autumn he hires mules to conveyance his harvest to his home in the plains to sell it at a modest profit The largest of the Johar Valley villages had about people at its peak in the early s Martoli had about people then while chosen of the dozen or so others had to homes each About three or four people return to Martoli each summer now A minimal villagers are returning in summers to the nearby villages of Laspa Ghanghar and Rilkot as they can now movement in vehicles to within a scant kilometers miles of their villages on a in recent months built unpaved road Among the scattered remnants of earlier stone homes in Martoli a new guesthouse has sprung up to cater to a insufficient trekkers who walk past the village en way to the Nanda Devi base camp Source