The lights of Lord Shiva on the dashboard began to flicker. Placing the palms of his hands together, our driver uttered a quiet prayer for our safe journey and then mashed the Jeep's accelerator hard and we were off, careening northward on the first leg of our odyssey in the remote Buddhist Himalaya of northern India.

It had been four years since Aisha Allen and I had explored Tibet, and we were thrilled to be heading back into the land of yaks and mystical monasteries. Our first destination would be the isolated Spiti Valley in northern Himachal Pradesh state. Spiti is known as a piece of Tibet transported into India and is among the most sparsely populated areas on earth: a rugged mountainous region of high-altitude desert infamous for its death-defying roads.

As we climbed, glistening white snow and ice began appearing on the peaks. Gone were the Hindu temple spires, replaced by the ubiquitous white domes of chortens, the powerful symbols of Buddhism. Wood and slate gave way to whitewashed mud and brick, and prayer flags fluttered from the rooftops and high passes, sending prayers soaring into the heavens.

As we crested the last high pass before Spiti, the cliff-hanging road became alarmingly narrow. Everyone grew silent as we crept forward. Suddenly, there was a vicious grinding sound as our bus scrapped against the rocky cliff and glass exploded into Aisha's seat. Our driver jumped out, surveyed the damage, shrugged and climbed back behind the wheel. With fellow passengers laughing and joking, we descended into the austere beauty of the Spiti Valley.