Chehni Kothi 🗼

1500-year-old wooden tower

Chehni Kothi is one of Himachal's tallest surviving examples of Kath-Kuni architecture — a traditional wood-and-stone tower construction technique roughly 1,500 years old, built without modern fasteners and engineered to withstand earthquakes. At 2,200m in Banjar Valley, it stands largely unchanged and mostly unvisited despite its age and craftsmanship. Best time is April–June or September–November. For travelers who've seen Kath-Kuni style referenced elsewhere in Himachal without seeing a fully intact example, Chehni Kothi is the real thing — worth the detour from Banjar or Jibhi specifically for the architecture.