continued from Part 1....
As we drove uphill, the sun started rising on the barren pale brown slopes. The image clarity and the intensity of colours was unbelievable. It seemed as if someone had edited the images on Photoshop and increased the Saturation of everything. The mountain tips turned a shade of amber orange, like that of molten lava. Gentle, silken streams of water that seemed to have been spread out at the base of the valley glistened as they caught the sun.
Eleven am: We were still entranced by the scale of the geographical features. I was mentally revising all the lessons I had learnt in geography in school. We were asking the driver to stop ever so often, to click pictures. As it is, architects prefer pictures without humans in them and here, there was no one but us, for as far as we could see! There were just two colours- dusty brown and bright blue. Then mountains opened out and there were no hairpin turns to take. We had reached a huge horse shoe shaped plateau that stretched on for kilometres on either side and we were right in the centre, on the very top of it. No picture could do justice to the scale of the space. It was one of those WOW! Moments when the mind did not seem confined to the body anymore.
After that, we had to cross ten kilometres of extremely flat land. We were in the setting in which advertisements are shot for luxury cars. We got back on the ‘road’, where ever that was! The dust had covered it all. The car was stinking of kerosene but we couldn’t open the windows, it was too dusty, dry and cold outside. It was two o clock in the afternoon and hunger had started to set in. We hadn’t crossed any human settlement as yet. There was no signal in the phone, no electric lines to be seen and only rarely we would cross another car. We did see a lot of trucks of the armed forces moving in packs of twenty five or so. I almost got a feeling that we were supposed to be thankful that there was a road to drive on. We were carrying all our cooking paraphernalia with us, down to the kerosene stove. We stopped by a lake in the middle of a splendid valley to cook our own lunch. It was extremely windy and the stove had already turned erratic (due to the pressure difference). It took all the drivers experience just to turn it on. It took us three hours just to get basic ‘khichdi’ done. Lunch became early dinner, but it was delicious, being the first meal of the day. Beautiful dusk descended on our dinner. Consequently, it was too late for us to get to the next township. It got very dark and we had no option but to stop at the nearest ‘hotel’. This hotel was a mere roadside tent, frequented only by truck drivers. The mere thought of it was scarily disturbing but I knew I would be safe. (My friends were decent and protective about me.)Our host/owner of the hotel was a local who wouldn’t let us drink anything but boiled water. We had some half boiled Maggi for dinner. We snuggled in the hotel with one and only room.. Luckily, no one else was staying there for the night. While I fell asleep really quickly, my friends played cards till the kerosene lamp flickered dead.
We set up early next day to see the sun rise again on orange mountains and streams of gold. Who knows, maybe those wind carved mounds hid ancient ruins submerged centuries ago. Awestruck, we were silent along the way.. but we did go berserk clicking pictures and I marvelled at the grandness of it all. The best thing about travelling by road was that it took a certain time to transcend that grand space. It was not about getting the perfect instant shot, it was a complete experience that required time to transcend through the space. It was a lingering state of elation. My mind had already been set to a state of permanent high. That’s when it hit me… I was really there! I was living my dream! As a child, I wanted to work for Discovery Channel, to be a marine biologist or a cave explorer. I wanted to go for sky diving and bungee jumping. I wanted to explore the Alps and maybe the Himalayas. I wanted to be a globe trotter .
Tanglangla Pass(5328mt above sea level) bore news of serious trouble. It was the highest area and anyone who has sickness due to lack of Oxygen usually had the attack there. We were not carrying any Oxygen tanks. The air was so very thin that all of us were on the verge of losing consciousness. Our conversations had died out completely and we all fell into a deep sleep that bordered on passing out. Water supplies were low and the roads were extremely bad. We only ‘woke up’ after crossing the Pass. We only realized what had happened to us only after it had happened. Thank god the driver sustained. It wa afternoon and we were in no condition to cook. We stopped at the only roadside tent for miles that ,of course, was labelled as a hotel. All the four boys had developed a mild fever and fell asleep in the tent while we waited for half an hour for half cooked Maggi Soup. But it was good to see other human faces. We saw a biker couple. But because, it was a downhill drive to Leh, our condition improved as we descended. The valley had turned reddish, showed signs of Iron deposits. Wild horses ran free, along lush green moss dotted streams.
By early evening, we found ourselves in Leh, at last!
to be continued....
As we drove uphill, the sun started rising on the barren pale brown slopes. The image clarity and the intensity of colours was unbelievable. It seemed as if someone had edited the images on Photoshop and increased the Saturation of everything. The mountain tips turned a shade of amber orange, like that of molten lava. Gentle, silken streams of water that seemed to have been spread out at the base of the valley glistened as they caught the sun.
Eleven am: We were still entranced by the scale of the geographical features. I was mentally revising all the lessons I had learnt in geography in school. We were asking the driver to stop ever so often, to click pictures. As it is, architects prefer pictures without humans in them and here, there was no one but us, for as far as we could see! There were just two colours- dusty brown and bright blue. Then mountains opened out and there were no hairpin turns to take. We had reached a huge horse shoe shaped plateau that stretched on for kilometres on either side and we were right in the centre, on the very top of it. No picture could do justice to the scale of the space. It was one of those WOW! Moments when the mind did not seem confined to the body anymore.
After that, we had to cross ten kilometres of extremely flat land. We were in the setting in which advertisements are shot for luxury cars. We got back on the ‘road’, where ever that was! The dust had covered it all. The car was stinking of kerosene but we couldn’t open the windows, it was too dusty, dry and cold outside. It was two o clock in the afternoon and hunger had started to set in. We hadn’t crossed any human settlement as yet. There was no signal in the phone, no electric lines to be seen and only rarely we would cross another car. We did see a lot of trucks of the armed forces moving in packs of twenty five or so. I almost got a feeling that we were supposed to be thankful that there was a road to drive on. We were carrying all our cooking paraphernalia with us, down to the kerosene stove. We stopped by a lake in the middle of a splendid valley to cook our own lunch. It was extremely windy and the stove had already turned erratic (due to the pressure difference). It took all the drivers experience just to turn it on. It took us three hours just to get basic ‘khichdi’ done. Lunch became early dinner, but it was delicious, being the first meal of the day. Beautiful dusk descended on our dinner. Consequently, it was too late for us to get to the next township. It got very dark and we had no option but to stop at the nearest ‘hotel’. This hotel was a mere roadside tent, frequented only by truck drivers. The mere thought of it was scarily disturbing but I knew I would be safe. (My friends were decent and protective about me.)Our host/owner of the hotel was a local who wouldn’t let us drink anything but boiled water. We had some half boiled Maggi for dinner. We snuggled in the hotel with one and only room.. Luckily, no one else was staying there for the night. While I fell asleep really quickly, my friends played cards till the kerosene lamp flickered dead.
We set up early next day to see the sun rise again on orange mountains and streams of gold. Who knows, maybe those wind carved mounds hid ancient ruins submerged centuries ago. Awestruck, we were silent along the way.. but we did go berserk clicking pictures and I marvelled at the grandness of it all. The best thing about travelling by road was that it took a certain time to transcend that grand space. It was not about getting the perfect instant shot, it was a complete experience that required time to transcend through the space. It was a lingering state of elation. My mind had already been set to a state of permanent high. That’s when it hit me… I was really there! I was living my dream! As a child, I wanted to work for Discovery Channel, to be a marine biologist or a cave explorer. I wanted to go for sky diving and bungee jumping. I wanted to explore the Alps and maybe the Himalayas. I wanted to be a globe trotter .
Tanglangla Pass(5328mt above sea level) bore news of serious trouble. It was the highest area and anyone who has sickness due to lack of Oxygen usually had the attack there. We were not carrying any Oxygen tanks. The air was so very thin that all of us were on the verge of losing consciousness. Our conversations had died out completely and we all fell into a deep sleep that bordered on passing out. Water supplies were low and the roads were extremely bad. We only ‘woke up’ after crossing the Pass. We only realized what had happened to us only after it had happened. Thank god the driver sustained. It wa afternoon and we were in no condition to cook. We stopped at the only roadside tent for miles that ,of course, was labelled as a hotel. All the four boys had developed a mild fever and fell asleep in the tent while we waited for half an hour for half cooked Maggi Soup. But it was good to see other human faces. We saw a biker couple. But because, it was a downhill drive to Leh, our condition improved as we descended. The valley had turned reddish, showed signs of Iron deposits. Wild horses ran free, along lush green moss dotted streams.
By early evening, we found ourselves in Leh, at last!
to be continued....
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