Ladakh Part II- Tsos of Ladakh –Pangong Tso

The trip to Pangong Tso was our second drive out from Leh and our first tryst with one of the high altitude passes that is responsible for Ladakh’s moniker. As this was just a day trip and a 4 hour long journey from Leh we started really early in the morning (well not that early but early enough). We were also informed by our driver that earlier we leave better our chances of returning back the same day because of a freak of nature called “Pagal Naala” that is unique to Pangong. Completely mystified but not ready to mess with nature (especially not at 18000 ft) we obliged.

Vaiguru with Pangong and surrounding mountain ranges in the background

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Ladkah Part 1 – Simpleh Leh and Around

Unlike our other trips, the Ladakh trip actually came about after months (well at least a month) of thinking and planning that started way back in April. The sabbatical and the impending doom of the infamous Delhi summers also played a big part in this trip. Albeit, all those glorious travel shows (like “Globe Trekker” and “Walking the World”) on Travel & Living also had something to do with it. These shows are just sinful and should come with a statutory warning for travelholics – “Not to be watched if you are currently in a job that does not allow you to take more than 5 days leave or if your bank balance cannot handle the travel costs involved etc etc”

View from Shanti Stupa, Leh

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Ramblings about One-Post Blog, Mid-life Crisis, and Flash Forwards

“Where to Finish?” Terry Pratchett – from Soul Music- a story about Sex, Drugs, and Music with Rocks in it. We haven’t checked the online dictionary but I am pretty sure the official definition of a “Blog” would go somewhere like this: Blog - An online page for opinions, recipes, cats/dogs and what have you that is updated on a regular basis ...maybe even hourly. I guess the emphasis is here on ‘updated regularly’. If you were there when the first and the last post was posted on this blog on that fateful day of Jan 2007 you will know where this is coming from. It’s been almost two years (give or take a couple of months) since we uploaded our last post. It was inevitable I guess as life, universe, and everything (read changing status updates on Facebook every 5 secs) took over. A lot has happened since then… we have changed jobs, city, hairdos, accumulated fat (read potbellies), and of course traveled to some amazing new places. Well, traveled a bit but not as much as we would like to. As we stand here a week post our glorious Ladakh trip and almost at the end of Karmacola’s sabbatical (or as she would like to call it her midlife crisis) we have decided to resurrect the now infamous one-post blog. However, there is a slight problem with the whole concept as we really don’t know where to start. We could follow Maria Von Trapp’s advice and start from the very beginning –a very good place to start. Or we could start with our latest trip to Ladakh–while it’s still fresh in our memory. Memory as you know has a strange way of playing tricks on you. I guess, the only problem that leaves us with is that our blogs won’t be in a chronological order but achronological collection of our travels with lots of prequels and flashforwards (ala Lost) thrown in. Come to thing of it that’s not much of a problem as flashforwards and prequels are doing very well these days. So be it! Let’s start at the very finish or hopefully at the very middle. Here’s “Travels Unraveled Redux” - a blog about our travels- past, present and future

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