Riding with the Clouds

 Karmacola had the thought and conviction, and encouraged Vaiguru to try his hand at biking  in Leh. So we got one, geared up and it was the best thing we did on this trip.  The freedom to stop anytime, not having to tell the driver to stop or slow down whenever we felt like or when something looked breathtaking, which  was  very often, very. Unhindered is the word that  made us hum along with Janis "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose...".  Our three days of biking around took us through some untouched beautiful places and experience the sights and smells of Ladakh that would not have happened had we not chosen to explore the road less traveled by riding with the Clouds! 

The varied shades of the Stok valley as seen from Stok Palace

Read More......

Somewhere between the Earth & Heaven

During our last trip to Leh one of the locals told us that Ladakh is supposed to have 300 days of clear skies and 65 days of clouds. Staring into the brilliant blue infinity that stretched in front of us it was difficult for us to believe that even  a single wisp of cloud would dare to provide a contrast to the azure skies. So, this time around when we planned our trip to Leh in May we were excited about the prospect of rain and maybe even snow as predicted. And we were not disappointed - the seven days that we spent in Leh, the weather gods granted our wishes and more. All we could do was stare at the veritable feast for mind and soul.

Sun setting on the Stok range - definitely closer to Heaven than Earth

Read More......

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

Read More......

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

Read More......

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

Read More......

Paradise Revisited

I had originally planned to start this blog with the most phunked n fantabulous vacation that we had in the north-east. But, that thing about best laid plans of mice and men kicked in! Too often. Procrastination, laziness, work deadlines, and such...so here we are almost two months later..knock, knock, knocking on another year's door and none the wiser. However, in between we did manage to squeeze in our second road trip to Red Hills almost a year later to date in Dec (the 2006 trip to be posted later-a prequel if you may!). Prequels have been doin well u know...

Read More......