Sat, Jul 23

8:37 am: today is the last day of our trip and one where we haven't particularly planned anything. Let's see what Lawang comes up with. Then we want to go look for some pashmina, and maybe play some snooker.

10:08 pm: today was a very eventful day, not necessarily for the right reasons though.

We went for breakfast at around 10 to a place called Il Forno - we had developed a kind of blind faith on quality of food in Leh. The first shock here came when the waiter got orange juice, which tasted like fanta with sugar - gulbadan juices are generally good but this one was awful. Then pawan got his hashbrown which turned out to be 'aaloo ki tari wali subzi' - we called the chef and he started explaining to us that there are two kinds of hashbrowns and this was the second kind! The paranthas were ok. It was our only brush with bad food in Leh.

we walked down and were roaming in the market when an angry mob came by and started to ask people to shut their shops. Apparantly, a kashmiri had beaten a ladakhi girl and in response the ladakhi people had beaten up the kashmiri. And the kashmiris had then threatened to light fire to ladakhi shops. So all kashmiris were shutting shops to go protest. And all ladakhis were also shutting shops. So the market was closed.

We tried finding the snooker place but it seems to have shifted from the place we went on our last trip. So we roamed around a bit and came back to the hotel.

At the hotel we played cards - tried flash, 21, but finally enjoed judgement so played a few rounds of that. Then ashes test 1 day 3 started, so we watched that and ordered some food there itself.

Around 5 we went to Lawang. He showed us the tix but then told us that since we had upgraded the hotel, we needed to pay him 10k more to get the tix. There was utter confusion since zuzer had charged us 1500 per room night and told 800 to Lawang. zuzer kept claiming that he had told me 800 and that lawang won't give us tix unless we paid him 10k cash - lawang kept saying that zuzer had told him not to give the tix unless he got cash. So we kept arguing for a long time and it looked like we might not get the tix, but finally lawang relented and gave us the tix! zuzer has been a terrible screwup on this trip.

We spent the next hour or so making sure we had all the cost information for the trip, should zuzer decide to ask for more money later. So we went and got the ratecard for sun and sand hotel where these guys were originally putting us, and for 3d manali-leh drive etc.

in the meanwhile, pawan bought a pashmina. We went to world garden cafe for dinner and had great bean burritos and falafel sandwiches. It is a great end to a rather fightful day! We had some interesting decision on religion and history.

Our flight leaves at 7:35 tomorrow so gotta wake up at 5. Bedtime!

Fri, Jul 22

We had a trip planned for khardungla pass today. We got ready and had a great parantha breakfast. Lawang came to greet us at 8:30 - the jeep was ready. we headed out.

The journey to khardungla is around 39 km and one and half hour long. The ascent was steady. Out driver was a tibetan whose parents had migrated to jalpaiguri - he was born there and was an indian citizen. He seemed to think that independence was a distant cry. He lives in one of the refugee settlements here. Drives a jeep, and goes sells tibetan stuff elsewhere, including delhi, at other times.

on way to khardungla, we came to a check post where three foreigners were stranded. They had hitched a ride uptil here and wanted to hitch another ride to nubra (100 km further from khardungla) - free ride has its price I guess.

We reached khardungla at around 10 - khardungla is the highest motorable pass in the world at 5604 m. Its a mini tourist stop with jeeps and bikes, and even a sovenier shop! I and pawan decides to climb the short peak next to ktop. Kshitij was feeling some headache so he stayed back. The climb was short and fun - getting on the top rock was exciting and at the same time scary - you are standing there at the top with only one rock beneath you - that must have taken us to around 5625 m or 18500 ft. Both our camera batteries seem to have drained out at that temprature! Pawan managed to get last few shots out of his before we came down.








At the base, we met an israeli guy who had been in india for past 6 months and planned for another 4 months. He mentioned that israeli tourists were amongst one of the larger ones in india. He had himself served in military, and was now taking a travel break. He had come with ten thousand dollars and had bought a bike for his india trip - he expected to spend around sixk over ten months, and believed that india offers some of the best value in tourism.

Back down at khardungla, we came across the hitchhiking group. They had come with someone who was going to nubra, but had unfortunately cancelled the onward plans now! Go, find another truck!

We got some momentoes and then headed down. Kshitij and our cameras were still dizzy. On our way back, we went to shanti stupa near leh city.

Kshitij relaxed in the hotel while I and pawan went out for food to dreamland hotel. The service seemed poor but the food was good and we had lots of it. We then came back to the hotel.

Ashes was on and the first test was very interesting so we switched on the tv. After some time Lawang came in - he was visiting his group in the adjoining hotel so he thought he'd drop by. He talked a lot about his business, his danish boss and all. And while at it, he kept throwing some pearls of wisdom - sample this - ''pvr in delhi is a hippy place''. ''what? No way''. ''what else! Girls there wear such short skirts, it must be a hippy place''!

He had interest in travel and planned to take a month off later this year to go visit south india. He aspired to have his travel business but wanted to work with a company and slowly establish the links. He also told us about all the hindi movie stars keep coming to leh but noone gives them importance here.

We then asked him where we should go for dinner and he suggested we go to ibex bar and restaurant. He also offered to join us there.

So we met back at ibex at 8 and ordered our drinks - beer seems to be the most preferred drinks here and good quality liqour is otherwise not available. Anyway, we got started. The evening was interesting with mostly Lawang talking. Pearls kept flowing - sample a couple more - ''in mumbai, dogs wag their tails up and down instead of sideways''. ''why?''.''there is no space in that city to wag your tail sideways''. Or this one - ''i don't like the fact that in army an officer has to eat alone and he can't eat with a subedar - an army officer and a bhangi are the only two people who have to eat alone''. Then, Lawang had his choice of jokes as he loosened up.

He also mentioned that they do parties and rafting on full moon nights (as was yesterday) - so we asked him if we can do something tomorrow - let's see what he comes up with.

He was very excited by the fact that he won't wake up till 11 tomorrow. Good night and sleep well.

Thu, Jul 21

3:58 pm: today was our rafting day. We were ready at 8:30 sharp as instructed - the van came about half hour later. Then it picked up another couple from ireland - gerard is a postman there and sarah teaches at a primary school. Its interesting to contrast between the financial ability of a postman in ireland and in india - imagine an indian postman taking a month off to go see ireland! life gets to balance itself somewhere.... offshoring is here to grow...

So we reached the campsite at Phey around 10, got our lifejackets and helmets on, and into the rafts. All five of us were in one raft. Next to us was another raft with couple of couples.

the indus river is pretty mild for rafting, especially if you compare it to ganges at rishikesh. So there were a couple of rapids, but mostly silent. The scenery is breathtaking. And the whole drill of 'forward','back','left forward' etc was interesting. We stopped midway for some relaxation and juice. And sure, there was some water splashing between the other raft and ours.




Towards the end, pawan and I jumped into the water. It was cold. But it was great fun to swim in the river, especially if one doesn't know how to swim! In the last leg, the indus meets river zanskar, which is even more cold - I am glad we had our swim before that!



We reached nimmu at around 1, had a change and quick lunch. so gerard came up and told pawan that he looked like george cloony - man! Pawan was like grnning from cheek to cheek - and he shot through the roof when gerard told him that it was actually sarah who thought there was a resemblence - needless to say, pawan was a different person for rest of the day - smiling at nothing... He even offered gerard and sarah to stay with him in delhi on their way back :-)

We then headed back for Leh, and I am just done witha quick nap and a shower.

10:52 pm: around 5, we went to neetu's office to get a sense of where are air reservations stand - lawang came after some time and said he will get us on the plane any which way - for tomorrow, we are going to rent a car to go to khardungla.

We went to the ladakh cultural show. Its a small affair - happens daily across hotel kangri. We were the only three 'guests' - in the beginning, it looked like we'd made a mistake by going there - there was this bunch of people playing drum and shehnai in a corner and that's it. But after a while, I guess they must have been waiting for more people to come, a lady came out and started explaining each item. The show was basically a dance and music show. Interesting stuff. They also had a ladakhi kitchen and gave us butter tea - pawan chose to have none of it, I just tasted, and kshitij had two full cups. They invited us to join them in the last dance item.






We then thought we'd head for hotel ibex bar, but they told us it was a dry day on account of full moon. None of the town joints seems to offer chhang - the local barley beer - and they told us its available in nepali homes behind the bus stand. We thought we'd skip it for the day, and went back to world garden cafe. We bought a deck of cards and had a great evening of teen patti interspersed with food. Being a dry day, it was a much sober affair today than yesterday, even though some of the same people were around. We folded up at around 10, and pawan had lost some money to both me and kshitij - he didn't seem to mind that a bit, and was still lost in his 'cloo(w)ny smile'!

Wed, Jul 20

9:22 am: woke up at 8 (great sleep last night) when pawan started thumping the door. Kshitij slept on for another half hour. We catch up a bit of 'whose line is it anyway' on tv. let me go get ready.

11:12 pm: today was a great relaxing day. We went out to the market - tibetan stuff, ladakh handicrafts etc - generally moving around.

We went to La Terrase for lunch - well, started at around 12 and sat there for 3-4 hours. Its a roof top restaurant and the sun was bright. We had some salad and pizza - good stuff!

we then came back and had a short nap in the afternoon. In the evening, we went to World Garden Cafe - its a small open restaurant and serves all kinds of cuisines. Mostly foreigners (well, that seems to be true of most of Leh). We were there for 3-4 hours. Its amazing how good food you can get in Leh - we first had some paneer chilly which was absolutely great - then falafel and veg lafa were equally good.



There was an interesting set of people here. There was one table where people just kept coming in, joining in, having food and leaving. These looked like backpackers who probably had been here for some time and kept running into each other. Strange kind of commmunity eating, if you will.

On the other side was a group of 5 whiich kept smoking hash for most of the evening, but were well behaved all through.

In front of us, there was a couple sitting, and midway through the meal, the guy just collapsed - fell in front on the table. The woman was hysterical and called for the ambulance. Fortunately, there was this person (a local guide, perhaps) who rubbed his chest and brought him back to life. The guy just stood up, pushed away everyone away and walked out. It was hard for him to match his steps - he was obviously stoned - scary! After this, this rescuer person went and joined the hash group and started an interesting conversation - ''by qualification I am matric'' and all - we could overhear just parts of it, but i'm sure you can find more on their travelogue :-)

At around 11, we walked back to the hotel. Watched some movie and now its off to sleep. Chilled out day after last few days of hectic stuff.

Tue, Jul 19

Note: The BRO signs recorded and contributed by Pawan

woke up in the morning at around 6. still a bit of headache. Since there is not much to do anyway, we decide that we'll leave for leh today itself, maybe by afternoon.

pawan and I go for a short walk to the lake - very beautiful! The lake is absolutely blue and looks great against the mountains. We take some
pics there. Just then a yak appears and starts to take a bath - we figure its best to leave his private pool to him, so we head back. the yak graces us with a pose for the camera.






kshitij is up by the time we come back. We realize that zuzer is still ther and will leave in a while. Ludar has also decided to go back to manali. We have our breakfast - in fact, kshitij and I don't feel like having much of it - and then sit around for an hour or so. Then we figure we'd leave right away for leh. Our driver, Nawang, is right there so we pack our bags and head off.

Nawang's driving style is quite in contrast to zuzer's roller coaster yesterday. Nawang is in love with his car - drives ever so slowly, keeps washing it whenever we get a slightest opportunity to stop! The drive actually is much more enjoyable today.


the scenery is amazing. Its all desert mountains and we are driving by the indus river. Every now and then, a village comes up which is like an oasis - lush green farms - almost out of a story book. The mountains have all the different colors you can think of - purple, brown, grey, green, orange... Nature is certainly creative. So are BRO people who had some funny signs to keep us entertained and thoughtful. Here are some of them.

“Dont be Gama on the land of Lama
“It is better to be Mr Late than Late Mr”
“Drive on horse power not rum power
“After whisky driving risky

Nature's creativity though was unbeatable. As KJ put it someone had taken a big paint brush and painted these mountains. This drive was cerainly a lifetime thing. Good we came.

We just crossed a bridge and arrived at a sort of T Junction. Right went to China. We could get there after two days of driving. Right to leh. We were definitely going right. Here we stopped for permit check and for some Inotos. in the meantime Navang was busy cleaning the car. Sure he was obssessive with his new car.

Now we were driving along the Indus. While the hills were getting more colourful, BRO was getting naughtier with signs like:.

“Be mild on my curves
“On my bend be slow friend

And also phylosophical with these profound ones:

Hard work is the biggest investment a man can make
“Alert today alive tomorrow”
“Life is a journey, complete it

Indus was looking good as it twisted and turned creating rapids. We drove along with some beautiful songs from RD Burman, Ghulam Ali etc. KJ kept passing tapes to Alok who kept feeding the stereo with new songs while we saw some more interesting sights. Like the bridge made of tree trunks and wooden planks. This, obviously was a bridge to cross the river on foot. We did that. Half way through this bridge over Indus, I realized I forgot my camera. So, went back to get the camera and found Navang throwing water on the jeep. This guy has some disorder I thought.



After every few Kms we also saw these villages where they had used Indus water to create beautiful and awesome green patches. This must have taken some hard work considering we were in the desert. Then there were many army stations. Was that a feeling of security? I wondered. There were also well maintained grave yards of many soldiers who died during the last war.




We had been now driving for almost 3 and 1/2 hours. Mountains were now mainly brown, Indus was in full flow and BRO stopped being original with this one:

“Please follow traffic rules

Here?

While now I could feel my skin burning due to the sharp sun, wmesmeric another mesmerising view. Snow capped mountains at the horizon were standing tall as if pulling all of us and the Indus towards them. Then suddenly BRO came up with another one.

Where nature lies bare. Himank takes you there.

Who'’s nature I cried

Wittiness however continued beyond Upshi where we had our first tibetan food. This time it was.

“If you love her divorce speed

We were now about 50km from Leh and 11 km from Karu where we hoped to find first PCO in many days. We found it. Made our phone calls. Talk to parul - then call up to talk to smiti - she doesn't talk much. I can hear muskaan in the background. Now it was the final drive to Leh.

Few minutes after we left Karu, we got this kinky sign:

“Darling I like you but not so fast

After the virtually full army township in Karu we moved along with the Indus towards the snow capped mountains. Leh was not far away and we were about to experience the civilization in Ladhak. We had already heard so much about the place. There is world's best Italian restaurant, kashmiri food, med food, and cyber cafe. The wait was getting difficult. KJ was having withdrawal symptoms and wanted to check his emails. We also wanted to play pool, go to the theatre, go for rafting and may be drive to the worlds highest motorable point at 5600m. May be, just may be have a bath!

We hit leh at around 4 pm and nawang takes us to their office where a guy called Neetu (nee+eat+oo) accompanies us to a hotel. The hotel doesn't look too good and is far from the market, so we ask neetu to take us to spic and sand which is supposed to be a good hotel. When we reach there, they have no rooms available - zuzer apparantly booked rooms here and then cancelled - wonder why (even at tsomoriri camp, he didn't have a clue on which campsite to go to - he is definitely a better mountaineer than organiser) - neetu claims ye knew there was some hotel panga as soon as he saw that zuzer hadn't accompanied us to leh!

Anyway, this guy at spic and sand is very helpful and checks a couple of other hotels for us. We find rooms at La Sermo which is only a couple of blocks away. So we go in, see the rooms and check in. The AC doesn't seem to be working, so we call the reception. The manager tells us that hotels here don't have ACs so we should open the window - we do that and find underwear drying outside! we ask the manager to change the rooms, he shows us a couple more and looks like our hotel trouble is gone at last.

I freshen up - kshitij and pawan seem happier takin their no-bath-vacation forward. We leave the hotel and go to neetu's office. Lawang (the guy who has our airtix) is still not there. Neetu tells us about the optional tours - shey-thiksey-hemis, rafting, alchi-lamayuru, pangong and khardungla. Looks like we are up for rafting and khardungla. We fix rafting trip for thu, will decide on khardungla later.

Neetu also tells us about some good food joints - including monalisa - he says its a happening place with fair bit of smoke flying around. We head out to look for eating place. First we find the garden cafe which serves great food (have been here on my last trip) and then go to look at monalisa.

The place looks ordinary but at 7, its perhaps early. We order beer and apple juice. The waiter here is munna and I think has some initial apprehensions about us - we tell him we'd like to talk to mr singh (neetu told us the owner is from agra) when he comes. We see mr singh in a while and he doesn't look a bit like the owner of the place - anyway - he chats up a bit about agra, and tells us the season is a bit low this time. He comes to leh for 3 months every year during peak season.

The evening is great, just recapturing college kissas and all. Pawan takes us through his experiences of dealing with 'entertaining clients' in business - stuff that takes us into nightlife from dubai and bangkok. We ask munnaji if there is 'something' that can be arranged. A true agrait, he says ''hota to sub kuch hai, par ab to bahut late hai'' - we take his trip for a while and then order dinner. The food's good.

Its been a good day, we walk back to the hotel, and the electricity goes off in a while, so we go to bed.

Mon, Jul 18

5:27 pm: today we started out from sarchu at 7:30 - today was about all the different kinds of driving terrains we got. First we went ove the nakilla pass (5060 m) and came down to gata - there are 21 simultaneous loops in the road here - you just go round and round till you are done!



That then leads to another pass lichulumbla, again at 5060 m - the pass looks beautiful in the backdrop of snow covered mountains. Driving from here, we reached pang - technically we 'came down' but we were still 4800 m over sea level. Had a quick bite of maggi here when the lady there told us that we are not going to get anything now for next d hours to leh. When we told her we were going to tso moriri and not leh, she just smiled and told us we weren't going to get anything at all on way in that case.



Anyway, we drove on and around 40 km down, the driver took the sumo off road - rest of the way was going to be all kucchha roads. But it wasn't too rough - in fact it brought us to middle of a large field, maybe 20 km each way, absolutely plain - we were told the stretch continues for at least 50 km! You could do an infosys campus (imagine, no attrition!) or a golf course here!


after 20 km or so, the terrain got really rough, and now it looked like a rally. Every now and then, you'd come across some inhabitation - each one of them looked very poor, but had a solar panel outside their tents - high tech meets high altitude - zuzer says the govt has gone out and given these out to people.




After around 2 hrs of this driving, where zuzer drove like a maniac, we came to a lovely lake in the middle of nowhere, and in the backdrop were beautiful ice-capped mountains. We stopped a second for some quick photos, and proceeded.




Tsomoriri wasn't too far ahead - this lake is lovely, absolutely blue and huge. There are lot of camping sites, though it doesn't look like we are getting an attached toilet here :-) instead there is a rear exit which opens into a green enclosure - what is this - a greenhouse!? Hmm, private garden - not bad - they just get more and more innovative... Well, as the evening progressed, it dawned that this might just be another attached toilet - go relieve in the nature in your backyard!

10:42 pm: Its been a hard day and kshitij goes to sleep back again (yes, he slept through most of that martian ride as well) - but the high altitude is beginning to take its toll. We ask ludar for some medicine and he tells us he won't give us any because it only provides temporary relief, so get used to it.

There's this guy 'chotu' at the camp who is always eager to help - and whatever you ask him he first comes back with military style ''Yes Sir'' before answering. So you ask him how many people are staying at the camp and he would go ''Yes Sir, teen log hai Sir'' - otherwise a fine guy - served us well at dinner.

After dinner, we have a nice round of songs before we go to bed. zuzer is going to go back to manali tomorrow and we head to leh.

Sun, Jul 17

6:14 am: woke up at 6 - its been raining all night. Today we plan to start the drive and get upto sarchu.

9:51 am: so we started out at 7 but there was a small landslide just after manali - people had apprantly been waiting since 2:30 - just got cleared - we had a nice hike to marhi. Waiting for a while till our jeep gets through. Rohtang is still 25 odd kms.


10:33 am: zuzer's mountaineering pearls ''you don't get a prize for reaching the camp first'', ''some fat helps (ed: zuzer must believe in that) becuase it gives you energy towards the end'', ''90 percent of mountaineering fitness is in the mind''

12:49 pm: passed rohtang at around 12 with some quick photos - clouds are beginning to descend into the valley. We are not at koksar - chandra river flows from here and we are about to cross the bridge - from himalayan range to lahoul spiti - have come all the way down from rohtang. The monsoons don't cross this valley - its the leeward side of the mountains, and hence very little rains. Our driver is fast - zuzer calls him a pilot - crossing the bridge makes a sound as if a train was passing over your head.



7:32 pm: reached our campsite in surchu. Well, once we started out, kshitij said he wanted to drive and the driver said ''is route pe gaadi nahin dete'' - $!@! - ''zuzer, what's the deal''. ''i will talk to him'' - okay, the jeep went on an on for another hour or so and zuzer is not talking! So I stop the jeep and tell zuzer ''zuzer, pls talk to this guy and resolve the issue'' - here he goes, has a quick chat and he's ready. So kshitij gets beyind the wheels and our self-drive begins. The guy apparantly is not convinced of whether we can handle the drive. Zuzer has built in the caveat that after 20 km or so, the army mandates that a local has to drive :-) and after that the drive is too stiff till baralacha s okay, let's see.




Kshitij does a good job behind the wheels - and we pass the army funda place and noone says anything so we go on. We stop after another 20 km for tea at kellong. Kshitij gives us that classic pose in the 'nature's temple'!




once done with the tea, still the original driver doesn't want the key - maybe he is now convinced of kshitij's driving ability and is enjoying hid vacation! the tough part is kshitij also doesn't want the key, so I take the wheel. Zuzer again starts building up his defense ''after 20 km, the climb get really steep and tough'' - okay, we'll see when we get there. So we go on - man, the drive is lovely! Beautiful mountains and streams around - very desert-like - dry. We reach the 20 km mark and noone's talking, so I go on. Slowly we aproach the barlacha pass and the route gets more and more scenic.







At around 5, we hit baralacha - 4880 m! I've never driven so high - its amazingly satisfying - and I am feeling fine. We stop for quick photo session and go on. This time, I get the jeep into the mud so the driver comes around and takes the wheels. With about 10 km to the campsite, pawan takes on and steers us to the camp - I think we've earned tomorrows pole positions!



The camsite at surchu (surchu means water (chu) of gold (sur) - some buddhist belief that this place once had golden water) is amazing - mountains all around, absolutely clean, great kitchen, dining halls - our tents even have attached baths!

we get the cook to fix us an onion garlic soupam and whatever little heaviness was there is gone.

Today's been great fun so far.

Sat, Jul 16

5:48 am: morning stop at mandi - a bus is a bus, a bus is not an aeroplane - stretch your legs. Zuzer is still zozing.

9:17 am: reached manali - 14 hrs precisely - everyone's back on cell phones.

10:47 am: checked in into iceland hotel, had a nice shower. Its in solang - kinda away from all the manali crowd - river and steep rock face on one side, green mountains topped with mist on the other.

11:28 am: great breakfast - omlette, great paranthas and kela!

2:56 pm: drove back to manali johnson's cafe - good ambience - good continental food - has been a great day so far - relaxed.

4:40 pm: on our way back we go to the paragliding maidan - zuzer tells us it take 20-25 mins to go to the takeoff point. Kshitij disagrees and takes the challenge - well, not bad, 15 minutes

9:06 pm: raat ke nau baje so ke uthe hai - neeche janta daaru pe baithi hai - yeh koi mahesh naam ka old aadmi baitha hai - gande marta hai, baby doll dekhta hai, badiya hai! Pata laga ki outbound training karta hai - his biggest regret in life in ''swimming nahin seekha'' - imagine! zuzer calls him a classroom mountaineer :-) Swimming!!?

Fri, Jul 15

7:40 pm: Pawan and I take a cab from gurgaon to chanderlok bhawan and reach at 6:10 - zuzer is already there. zuzer looks like a nice round mast guy - shud be fun. Kshitij arrrives in another 15 minutes.

alok's accountant wants to come over get the roc forms (for new company registration) signed but is unable to reach in time. Finaly suggests ''is it ok if I create your initials''! what the heck, go ahead. By 7:15 the bus gets going - hey, zuzer seems to have carried a bottle of vodka and he mixes up a bottle each of nice vodka lime - we are ON!

7:46 pm: these volvo buses have nice seats - three of us are at the back - with the engine making nice humming sounds - by my side is a couple - the guy wants to force his hand onto the shared handrest, but I aint giving it.

11:39 pm: dinner at 11 karnal - good makhan parathas - zuzer tells how he took to mountaineering - started at western ghats at age of 13 and sneaked in into an expedition to ''see snow'' - landed up being the only member of the team to reach the summit! By the time he was 18 and eligible for IMF basic course, he was already training others for the advanced course and had climbed 7 peaks - not bad - teenagers lived their dreams even in the 70s...

11:44 pm: as we get into the bus, the conductor comes to each seat and gives a polythene bag - ''anyone can have motion sickness in the mountains, and make sure you tie it up before you throw it out'' - and this bloke next to me is worried about his return ticket - on his honeymoon - already envious that all three of us are married but are going without our wives!

Where it all started

The thought of doing a Manali-Leh drive first occured to me when I was talking to some friends about potentially starting a travel business. The business never took off, but the trip did. This was in January 2005. After that, pretty much anyone I met, and thought might be interested, I talked about a drive trip to Leh from Manali. Now this is a trip that everyone wants to do! So everyone said "wow!" and then either decided to pursue the thought, or just feel a bit disappointed that they couldn't make it.

Around June, the people who were still interested were: Rahul, my colleague from Hughes/ Flextronics; Johri, our friend from IIT; Pawan, who is also from IIT but we had a chance meeting at CII seminar -- he was one of the people who got interested in our first conversation; Kshitij and Prashant -- my colleagues from JobsAhead/Monster; and Umesh -- who I had met earlier, but Rahul got into the fold.

We had one meeting where all these people were invited to discuss how we wanted to go about it, and that was it. However, as days passed by, some of these people began dropping out for various reasons. By the time we reached 15th July, it was me, Pawan and Kshitij who were still on. So we had to take a bus to Manali on 15th evening, along with Zuzer who was organising the trip for us. It was only our last stroke of luck that Kshitij did land up on the right day -- he had an impression that we were leaving on 16th and would have been a full 24 hours late, had we not had a chance conversation a couple of days earlier!