Prologue:

     On a cold lazy February Sunday afternoon in Ooty, with no desire to head to town bursting on the seams with tourists from neighbor states I decided to spend my afternoon surfing the net and reading. It was during this aimless surfing that the yearning to head to the great Himalaya’s returned and I thought of planning a trip between mid-June.   

    And then what followed was searching...planning and of course... dreaming. Well, seven long years of waiting isn't a small time and finally now it all started taking shape. While searching I came across a group of people who wanted to go to Leh-Ladakh around the same time I planned to and started interacting with them.  As time passed, it became obvious that the dates didn't work out with the group as it clashed with my graduation ceremony and the dream of going to the Himalayas was looking distant. But as they say, if you really wish for something “dil se”, it happens. There were two other people in the group whose dates were also not working out so they dropped out. So the three of us (Sejal, Nitin and I) got together and started looking for 2-3 more people, interested in photography and willing to travel on the days we had in mind. One fine day, a month before we were planning to take off, Nitin told us that there was a photographer who was willing to join us on the trip. And that's how Pradeep joined the gang and things started looking up from there. What followed were exciting days of working on the itinerary, list of things to take, mode of travel etc and one more friend joined the team. “Log chalte gaye aur karva banta gaya.” :)

     These were my last few months in Ooty as I was winding up my stay, saying farewells to friends from college, getting ready to step into the  new world of professional photography, getting my postgraduate degree and even with all this, the mind was dreaming  of Himalayas - Ladakh. A lot was happening all at once. My status messages on social networking sites read “After seven long years… here I come my love”, people who knew me understood I was planning a trip and others had their own guesses. The countdown had begun and there was exactly ten days left before I left for Ladakh en-route home with all my stuff from Ooty. There was lot of havoc as three of us were traveling to different locations. I was going to join Sejal in Bombay and we were to travel together by train to Delhi. Nitin was going to join us in Delhi and then the three of us were to catch a train to Chandigarh to join Pradeep and from there drive down to Leh. I was a bit anxious as I was traveling with strangers for the first time on such a long trip although I had been in touch with all of them through phone and mails. The day of the journey was fast approaching and still mayhem reigned... I traveled to Bombay twice in those ten days and met Sejal for the first time, 3 days before we were supposed to leave.

Before I start my trip log I would like to note down one poem Nitin has written, which does says everything about the trip.

Road to Ladakh was.....

a peaceful adventure,

an old new venture,

a dream with eyes open,

a scream with lips sealed,

something out of the world,

a story never heard never told,

i am back to my town

leaving something of my own

my mind, my heart is there,

High Road of Ladakh is where.