We learnt embracing humans, nature, emotions, challenges.
Year 2016, I was 4 years younger I am today. I and Deepti had a very short time of togetherness then. She still used to live in the United States and used to come to India after almost 6-7 months, and that too for a very short period of time.
We were quite tired in our first day drive only, when we travelled non-stop from Delhi- Rampur, that makes almost 12-13 hours of journey. We didn't talk much that day.
We decided to leave early the next day, and our first stop happened to be at the paratha shop at Rampur bus stand. He was playing his radio around in those early hues of sun, along with that aroma of food in the air. We sipped our chai and garam paratha there, and somehow we got a different kind of energy being on the roads. We drove across the terrains, we talked, we sang, we met people across, we stopped by the river enroute.
We wanted to spend those few days of togetherness, travelling. Travelling to those roads to test our endurance, into those terrains, in an uncomfortable weather.
We took the route from Delhi- Shimla - Rampur - Tabo - Kaza - Kunzum Pass - Koksar - Sarchu - Leh and then onwards to Turtuk on one end, towards Pakistan and Chushul towards Chinese stretch of Ladakh.
We had never travelled together for this long and in such conditions of no road, long treacherous rides, unexpected weather and when I was the only one who knew how to drive, despite not knowing how to drive, she learnt to be a great co-driver, she gave me confidence that we can do it, when we were stuck in landslides, heavy rain, stonefalls, and with no visibility, we got a taste of true compatibility when we happily crossed over.
We made it to Kaza that night.
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Pictures are from the entire trip to Ladakh. They are not symbolic to location mentioned in the caption.
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#himachalpradesh #spiti #ladakh #turtuk #hanle #roadtrip
