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Ladakh - Planning The Trip

Over 2000 Km by road, in around 10 days. Stunning landscapes, wonderful people. That sums up our Ladakh trip. But how did it actually work? How did we make it happen? Read on to find out!  Leh, the capital of Ladakh , is accessible by air and road. Flying into Leh is the easiest, and time-saving option, while the road is the time consuming one, but with the added advantage of driving past some of the most beautiful landscapes in our country. Each option has much to recommend it, and we chose the road for just one reason – altitude sickness. Altitude sickness was one of my biggest concerns, since I suffer from motion-sickness. Yes, I do travel a lot, but that is despite my condition, and, over the years, have learnt how to handle it. I struggled with it when we visited Nathu-La in Sikkim, and wondered if I would be able to manage a week at the even higher altitudes that we would encounter in Ladakh. This was the reason we stuck to a basic plan, of only 9 days in Ladakh, thoug...
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Birds at the Rail Museum

My cousins have never traveled much with me, and certainly never since I started writing. Though they do read my blog, they aren't really used to seeing me looking for material to write about. When I visited the Rail Museum in Delhi along with a couple of them, they were really amused to see me ignore the trains when I saw a flock of birds on the lawn.
They looked like mynas, which we see all over the place, and had a good time ribbing me about being more interested in birds than anything else. But with so many of my blog friends turning into birding enthusiasts that it was plain to even my untrained eye that these weren't the mynas I see usually. Returning home, and consulting with my bird book and with a bit of help from the net, I realized that the birds I had noticed were Rosy Starlings - the first time I had seen these birds! Here are a couple of pics....




There were, of course, many more birds there, probably because there weren't many people around! Here are a couple more pics.....

A dove wandered about happily....


and a rose ringed parakeet obliged me with a pose....


The Rail Museum used to be a favourite place to visit when I was a kid, and all I remembered from the time were the trains..... Never did I think that I would visit the Rail Museum with my son and end up photographing birds!!
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