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...
It was May 1990. I had just written my10th Std exams, and my mother had promised me a trip somewhere interesting as a treat for all the hours I had put in all year for studying. The place we were to go remained uncertain, until my grandfather suddenly announced that a group from his temple was going to Badrinath and Kedarnath, and he had booked us for the trip. Badri and Kedar were interesting, no doubt, but a 15 year old girl with a whole busload of 60 plus people! I was aghast! “There goes all the fun from my vacation”, I thought. I couldn’t excuse myself out of the trip without hurting my grandfather, so I resigned myself to my fate and busied myself getting everything I needed for the journey. When the D-day dawned, I was happy to see that there were 4 teenage boys in the group-some change from all the others, who, as I had expected were 65 plus. The first few days were not really exciting….Hardwar and Rishikesh, I had seen earlier, and the boys treated me like a kid. I was bore...