Ladakh – where moonlight blinds you

Ladakh – Good to read, not so good to reach. Ladakh – more Israeli than Indian. Ladakh – where sun burns your skin in two hours. Ladakh – like a chameleon, changes color every season. Ladakh – where not one visitor would have left without uttering, “Yeah, finally”. Ladakh – final frontier of an avid traveler. Ladakh – as alien to a malayalee as bucket in an American toilet. For me, Ladakh on a bike was one ride too many!
I realized, malayalees take nature and its blessing, the greenery for granted. More than once during the trip, I thought and shared with my colleagues that a Keralite should be made to visit Ladakh at least once. At nine in the night, wet all over with temperatures a little over freezing, more than eager to see another local human, riding on a bike on a three meter wide road with huge boulders ready to roll down the hill slopes on your left and Indus river flowing unlike anything you’ve ever seen before on your right, shadows of huge stones floating in it’s currents and the threat of another crippling landslide awaiting you around the next curve is a decent enough combination to make you remember all the prayers your mom taught you and you’ve refused to remember since you joined engineering college. Once in Ladakh, I was depressed more often for the lack of greenery than oxygen. It looks too barren, lifeless like moon’s surface. The beauty of enormity and monotony demands more than your entire life’s training, your conventional wisdom, to be appreciated.
I was warned, I was coaxed against it, but somehow was determined to break off the sickening routine and blend into what was exclaimed as a slow transition from the most planned city in India (Chandigarh) into the “virgin-ness” of the country’s most famed heights. While setting our bikes up for the task, not once did I believe Mahesh that the instrument in its current shape wouldn’t take me all the way. In less than a week, I realized how important the initial make-over and the spares were! We packed them off to chandigarh a couple of days before setting out for what turned out to be the most adventurous journey of my life.Chandigarh was cool, relaxed and to Nestor, Mags & me, everything seemed rosy then. Kudos to GATI, they did an amazing job of transporting our bikes. We picked up a few last minute items, replaced tubes, oil, Mahesh’s camera, checked our emission, and rode off to Manali by noon. Dixie had made it a day earlier and was awaiting us at Manali, all stocked up!

To be continued...