Scribbles of a Lazy Geek

Finally, the day arrived and Arun's counter read 0. 19th July was finally here, and all of us were excited to say the least. Ok, before the journey begins, there were some things that needed to be done. Packing, and some last minute errands! 6:30 PM was the time our bus was to depart from Mandi House, Delhi. This meant we had to reach there at least by 5:30, this also meant I had to leave office latest by 2 PM, so that I can reach home by 3, have lunch and leave towards Mandi House by 4. The last day in office was to be dedicated to taking print outs of all the different Itineraries I had prepared, route maps, and other random info about Leh-Ladakh which I had collected over the past few weeks/months. I reached office early, to finish some office work. This work included making documents of some office tasks, which in case needed to be done could be done in my absence. I knew, cellphone signals there would be a big issue, so just had to be prepared. Anyways, I reached of...

So, the tickets have been booked now, what next? You plan! This is how Arun started the countdown to the day we bwgin the journey - Slowly, the count in the counter got smaller and smaller. We had just booked the tickets from leh to Delhi, and left the rest to later. At one point of time we thought about booking the air tickets from Delhi to Leh as well, but that plan was rejected by everybody, and rightly so, because we would have ended up missing the best part of the trip - the Journey to Leh from Manali. And, as they say - its not the destination, its the journey. And, this holds true even more-so for a trip to Leh-Ladakh. Any trip to Leh, is incomplete if you didn't do the Manali-Leh highway. And, as it turned out, according to me that was the best part of the complete journey. Just to give a glimpse of what we would have ended up missing if we had taken a flight to Leh, instead of the road -   Now, you know what I am talking about :) Initially, I had d...

Sometime around the end of 2012 For the past few months I had been reading quite a few travelogues. And, the majority if these were of road trips to Ladakh. The landscape, the journey, the adventure - everything was awe-inspiring. Somewhere, deep down inside me, even I started harbouring the dream to go to Ladakh. Yes, the place seemed like a Wonderland, at least in the pics! For the next few months,all I did during free time in office was read Ladakh travelogues, and more travelogues. In mid Feb '13, somehow a plan was made to go to Manali. Me, my Brother and his friend - we three decided to leave early on Friday morning and return by Sunday eve. I had never driven in the hills, and this was supposed to be the first time I was going to be driving in the mighty Himalyas. I was scared and excited. But, all this changed at the end of the trip. Driving in the hills is probably the best experience you can have if you love driving. And, loved it, I did! 3 days later, I thought I ha...