The Journey Begins! - Day 0; Delhi to Manali

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 office, completed the document and sent out emails. I had sent all the route maps, itenary and other info to myself in email from home last night, so took all those print outs and checked all the documents again.

Finally, when all the errands were complete, I set out my Out of Office. Frankly speaking, I do not remember when was the last time I had set my Out of Office. I don't remember doing it even once in Cognizant in the past 1.5 years, and if I remember correctly, even in Infy the last time I had set my OOO was in Oct-Nov 2010, that was probably the last long vacation I had taken. All, if any leaves I had taken after that were 1 or 2 max, and most of them unplanned. Anyways, I cant describe the feeling I had when I finally set my OOO message -

I wanted to write that I would be having No email and phone access, but just avoided putting it bluntly :p

I left office, sharp at 1 PM, and reached home at around 2 PM. Packing was still left, and after a lot of pondering over, I finally convinced myself of carrying 2 bags - all those big jackets just wont fit into one bag :) I wanted to travel light, but just did not want to have every photograph in Ladakh in just one Jacket :p, so heart prevailed over mind and I picked up two bags + one more bag which had the camera.

  

All packing done, I took a rickshaw and reached the Metro Station at 4. The Metro journey was pretty uneventful, and I managed to reach Mandi House at 5 PM, and as usual I was the first one and the only one to be there for a good 30 minutes :) It was hot and humid, so took a Pepsi and waited for others. Although, the suggestion from others was to get a Beer instead for everyone else :P, but theka was not near, so I let laziness rule, and just waited for others to arrive.

Slowly, everyone arrived, Amitesh first, then Arun and Bhavna, and then Rohit & Nidhi. We located the Bus, put all our stuff in and were ready to roll, but before that, a few pics :) - 

 

Sharp at 6:30, the Bus started rolling and the Legendary trip had finally begun! We stopped for Dinner midway somewhere near Ambala -  

After dinner, we moved ahead - towards our destination Manali. It was already 11 PM. After dinner, everybody took a nap. I don't really remember when the Mountains started, and the most of the bad route from Kiratpur Sahib till Bilaspur was covered while I was still asleep. Must say, the roads were real bad when I visited this route last in Feb, but this time I hardly noticed :) When I woke up, it was nearing dawn, and it was raining. If I remember correctly, it was somewhere near Mandi where we stopped for Morning tea at around 5 AM. It was drizzling here, and was chilly. We could finally feel the chilly air of the mountains now and was refrshing to say the least. A pic to go with it - Ok, you dont see tea in anybody's hands, coz no one drank it :P, they are just posing.

And, ahead we went, through the scenic highway with river Beas accompanying us all the way till Manali. The complete route is very scenic, and for a first timer it really can be overwhelming. But, since almost all of us had been through this route before, so completing this journey through the night really wasn't an issue for us. But, for first timers it would be highly recommended to cover most of this route during the day. Beas river flowing all along the way, and you piercing through the clouds is really a nice sight. A pic taken from the bus -

Finally we reached Manali at around 7:30 in the morning and all along the way it was drizzling. It was quite cold in Manali - atleast when you compare it with the hot and humid Delhi :)

We unloaded our stuff from the bus and went through the narrow lanes of Manali, to find our Hotel, and checked in!

So, this brings us to end of the journey from Delhi to Manali, which was quite uneventful. There were light rains all along the way, but nothing major. We had already covered around 500 Km, and the journey had really not yet begun, so you see what I mean to say - what we had completed was nothing compared to what lied ahead of us in the next few days!

Next - Manali, revisited! (.. and this time it was different).