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Published: November 22nd 2012
Don’t really remember when we finally agreed, enough of dreaming and talking and planning, it was the time for action now! Not that many people don’t do it. But most of the crowd around us called us insane. (Some of them still do :p) But we were determined this time. After my TTF (Travel & Tourism Fair) in February 2012 when we gathered many pamphlets, booklets, maps and tourist guides on Jammu & Kashmir and Leh & Ladakh, we (me, Anirudha, Tejas and Lee) made a rough outline of our route to Ladakh and tried to estimate the time it would take. We were over ambitious at that time which we later realized! A lot of reading on Ladakh and several meetings & discussions finally lead us to this plan. We will go to Jammu by train from Mumbai, carry our bikes along and begin our expedition to the ‘Land of Lamas’ from there. Our proposed circuit included Jammu, Srinagar, Kargil, Leh, Monasteries around Leh, <span>Khardung La, NubraValley, Pangong Tso, Tso Moriri, Manali, Kalka and back. All of us were totally excited. We got our bikes ready, shopped the necessary things, met people who had done Leh – Ladakh and more on bike more than once, read more, booked train tickets (that was the only booking we made), managed to convince our respective bosses to approve our leaves, sent Chess (Cheshire – our lovely cat) to pet hostel and here we were, all set to go! Anirudha and me were going to ride our Royal Enfield (Standard 350 CC) and Tejalee, Bajaj Boxer (100 CC). People and even Tejalee to certain extent were doubtful about their 100 CC bike, but to tell you the truth, that was the bike that won the race!! And yes, there was more to come before we could leave for Jammu. The very previous night of our departure, when I and Ani were struggling to finalize the packing and get some good night’s sleep, our kitchen ceiling collapsed down. Thankfully no one was in kitchen then. In no time our house was full of people, thanking God for protecting us, and then we had to answer more questions about where we were going….. (It was a bit annoying back then). Our neighbor was so kind to take the charge of our house while we were away and get things fixed. Finally at 4 in the morning we had our luggage as well as rest of the house organized. And we went to sleep only to wake up in few hours for our legen…..wait for it…dary Ladakh Trip!
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Tejas
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Oh ho Ibn Batutta, Marco Polo! Good going! Write everything and make us legends please :P