ShanaYogi

Day 8, 06 13hrs: I and Sonu got ready to bid goodbye to Leh. We were about to start our bikes when there was a voice from the kitchen which was adjacent to the parking area. The cook asked us to leave after having a tea. Which is not what they normally do at this time, but he woke early only to make us tea. It was so touching and kind--the camaraderie these people shared! Day 8, 08 23hrs: After breakfast in Upshi, it was the time for the main motivation of the trip--taking a dip and drinking Indus river waters. But I realized that getting in the water will be a bad idea considering we have to cover a lot of distance in two days and we cannot afford to lose any time. So I settled to taste the Indus, whose magnificence in India's history is unparalleled. Such a holy thing and suddenly where all the energies come from, to have the Indus in my body. What all had I missed on my onward journey! The ride from Leh to Pang is the best part of the entire trip. Good roads, unimaginable ...

The views were, like it had been throughout, revering but this time with a lot of variety.           Vivek sat in front beside the driver capturing as much as he could with his DSLR; I, alone, royally occupied the last row, while the others sat in the middle row of the Innova. The driver was slim, vibrant and active: he either drives or smokes. Even if we had to stop to leak, he managed to light and take few puffs in the little time he had. The other pleasant thing with this drive is that we could listen to songs while we sat back in awe of nature. The Keralites are fans of Tamil songs and there were Tamil songs played too, very much to my delight. One song we all enjoyed was "Shoot the Kuruvi" from JilJungJuk, I had fun explaining the lyrics to them what many Tamils don't even know there existed one for this song. Another interesting thing I noticed here in the north extreme part of India is that they enjoyed Tamil dubbed movies and songs; I saw people enjoyi...