On a Journey to the Land Of GOD - Day 1

Day 0 (24th June 2010) :

I don’t know if there was much different about that day. I know for a fact that I was trying to put together lists of things for vishwesh to do while I was away. Away where? I was still not sure. It was like mechanically my brain seem to be thinking that I was to be gone for 15 days and so I should hand over stuff to someone, but the gravity of the fact that I was going to be on the road to ladakh had still not registered. There was a bunch of shopping to be done, half of which I was sure I wouldn’t use during the trip, but who’s to argue at that last moment. It was a rather uneventful day and the only thing I distinctly remember about that day is the late nite coffee at CCD. i felt so relaxed and happy to be there, I cant explain it. Coffee at CCD is a weekly ritual, but that night I was unusually more relaxed and happy to be there.

The overall mood was still very somber, because Akbhabhi seemed quite upset at Satyenbhai finally going on the trip. Tejas was being his usual self by adding salt to injury with his smart ass comments. Its strange how bhabhi would kick my ass if I made any comments like that, but if tejas makes them she juz has funny faces to make. I need to take some training from tejas in buttering.

Day 1 (25th June 2010):

We were supposed to start off at 6:30 in the morning, but to nobody’s surprise and my frustration it wasn’t until 7:30 before we had finally picked up Jaydev before embarking on towards Delhi. Delhi, woooow!!!! We were going to be driving to Delhi, onwards to Manali and Leh. Woooow!!!!

Everyone was in such a shock that it took the first hour for each one to convince the others that we were finally headed out towards Delhi. Satyenbhai’s monstrous SUV was all loaded with the right gadgets to make our life easy and pleasurable.

By the time we crossed Himmatnagar we had got the first taste of a lot of experiences to come. A speeding white swift rushed by us, then slowed down, drove parallel to us and asked us to pull over. Why?? Because he wanted to know what freaking car it was and take a picture with it. WTF. The guy told us that he was following us at 140 kmph juz to keep up with us before he finally pulled besides us to make the request.
People sure are obsessed with size. Arnt they?? Lol

The morning for most part was wonderful and we enjoyed a nice cool beer before lunch. We had picked up the beer on Udaipur by-pass and enjoyed the beer before we took a lunch break. Satty-boy could not enjoy the beer since he was driving and so he was enjoying a nice cool masti chaas.

The afternoon is when the fun really started. As we were driving through the HOTTT steamy part of Rajasthan, the car finally decided it had had enough and wasn’t going to fight the head anymore. So the a/c went out. YES, the a/c went off in the middle of the afternoon, in the middle of the hottest state of the country. Whatever could go wrong, was starting to go wrong on the first afternoon of our long anticipated trip. The stick-shift was so hot you could barely touch it, forget changing gears. We even tried our luck by spraying water on the under-chassis of the car in the hope that it would cool off the car, the stick-shift and make the a/c work. It was only wishful thinking. The next cpl of hours none of us spoke a word. We were too darn drained and sweety to say something.

Satty-boy finally gave up and handed over the car to me to drive while he caught up on some much needed sleep. As luck would have it, around 50 kms before jaipur we had stopped to fill up gas, and a huge dust-storm hit us. You could barely see anything a few meters ahead. Luckily for us, I think that was the trigger which changed things for us. With the dust-storm the temperature came down, it rained a bit, the car cooled down, the a/c came back to life and we were all fresh and kicked.

It was time for one more beer(s).

The car, dust-storm and rain had slowed us down quite a bit and so we were running well behind schedule of reaching delhi around 7 pm.
Varun had his own reason for reaching Delhi by around 8 pm (for details you would need to ask him). He was soo darn disappointed at our delays that eventually satty-boy used all his rough-driving skills to somehow get us into the Raddisson at 10:00 pm in the night.

Better late than never I say. I was glad to be in a hotel instead of the car. Satty-boy was happy to find a bed to sleep on. Jaydev was happy juz to be able to get a drink. And varun was happy he had a chance. ;)

A chance which he took or not is something only Varun can answer.

On a Journey to the Land Of GOD - Preface

Honestly, I still cant believe me made the trip.

Each one of us had our doubts if the trip was actually going to happen. None of us said it out loud, but until we set off at 7 pm on 25th morning, all four of us were still skeptical if we were actually going to go out on this wild trip that looked fantastic on paper, but too good to be true in real.

There are painters and sculptures who with their colors and forms wow us. Then there is GOD who with his mountain forms and the colors of nature tells us how he is the best painter and sculpture of them all. The entire greater Himalayas is something of a canvas on which god has put together amazingly beautiful landscapes with gorgeous colors that only he could think and conceive. From various shades of brown, to luscious green shades, to ever amazing purple mountains, white show in different shades, green on mountains to saffaron yellow grit. As if the mountains and greenery wasn’t enough, he finally decided to add water streams, water falls, rivers, lakes smack in the middle of all these awe –inspiring mountain ranges.
The sights just leave you spell bounded. Pictures dont tell you the entire story. You have to be there to see if for yourself.

It was a journey into the land that GOD has truly created for himself.