The Five Hilarious Travel Photo Contest

When I stumbled upon 'The Five Hilarious Travel Photo Contest' I said "why not!" So here I go.

The photo below was taken when we were doing a little bit of shopping in Leh (Ladakh, India). Till date we are clueless what does the sign Useless Wali (Useless One) means. Googling doesn't help much either.

The second photo was taken again in the main market of Leh (Ladakh, India). I was asking these mild looking ladies (in Hindi) if I could take a photograph of them. My husband has a practice of standing 10 feet away from me on such occasions. To my surprise, the third lady from the left almost shouted her "NO" at me. There were two other gentlemen on the scene and they too looked a bit taken aback, though being foreigners to India they could only have guessed what was going on. Crestfallen, I started walking away. Then she called me back again and asked if I wanted to photograph her alone or the entire group? When I said the entire group, she smiled and said I could take one.

The two gentlemen sensing a change in the mood asked me if they too could take a photograph. I acted the interpreter and the ladies said yes to them too. One of them ran and sat next to the ladies. And here is the picture I got after a little bit of scolding. But the best part is after putting it at my blog (earlier) I got a comment form a person saying he knows the second person from the left in the picture. It is a small world.

The third photo was taken on our journey to Bharmour (Himachal Pradesh, India). We had these two goats as our fellow passengers in the bus. I will have to add, they were very well behaved even if a little bit smelly.

In this fourth picture my husband strikes a pose with a buffalo (I guess so) skull that he found on the Kuari Pass trek (Uttranchal, India). What wonders does spending time with nature does to people!

And here we are in Sikkim (India) when our jeep skidded a bit on the snow. There were only two women passengers including myself and the menfolk decided that they could push the jeep out on their own. I was happy to get the opportunity to take the picture.

White is the Theme for Today

Manali-Leh Highway

From a Trip to Best Western Resort in Manesar

Nanda Devi: Kuari Pass Trek

From the Strees of Bangalore

PS. Life is quite hectic till 27th April. Should be getting more time after that.

The Bakri Wala (shepherd) at the Markha Valley, Ladakh

Pangong Lake, Ladakh

I somehow feel like blogging about an old incident today. We went to Ladakh in June 2005. The plan was to trek through the Markha Valley. We completed the first day's trek upto Jhinchan successfully but then the trouble began. I developed a thoroughly upset stomach. We continued for small distances for the next two days, and camped at Rumbak and then Ganda-La base. But the stomach showed no sign of improving. On the third day we decided to ditch the trek as I was not getting any better. Actually, it was Sesha who insisted that we have to turn back.

On our way back, there was a tricky spot. We had to cross a river and we had a lot of trouble crossing it while going to Rumbak. The flow of the river was a lot and we were wondering what to do. Our ponyman told us to follow a particular gravel track and he went ahead. It must have been a stretch of not more than 800 meters. Part of the way was quite fine and we had no trouble. Then the gravel became very loose and I started slipping. It was not at all dangerous as I would have gradually gone to the bank of the river but at the moment I was a bit dazed. To break slipping any more I just sat down and both and Sesha and I were wondering what to do next! Suddenly out of nowhere came a Bakri wala (Shepherd), smiled at me and asked "aap ka haath pakad kar nikal dun?" (Shall I take your hand and get you across?) And that is what we exactly did. He got me safely across and then went his way.

I still remember the incident so clearly and whenever I think about it I marvel at the timing of his apperance and feel a lot of gratitude.

A Query for Ladakh that Brought a Smile to my Face on an Otherwise Lousy Day

Magical Ladakh

My day at work left me feeling very flat and drained today. My evening Table Tennis sessions are a perfect antidote to such stress but even that failed to lift my spirits which is truly rare. When I reached home and kept my keys next to the TV, Sesha left his violin and started fussing over me. He also offered to make tea for me, interrupting his violin session and that is even rarer! Still, I was finding it difficult to shake off the blues.

Then I remembered a lovely mail I got today. I went over it and shared it with my family. That did the trick. It is a query about Ladakh and anything to do with the region works like a charm with me. Here is the mail:

Hello Sweet Mridula

My name is ... I am a monk. My desire is to go to Ladakh (Leh). Precisely, I need to get to Phuktal Gompa (a monastery), in Phuktal in the Zanskar region, to finish a spiritual mission. I plan on leaving on November 1st, 2006. I plan on flying to Leh from Delhi.

The Problem is that I am not a tourist and I do not want to sight see. It is not my interest. Besides I do not have the money to run around. I do not want to visit the other monasteries either. Is there someone that you know in Leh, who I can pay to take me directly to Phuktal Gompa, without the frills and the thrills.

They say the Zanskar region is closed off by the end of November. So, am I safe to go at the beginning of November.

Please help me with a contact person and any words of advice that you may offer.

I had read the mail in hurry but it made me pause and smile. I immediately write to Rigzin, who is from Ladakh (but currently lives in another contry) and has shared with me pictures of the Leh Floods. I seeked his help and he was so kind with his reply.

I am a friend of Mridula so she has forwarded me your email. I belong to Leh.

Oct-May is a bad time for Zanskar as it is cut off from Leh. Local people and very few foreigners do ice trekking to reach zanskar during this time. Walking over frozen river (Indus river) is really tough. People also travel via Kargil to Zanskar.

You can get in touch with Mr Odpal George, a local Ladakhi his contact details are:

Mobile + 91 9419179742

Ph- + 91 1982252638

Email: odpal@himalayansafaris.com

He is a travel agent, but if you write to him about your specific query, he should help you out, and is very reasonable in pricing. Since these months are off season you could ask for a discount.

Feel free to email me for any queries.

I consider such communications the biggest and the sweetest benefit of blogging. Three people currently living in three different countries interacting over Ladakh brought together by a blog, to borrow from MasterCard, feels priceless.

I cannot Imagine Leh Getting Rains!

I cannot imagine floods in Ladakh. But it is official now.

Updates on the road conditions can be found at Indiamike from the travellers.

I got these pictures of the flood courtesy Rigzin via email. He got it from a goup of Lamdon Model School, Leh graduates and he assures me that I can use them on my blog.

Floods in the Ladakh Region?

Looks like it rained hard in Leh.

During the intervening night of July 31 and August 1, torrential rains and cloud burst in Leh, Saboo, Phyang, Igoo and Shara in Leh district and different pockets of block Sankoo in Kargil district caused floods.

Massive damage was caused to standing crops, plantations, roads, bridges and some houses in the flood-hit areas, Sharma said adding government has taken all necessary steps to combat the damages caused due to the floods.

Surprisingly the entire article does not mention anything about the tourists in Leh.

Manali-Leh Highway and the Border Roads Organization

The new academic semester has started and it will take me sometime to get back to my regular blogging. At the start of the semester, life seems so hectic, but two weeks later, I invariably find time. In the meanwhile, I thought I will share this moving piece written by Vikrum at How the Other Half Lives.

I also noticed that their clothes were pathetically inadequate for the climate. One man had a torn green windbreaker and another wore two long-sleeved t-shirts. It was painful for me to see these grown men shivering as they observed us.

These men, like the Nepalis, seemed eager to talk to anyone who would listen. I introduced myself to the group, and one man answered for all of them. The first thing he said caught me off-guard. He said, in Hindi with a strong country accent, “We are proud to keep this highway open for you all.”

I realized that he worked for the Border Roads Organization. He and his friends were the reason why the road was open and in such excellent condition.

Cell Phone Services in Leh

Can one use cell phone in Leh? This is a question that often pops up on various India travel forums. Jammu and Kashmir (Leh is a part of J&K) went mobile with BSNL in the year 2003 with quite unintended benefits for beggers!

Jammu, Aug. 20 (2003): Beggars have benefited the most from the cellular phone service launch in Jammu and Kashmir. There were many beggars queuing up for Cell One application forms being distributed at Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited counters here. They had been roped in as proxies by shopkeepers and those who could not bear to queue up for hours to obtain forms. The beggars received Rs 10 and Rs 15 for every form they obtained. The forms are free. “The last two days were good. I hope it will be the same tomorrow,” Shashi Kumar, one of the beggars who stood proxy for others, said. He regretted that it was a holiday today.

Initially BSNL launched post paid services only. I tried hard to find out if BSNL has extended prepaid or roaming facility to the region but could not find any definite information.

Then I could find news itmes that talk about Airtel entering Jammu and Kashmir and Leh.

NEW DELHI (Feb 09, 2006): Mobile phone service provider Airtel has erected the highest GSM tower in Leh region in Jammu and Kashmir. Standing at a height of 11,645 feet, the tower is located at the historic Qutak Gompa. With this, Airtel also becomes the only private mobile operator to launch services in the high altitude region of Leh in the state. This site connects Leh with Airtel's four cell sites at Chuglamsar, Stok, Skerzling, and Qutak Gompa.

But I am yet not sure that an Airtel cellphone with a say Delhi number would work in Leh or not. My guess is that roaming is still not available in J&K and Leh. So we do meet monks with a cell phone in Leh (2005) but our cell phones are most likely to go silent there even now.

But there are some for whom having a connectivity in Leh was not a problem even in 2004. Farhan Akhtar (Director of movie Lakshya) has following to say in a rediff article.

How did it feel being away from your cell phone?

Cell phones don't work in Ladakh. The only person who had a phone was Mr (Amitabh) Bachchan who I think carried a satellite phone. On one level, not having cell phones helped the whole unit come together, because you only had each other for company. So people would spend more time with each other than sitting in their rooms telling people how much they love them and miss them!

Cell phones have definitely reached Leh but it is not certain that an ordinary prepaid connection from BSNL or Airtel will go on roaming in the region.

PS. I have used the picture of the monks before on my blog.

Remembering Ladakh: The Glorious Sunsets

One of the most magical places I have ever visited is the Ladakh region in Jammu and Kashmir. Getting there is tough. But once you reach there, it is paradise. This picture was taken on our second day in Ladakh.



This is also from the same day as above, only I turned in a different direction from where I took the first picture. I was sitting at a high up place near the main monestary in the city and taking these shots. When I look at these photos, there is a strong urge to go back to Ladakh. But it won't happen this year. Maybe next year we will visit the place again.



And this one was taken on the day before our departure, quite late in the evening. Near the bus stand there us a sports field and next to it is this temple.

I am so sitten by Ladakh that I recommend it to everyone, it is a must see destination in India. And the raods generally open in June. So what are you waiting for?

A Conversation with Kids from Ladakh

I met this brat pack one afternoon (June, 2005) in Ladakh right in front of my hotel. The biggest brat of the pack was the youngest too; he is sitting in the lap of his sister in the photograph above.

The sky was a blazing blue (quite unlike the pale one I see in Delhi), far in distance, loomed chocolate colored mountains dipped in a little white snow and the weather was mild that day. Pink and yellow rose bushes were part of the landscape and I had such good company, if only I could break the ice.

I asked the kids, what were they playing? The pack giggled but did not tell. I am sure it would have involved a lot of explanation and they were not sure I would understand it all.

Instead they asked me, “Where are you from?” To my reply, “Delhi” they pointed out to the tallest lad (standing) in the picture and said, “He has been to Delhi.” He was a shy kid and said he liked Delhi but found it difficult to cross the roads. He was the big guy of the gang, already studying in a boarding school and was in Leh for vacations.

I asked them which standard they studied in? They told me about it and pointed out to that the youngest of the pack has yet to start school. By this time, he anyway had lost interest and started playing with a long twig.

The girl with the kid in his lap was the most talkative and the two rose buds (sisters) at either extreme, the most shy. I cannot recall even a single word uttered by them apart from their names and the class they studied in. The only time they showed some excitement was to view their pictures on the LCD screen of my camera.

So, the next (predictable) question from my side was, what did they like about their studies? This brought in some interesting replies. They were fascinated with doctors, engineers, pilots, airhostesses, army men and even astronauts. The reply seemed too good to be true. Thankfully, they had never heard about MBA.

I asked what they liked on TV, as there is cable TV in Ladakh, so the kids can see MTV and all that. Cartoon network had the pride of the place and soon enough the girls shyly mentioned something about watching ‘Miss India’ too. But they were quick to add they will not like to be one. Ah! Such modesty was refreshing because in my apartment block, kids play ‘Miss India’ in the evenings without batting an eyelid.

The bumper question was asked very shyly by one of the girls, ‘Are you married?” I said yes, and they giggled some more and then asked me where my husband was? He had actually gone to the market to pick up something.

Soon, H walked back and the girls giggled some more. A little later, I went off. And even after six months I can remember this conversation.

But ask me what I did last Tuesday and I will tell you Groundhog Day.

Any Good Budget Travel Magazines in India?

Since I am so gung-ho about travel, it came as a surprise (to me) that I do not know of any travel magazine in India apart from Outlook Traveller. And that too, I only go to their website. Well, the magazine comes in my college library, but the glossy cover and its outlandish destinations and super price tags, completely put me off. It seems like an insult to a budget traveler like me!

Now on the global scene, I know at least two good websites that devote attention to the budget travel, GoNOMAD.com and Transitions Abroad.

With GoNOMAD.com I had some luck and as many of my regular visitors know, my two stories have seen the light of the day. One is about treking in Goa with YHAI and the other about how to reach Ladakh without breaking my (OK, husband's) bank balance. Both of the stories are as budget travel as possible. And we are a double income no kid (but two nephews) household.

My feeling is that a lot of people do budget travel in India and around the globe. Can you point me out a good Indian website or magazine that devotes itself (at least acknowledges) budget traveling? If not, anyone is willing to launch such a magazine?

Going Nomad in Ladakh

View From a Bridge in Spitok, Ladakh

A few days back when I posted a few pictures from my Ladakh trip, Arun asked me: “Would you be posting some kind of a travelogue on the places you visited?” Now it is a very embarrassing question on a blog named ‘Travel Tales from India.’ It is time to set the score right. I love traveling and writing about it, in that order. For quite some time (and my archives are a proof for it) I wrote only about travel on this blog. Then, IIPM and other shit happened, one after another.

Some place I once said, "I recently started blogging and like many others initially I was not quite convinced about why on earth should I blog?" Let me say I do not have any such doubts about blogging anymore and I have found my voice and I am screaming myself hoarse. I do not think it will be ever again that I write about travel only as I do not have the energy for maintaining two blogs.

But this post is about travel and not like the fillers I wrote for the past few days and ultimately resulted in that comment by Arun. No Arun, I do not blame you, I deserved that comment and I enjoyed it.

Some of you might have noticed that I keep posting tidbits about Ladakh but never a full length post. Ladakh has been a truly memorable trip for us (that is me, my husband and a friend) and I have to go back there sometime soon, as I lost some 400 pictures through a hard disk crash and only 50 or so survive that I loaded on the webshots and on my blog.

Coming back to why I never wrote about Ladakh on my blog, well, sometimes I get ambitious. I sent my Ladakh story to GoNOMAD and it is finally published.

http://gonomad.com/transports/0511/ladakh.html

So, Arun see, I do write about travel and I love writing about travel. And it is only the second time but it gives me immense pleasure when I see my story published (the same used to be the case with research papers, but it is becoming a lost art for me that I have to revive and revive quickly).

And now let me gush about GoNOMAD. Well, they gave me a chance for the second time. But more importantly they accept unsolicited material (how do you think I got my first chance?) and they pay $25 (and that is a cool 1000 bucks for me) for each contribution apart from a few exceptions. Now I have seen so many well written travelogues on blogs that I wish to share this with you, a few of you might be interested? Read their contributor’s guideline and see.

http://gonomad.com/corp/writerguidelines.htm

Need more reason to check out my story and their site? Well, below my piece, is an article on nude hiking and no I am not kidding.

http://gonomad.com/features/0511/nude_hiking.html

Don’t ask me anymore, now hop along.

Hop Along: The Bus Station in Leh, Ladakh

Yet More Pictures from Ladakh

It has been such a long time I have travelled anywhere. The trip to Bangalore was not so much for tourism but for visiting family. We thought of going to Bharatpur Bird Santuary but we just could not go. Now H is in London but we plan to go someplace in Chamba (Himanchal Pradesh) in December. So when I feel travel sick and cannot travel, I revisit the photographs from my previous trips. And here are a few more from my trip to Ladakh in this June.

The Spitok Monastry

I took this photo from quite some distance and could not visit the monastry, but I like this shot as it contrasts some very green trees with bleak mountains.

The Manali-Leh Highway

The journey from Manali to Leh takes 18 hours and it is very tiring but the views are stunning.

This one was taken on the way to the Pangong lake and this photograph does no justice to the actual scene.

I took a lot of pictures (that were lost in a hard disk crash) leaning out of the bus, because the driver was obviously not going to stop at every site we tourist found smashing. The above picture is one of them.

I have put this picture before on my blog but then no one said I could not put it again, right? In order to reach the Pangong lake we cross the Changla Pass at an altitude of 17800 feet. I could hardly breathe and our army folks are stationed there for months. We chatted with a few of them and one person who was just 18 , told that he found the posting difficult. Rest of them were stoic and joaked constantly with you.

I have put some other pictures too. If you wish have a look here and here

More Pictures from Ladakh

Blooming in the Cracks

This picture was taken near Ganda-La base, when we were trying to trek the Markha Valley. I am partial to flowers and these two caught the eye all the more because of the bleak surroundings.

Sunset in Leh

This picturewas taken from a height while the sun was going down. Now sitting in the concrete jungle of New Delhi this looks so exotic.

I met these two kids at the Pangong Lake. They posed for me quite willingly. I wish, we were closer to the lake when I took this photograph.

The picture below is another one of my favorites and this was taken near Spitok, after we returned from our aborted trek. This is the viewfrom the tea stall where we sat to have a cup and wait for our pickup van to arrive.

An Ode to my Departed Ladakh Pictures

I had 400 plus pictures from my recent trip (June, 2005) to Ladakh. Like a fool I saved them in 'my pictures' folder on C drive. Like a fool I did not write a CD and like a fool again I did not transfer them to the other system at my home from my laptop. Then the hard disk on my laptop crashed. Only D drive data could be retrived. Apaprt from a few photos that I have on my blog and 50 that I have on webshots all others are gone! Today I am posting a few of my favorite existing ones and lament the ones that are gone. This photograph was taken on a trekking route on the way to Rumbak and I love it because the blooming flowers provide such a sharp contrast to the otherwise bleak scene. But I lament a lovely yellow rose bush photograph that I took near the hotel I stayed. The kids playing near it offered me a few of its flowers too, one day when I was passing by.

This one is again taken on the trek route and I love the clear blue sky and the pebbles in the picture. But I lament so sorely many other trek route photographs that included some glorious sunsets.

We had to leave our trek mid way as I took unwell. When we came back to our starting point, we sat at a tea stall. In the photo you can see the gate leading to the tea stall. There was a bridge near it and I took at least 50 pictures that day. A few of them I uploaded but the rest are gone.

This is my most magnificient shot of the Pangong lake and I am happy it survived. But my husband and I took at least 100 shots of the Pangong lake and a few had our faces in it too, which I do not upload anywhere! All of them gone. And both of us to be blamed for it.

Only one good thing has come out of it and that is our resolve to visit Ladakh again, sometime soon.

Shopping in Leh, India

When I visited Leh in June, 2005 the primary reason was to trek. It could not be as I developed a bad stomach after a few days. We suddenly found a lot of time to spend in the city, and it was not in our original plan.

The markets in Leh are colorful and I often found myself gawking at various display windows or roadside stalls. The problem was, we had made no plans for any significant shopping so we had no proper budget for it. The above photo is of my husband trying to go local!

The thing that fascinated me most was the display of jewelry at the roadside stalls. As a rule I hardly wear any, apart from earrings, but I found the designs and colors so beautiful that I ended up buying two pendants and a pair of earrings. I also had a chat will the ladies selling the jewelry. I feel the prices in Leh are a bit high if you earn in Indian rupees as, they decide it by the value of dollar. If a thing is priced at Rupees 500, it is actually less than $ 10, and this pricing makes sense as there are so many foreign tourist in Leh.

I guess the local Moti Market beats the Main Market Leh hollow in terms of colorfulness. The above photograph was taken there. My husband bought a second hand ‘down’ jacket from here, which we hope to use in our next trek.

The other thing I fell in love with is T-shirts. Without a prior budget allocation I managed to buy four. I am wearing one right now. It is green in color and has two Lamas saluting each-other, depicted on it. My nephews have one where two skeletons are dancing together. I got one for my brother-in-law Amrit that has a dragon on it. My husband has one with the slogan 'Yak Yak Yak Yak Ladakh' with lot of Yak faces on it. For my sis Alka I got a shawl. All this shopping was done in main market Leh. Prices vary from shop to shop, so do not rush into buying.

The above photograph is taken on the Fort Road, in Leh. The most beautiful and eye catching displays in Leh are the curious. The antique pieces look so fascinating and just waiting to be picked. However, on inquiring about their prices, I found them expensive.

An Attempt to Trek in the Markha Valley, Ladakh and a Story

When we went to Ladakh this year in June 2005, our aim was to trek from Spitok to Hemis, which is also known as Markha Valley trek. After two days of taking rest in Leh, we started the trek. The first day itself, I developed a violently upset stomach. To tell you the truth, I guess the damage was done in New Delhi itself when I ate mushroom Momos in Connaught Place. But generally, I have a very strong stomach and I did not pay too much attention to the rumblings from New Delhi.

So on the first day of trek as we were camping in a place called Zinchen, I was paying many visits to answer the nature's call. My husband was getting worried and he started asking me if we should head back? I wanted to continue. So, we walked for the second day, and I was walking like a zombie. Still, we reached Rumbak and camped there. My stomach was not too well even now. We decided that we would walk for one more day and see what happens after that. The above photograph is from the third day of walk. We started early in the morning from Rumbak to Ganda-La base. We must have walked for at least three to four hours (OK, we walk slowly, locals will cover the same distance in probably less than an hour) and then we discovered just this house, standing all alone in the wilderness. It is at least one hour’s walk from Rumbak (the place has no motorable road, though locals can use a pony) and on the other side, the nearest habitation is at least four to five hours walk away. Again, there is no other means of transport, apart from a pony. Can you imagine living in such a place?

The lady in the picture was working in the field in front of the house. She very kindly posed for me twice and was quite delighted to see her snap on the LCD screen of my camera. Nearby, a much younger woman was washing a few vessels in a stream and a young kid was playing next to her. The tea stall for trekkers on this route was run by a couple of this house. In all, probably they are five people living together (or maybe more, I cannot be sure, but how big can the number be?) in this house, away from everything. I wonder how it would be like.
As, for our trekking the Markha Valley, we had to return from Ganda-La base, a little distance ahead from this house, as I just could not recover from my bad stomach. I was very disappointed but Ladakh is so beautiful and the other places that we visited, made up for the unfinished trek.

Save Tibet: A Banner in Leh

Tibetan Market, Leh

I have to confess I do not know much about the situation in Tibet. I know things are not right and many people, including his Holiness the Dalai Lama, are living in India. When I went to Ladakh this summer, I met people from Tibet, heard about them, interacted with them and bought a few souvenirs from them. I thought I will post this photograph of a banner outside a makeshift Tibetan market in Leh today.

The little that could gather from talking with people, it seems Ladakhi people are fine with Tibetans and they live in harmony. I had a long chat with one young girl, sitting on the steps of a Stupa in the main market, Leh. She felt that Tibet itself was to be blamed to a certain extent for the position it has landed in, because it followed a policy of isolation at one point of time and when it got occupied by China, nobody noticed. I have no clue how things have come to the present impasse. She told me that she was born in India and has never been to Tibet but if possible, she would like to go there one day. Her brother was doing graduation on scholarship in London.

Many of you would know much more about Tibet, maybe you can share it on this space too.

I also wanted to share with you all that a small mention of my blog was on the Guardian today, have a look.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1537030,00.html

Ladakhi Ladies and a Guest in the Main Market, Leh

In the Main Market, Leh, India

I was quite fascinated by this group of ladies selling vegetables in the main market. I wanted to photograph them but my husband kept protesting, lets go and eat first, take it later, they will say no and like that. I walked a short distance ahead and then turned back, not being able to resist it any more. I went close to them and asked in Hindi, 'Can I take your photograph?' The lady in the blue jacket (third from the right) was quite brusque and told me no. I was somewhat taken aback. I started walking back to where my husband was standing.

As I took a few steps she called me back and asked if I was interested in taking her photo alone or I would take of the entire group? I told her I was interesting in clicking the entire group. To my delight she said, then it was no problem. Now the Main Market, Leh is a tourist magnet. Some other people could sense an opportunity but being from other countries they did not had my Hindi advantage. A couple of them asked me if they too could take a photograph? I asked the ladies and they said it is OK. One of the guests quickly sat with them and all of us were merrily taking pictures.

At another occasion I met a very interesting group of old ladies at the steps of a Stupa, while a prayer service was going inside. I asked them if I could take their photograph and they said no, and the answer remained no till the end. Well, I guess I cannot win them all.

Useless Wali: Now What Was That?

,
A Shop in the Main Market, Leh, India

Roaming in the main market in Leh, the capital of Ladakh we spotted this curious signboard on the shop selling souvenirs. We were quite amused and decided to take a photograph. I have not figured out till date what 'Useless Wali,' and that too Regd, means. The curious thing was, we saw the same sign 'Useless Wali' on another shop too. Maybe 'Wali' means 'road' in Ladakhi? I am not sure. Even if, 'Wali' means road, why Useless? I wonder if anyone who has been to Ladakh has a better clue.

I have a few other such photographs and will post them here later. I somehow feel such signs rather than being odd, added to the charm and mystique of the place.

Monks with a Cellpone!

Go
In Ladakh

Seesh! Never in my wildest dreams I imagined that my blog would get featured on the BBC. If you are as clueless as I was a little while ago, have a look at

This!

The two people who introduced me to blogs are my sis Alka and her husband, my dear brother-in-law, Amrit. My many thanks to them for introducing me to this wonderful world and being gentle with me when I wrote something, deleted it and again created a new website. They stood by it all.

Alka's Blog

Amrit's Blog

Now, let me go on with my travel tales. When I went to Ladakh I wanted to take photographs of people there. I often go to a very impressive website appropriately called 'GoNOMAD.'

GoNOMAD's Website

There I read an article about how to go about taking photographs of people in the regions we visit. It had a basic but a very good idea (I am sure it had much more, but this is what impressed me most) that one should ask for permission from people before taking their pictures. I followed this advice with all my heart and found that many people agreed to get photographed in Ladakh.

The first time I tried it and was given permission was the photo above. It may not be very clear but the gentleman at the rightmost corner is holding a cell phone. I was impressed. I met the group on my way on foot, to the Leh palace and the stupa, situated right in the heart of the city. We had an interesting conversation when I asked them if I could take their photograph. The monk with the cell phone said, "But why do you want to photograph us, boring people?" I pleaded, "Please let me, please." He then told me, "OK, whatever makes you happy. If that is what that makes you happy, you should go back to your place happy." I thanked them again and again.

The People of Ladakh: Toni and my Husband pose for me

What I enjoyed most in Ladakh was the conversations with the locals, when it happened. My husband was buying a second hand 'down' jacket. He asked the shopkeeper, "Mein kaise maan lun ki ye down hai?" (How do I believe you it is actually down). The shopkeeper's reply still rings in my ears. He said, "Mere paas kuch he aur din hai fir upar jana hai, mein aapko dokha kyon dunga?" (I have only a few days left here then I have to go from this world, why I will cheat you). Can't remember when I heard such a conversation in my daily life!

The name of our young driver on the trip from Leh to the Pangong Lake was a Toni (In the picture above, with goggles). He has a colorful personality and he drove the jeep like a rally driver. I wonder why nobody things of training these chaps for F1, no seriously. But behind the colorful personality is an extremely composed mind.

He was telling me he takes the jeep from Leh to Manali and they have to come back empty, because from there Himanchal Pradesh drivers come full (and they go back empty from Leh). So I asked him why doesn't he gets some passengers and take the money, on the way back (tourists know that JK number vehicles will take them for less if they are somehow approached). He said, "Jeep wala naa bhi dekhe tou kya, uparwala tou dekhta hai" (Even though the jeep owner may not know, but the One sitting above can see). I was completely taken aback.

Now that I am back to my usual grind, I thought I should write this down, before I forget.