i dunno if it has been posted before :
Rajeev Khandelwal's Ladakhi trip
NAMRATA BHAWNANI, Mumbai Mirror Dec 25, 2011, 10.49AM IST
Tags:
- TV actor|
- Rajeev Khandelwal
Rajeev Khandelwal battled snowstorms and lost his way in the Ladakhi capital, making it his most memorable trip''
In 2007, two of my college friends and me took a trip to Leh. They were
my seniors and we had struck up a close friendship during out stint at
St Xavier's college's hostel. I wasn't married then, but they were and
we decided to do this one trip together.
It was May and the Leh road had just opened. I purchased the white car
specifically for this camping trip. It's a pick-up truck with a
commercial vehicle license plate and we were the first to enter the Leh
region.
We pitched our tent and camped in no man's land. We
wanted to climb a rocky mountain and decided to keep going till we
reached the peak, not realising how tough it was going to be without
mountaineering equipment. Four hours into the laborious climb, we got
separated.
They had phones, but I didn't. I waited on top for an
hour, screaming and calling for them. I figured they'd climbed down and
so I started to descend, which proved to be far riskier than the climb. I
rolled down part of the way, with loose stones and pebbles proving to
be a hazard. It took three hours to reach the bottom.
When I
finally saw them clambering down much later, I was so relieved. I am
fitter compared to them as my dad was in the army. As we finally
regrouped and drove ahead, we got stuck in a snow storm. For five-six
hours we couldn't move, and the temperature had dipped below zero.
Finally, a bulldozer arrived and pulled us out.
Both of them are
Christians and one would pray while the other helped maneuver the truck
through what you could loosely call roads and highways. They joked that
they would never take such a trip again even though they enjoyed the
adventure. I've taken a similar trip with my wife, and she cursed me too
because she suffered from severe headaches and nausea at an altitude of
19,000 ft. But ultimately, she was thrilled with the adventure too.
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