Finally, after almost 10 months YoGi finally managed to finish his series of blog articles of our Leh-Ladakh trip. His new blog is being launched with this series. Following is the intro piece we wrote together and trust me that’s exactly how i feel today for this land of soul. I get drawn towards the mountains as my soul gets lost in this mystical land. You can read the rest of his articles in series from the link at the end of this intro.

————————————————————————————————————–

Ladakh, a land with soul

When you have a dream, a desire, a wish for something; you are driven by it, you want to achieve it, get it. You do everything you can to make it come true, and when it does… that’s when it happens. You did it, you got it, you made it; now what? When the desire is fulfilled, when goal is achieved, do you get this unsettling feeling? I’ve been having this feeling ever since I came back from Ladakh.

I love to travel and it’s been my dream to visit Ladakh ever since I discovered the joy of travelling. Now that I have been there, I couldn’t get over it. I did what I wanted to do, but now I don’t know what to do.

I will go again there. I know I will. 14 days are not enough in this beautiful place. This is the place where streets have no name… for a fact. (For the record, I love this song. It expresses exactly what I feel and lot more). So when I was in the Ladakh, you can say that I was living this song. I had decided that when I get back I would write a long travelogue. It’s impossible to do that. I mean one can write as much as he/she can about Ladakh, but trust me on this my friends… you cannot capture the beauty of this place neither in words nor pictures. You will find thousands of pictures of Ladakh on internet. You will find thousands of books. But you can never find the feeling of being there.

What is it that is so special about this place? I’ll tell you. Let me share something I found.
In the movie “The Bucket List”, Morgan Freeman shares something he read with another character sitting in bar. It was about a man who climbed Everest. The conversation goes like this….

Morgan Freeman:
I read an account of a man who made it to the summit…
…and standing there at the top of the world he experienced this profound silence.
It was like all sound just fell away. And that’s when he heard it.

Rowena King:
What?

Morgan Freeman:
The sound of the mountain.
He said it was like he heard the voice of God.

I probably won’t make it to the top the Everest, but I guarantee you that you will find this “sound” in Ladakh. It doesn’t have to be mountain top; you stand alone in middle of dessert of Hunder or you walk along the shores of Tso Moriri Lake and you will hear it. You will find out what Silence sounds like. If you’re like me you will not feel alone, standing in the middle of nowhere, without anyone being around you. This land is alive and it talks to you, if you can listen. This is the land with a soul.

Following series of articles are my feeble attempt to express my experience of Ladakh in words and pictures. But please, I urge you. Do not feel contented just reading these few lines with pictures. If you haven’t been there yet, please do it. And you if already have, then do it again. It’s never enough.

————————————————————————————————————–

You can read the all articles, from following links on YoGi’s blog…

• Ladakh Chronicles – Prologue
• Ladakh Chronicles – Manali-Leh Journey
• Ladakh Chronicles – Settling down in Leh
• Ladakh Chronicles – Nubra Valley
• Ladakh Chronicles – Pangong Tso
• Ladakh Chronicles – Monasteries
• Ladakh Chronicles – Tso Moriri
• Ladakh Chronicles – Rafting in Indus
• Ladakh Chronicles – Epilogue