Recce.
We leave for Pangong/ Merak around 9 am. The terrain on this leg of the journey is starkly different: no winding roads and valleys. Instead, right after the valleys we're flanked by plains. Further down the road there's some spectacular sights: broken stupas, an empty cavern deep up the hills, and then the mighty Pangong Tso.
We halt at a homestay for lunch in the afternoon, and have a hot thukpa meal, which takes an hour to prepare. It's strange how no matter how much you try to stick to a schedule or hurry things up life will only move forward at the languid pace it sets for itself.
The Pangong Tso is filled with tourists screaming, "All is well!" And so we halt there for no more than 5 minutes and drive on down further about 50 km on a broken tarmac path that leads to Merak village. Somewhere before Merak and Maan (another village), there's a small clearing with a lagoon jutting out of the road and into the water. We stop here to take some stock footage; it's around 7 pm and the sun is just setting.
The breeze has started to blow, and it's the most skin-piercing, spine chilling air I've ever lived in. But the scene is gorgeous on a different level. Two poles hold up a string of Tibetan flags fluttering wildly in the breeze, and a bunch of filmmakers taking in the beautiful scenery around it is quite a sight. Except, there's no one there apart from us.
It's beautiful - the breeze, the clear water, the skies, and the sheer quiet all around us.
We reach Merak around 8 pm, check into a homestay and sit chatting about in one of the rooms. The vibe, however cheesy it may sound, has begun to show: the 7 of us already have names for each other, we're picking on one another non-stop, talking relationships, love, and all kinds of things. Could pass off as a bunch of childhood friends, maybe?
Nah, that's a stretch.
But maybe that's something travelling together does to people. Bring them much closer much faster. There's definitely something about shared experiences.
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