Ladakh Marathon Trip - Day 9 - Trip Back to Kargil

• This was the day which many were really not wanting to come, for couple of reasons, the awesome time at ladakh was getting over and travel back by road via kargil again to Srinagar.
• Man… the onward journey was so tedious, that we longed for the drive to end at times, but the return road trip was not bad as expected
• With all bags loaded up, we graduated from Xylo to Tempo traveller :) all piled up and here we go, declaring the start of another window seat fighting saga :)

 

• We stopped at the Magnetic Hill, the name given to that section on the road where there is Zero Gravitational force, with Gear in neutral, our Van with 13 people in it, started to roll UP Hill, that was an unique experience.
• We briefly stop for breakfast, with almost everybody limping or being tired, most of them were asleep, I was busy documenting the day's happenings all along the route.
• Our saga of emptying the shops along the way continues, we stopped for lunch at a place, where we ran out of Maggi packets, people wouldn't stop, rajma chaval, Bread Jam left over from previous day, were all emptied and everyone of us were really loaded with food :)

 

• With the way we were cruising along the route, except for 2 stops, we were set for a early reach at Kargil, we again go to the Army Workshop, where we had our accommodation set.
• We had high tea, with some snacks prepared by the cook at the army canteen, and dinner preferences being given, we thought of getting out for a while, roam around.
• We went to the army CSD canteen, to get some army patterned tshirts and some other supplies, then we went on to the Plateau Baba Temple

 

• Unique name! Isn't it, brief story about the temple was , When there were firings exchanged at Kargil during Operation Vijay, a noble soul, who was called Baba, kind of emphasized to build a temple there with shrines of Shiva, stating that it would safeguard the whole place
• As said, they set up a temple and not a single bomb landed in that particular plateau, following which folks started to believe in this guy and post his time the Army has taken over and full time Army havildar is acting as a poojari, performing daily Pooja.

 

• We were offered some dry fruits and each a cup of tea, that a good gesture from that poojari, from my experience with this guy and the folks at the Line of Control where we went, they were really longing…. To meet and exchange their views and talk with more people.
• Truly salute those souls stationed out there, and the pain they go through by their Solitude and also the risk and the extreme weather those folks go through.
• We went out to our dramatic Kabab venturing into the town of Kargil, only to realize that there were enough varities of non vegetarian kababs. With multiple order and cancellation, we finally settle with one small pack of kabab. With few requests from folks on the van to walk around the streets of kargil, it was all dramatic, finally we sneak away from the spot in some time.

 

• While we went back to the army camp, we saw Captain Manish playing Volley Ball, with his whole team.
• With our experience of playing volleyball during our onward journey, we were more interested to play again, that too with the army folks.
• Quickly we change our attire, we headed to the volleyball court. I was immediately offered a spot in the team of manish.  The guy whom I played with earlier, knowing about me playing, graciously offered a spot :)
• Manish was so furious already, demanding his team to play proper passes , but unfortunately he was kicking the ball more so often.
• While I moved to the front line, manish sighted me and was briefly enquiring me about the race. The irony being he advised the whole HR team to not run and would face serious problems if we tried to push ourselves and run a 42k.
• I so badly wanted to go tell him that we all finished and that too in great times, which I literally blurted out to him on face, saying "Opposing to your views, we all finished strong with great times". He was kind of in his amused mood to just take my comment.
• Playing 5 games, the only thing that stood in my mind was the way Leaders behave in Army Vs Corporates, The way the captain was commanding his team and he behaving his own way, was something that I couldn't just not avoid commenting on.
• We played till we could see the ball until around 7 or so, then had a quick shower in that damn cold water, with a stick in hand to woo away the dogs… :)
• Had a great planned dinner, the fortunate Non-Vegetarians had their feast while veggies had to be contended with some carrot and beans :(
• With the intervention of our teacher taking disciplinary action on the whole team we were forced to hit our bed early :), with an ambitious plan of starting early by 5:30 AM. Again swooshing the dogs, many we realized there were easily around 30 dogs around the place where we had our rooms, so scary…