At one time, many hundreds of years ago, there was a tectonic shift in the plates that form the Earth. Ladakh was created when it was thrown up from the bottom of a sea. I had not imagined Ladakh to be the desert it is: brown, barren, cold, remote, and even lonely, expansive, stupendous, beautiful.

On the way to Pangong Tso, through Chang La at 17586 feet, and to Nubra Valley through Khardung La at 18380 feet (the highest motorable road in the world), I survived on the pods of garlic my driver Dorje fed me an hour before we reached those heights. The home recipe is amazing, no sickness, just a little airy feeling on the heights. As we drove over tracks cut through the sides of the mountains, through the snow, I wondered if all this was once below water.

If I were a fish. I would then not have had to drive so hard and so far. I would have merely held my breath and started floating, moving my fins in the general direction towards where I would have wanted to reach. When my head went airy on those heights, I just had to look around and I could see school of fishes, crossing the peaks. Multi-coloured, all quiet as we were there. The peaks humble you, silence you. Enchanting!