Suddenly remembering a beautiful or intelligent thought that I missed to write down five days ago is my favourite magical thing about life.
For the sunlight I stay.
New home in a new village with new people surrounded by new mountains — and yet everything is the same, everything as wonderful as I make it to be.
I may be altered, but remain unchanged, remain forever who I am.
I’m in the Nako village right now. Initially thought to stay for a week but will be here for two. For the sunlight I will stay.
For the breathtaking golden light that falls on my face at 12,000 feet and on the face of the Reo Purgyil at 22,000 feet.
Cold on the mountain side.
A not-so-cold night five days ago. I open one of the large windows in my room in Kalpa and pull the curtain over it to prevent insects from drifting in.
When I go to the window after a while and pull the curtain away, a cold sensation passes through my hand. The curtain is warmish on the side facing the room but cold on the outside, the side facing the snow-capped Kinnaur Kailash mountains.
I want to live carelessly in a village in the Himalaya where today’s newspaper arrives tomorrow and tomorrow’s newspaper the day after.
Two delicious selfies.
In three days, I’ll be leaving my lovely Kalpa for Nako, for my ultimate journey towards the cold desert of the Spiti valley, a year after my visit to another cold desert: Ladakh.
As I’ll soon be inching closer on my bike towards the same kind of desert mountains, I wanted to share two watermelon selfies taken in August last year on the Leh-Manali highway, on my way to Leh from Vashisht.
A shimmering red slice of watermelon against the desert-yellow mountains of Ladakh.
It was a happy surprise, a gift from heavens when I spotted watermelons at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I needed this, as I was exhausted from riding in the biting midday heat.
Selfie 1: The red slice posing for a selfie. Ladakh, India. August 2021. 
Selfie 2: The red slice posing for a selfie. Ladakh, India. August 2021.