As soon as I stepped out of the home-stay a gust of cold wind hit me right on my face. It was freezing cold outside. I was at a height of 14,400 feet ASL after-all. Within moments I found myself contemplating whether to continue my walk towards the lake or turn back to the warmth of the home-stay behind me. With a confused mind, I looked up towards the heavens for some help and the heavens answered immediately. The sight of a billion twinkling stars above in a cloudless sky overshadowed any half-a-thought of going back inside that I had in my mind.
I found myself lost in the beauty of the sky above in no time, totally oblivious to the bone-chilling temperature and the cold gusts of wind hitting me from the front. This was back in the year 2012 by the Pangong Tso (Leh to Pangong & Back), my first time of realizing how magically beautiful the night-sky actually was. I can confidently say that, that is the time when my fascination with the night-sky and those bright twinkling stars began.
Last year when I was in a village in Bihar (The Celebration of Chhath) far from the light-pollution of the city, I once again got a brilliant view of a clear night-sky with countless stars twinkling above and no man-made interference whatsoever from the terrace of Ruchi’s ancestral home. This was my second time of getting to see the clear night-sky and it seemed, I was luckier than before this time around. I was able to see a ‘hint’ of the Milky-way with my naked eyes. Too bad I was not able to capture it but the fact that I was able to see it made-up for that.
The best and the most beautiful night-skies that I have witnessed till now however, has to be those which I saw during my Hampta Pass Trek last month. Even though the first night was cloudy, to my joy the skies remained clear the following nights. Back home, I had spent countless nights thinking about how it would be to sleep under the stars, on a moonless night. How would it feel to have no roof above you but the vast sky. Just couple of days before I was left for the trek, I was going through designs of some beautiful terraces giving wonderful views of the night-sky (even though with a lot of light-pollution), I couldn’t help but imagine myself lying under the stars and amidst the high mountains.The clear Himalayan skies during the trek were making me optimistic about going for ‘it’ and I was actually half prepared to give it a shot.
The idea however was not liked much by the missus and I had to finally give it up and retreat back in the tent, part because of the extremely cold wind that was shaking the tent violently at regular intervals and part because of a fuming wife inside. I could have handled the former but did not want to take any chances with the later and hence took the ideal decision of giving in. Thankfully not before getting a couple of more shots though.
Let’s see how long my wish of sleeping under the starts have to wait!
Do you love watching the night-sky? And the milky-way? Do you have a wish to sleep under the starts, just like I wish to?
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Searching for words Rajiv. What a capture, feeling the chill in my spine. Got caught up with professional work so did not follow your posts. Will do so in leisure.
Great going.
All the best
Katie
Thanks a lot Katie. I am so glad you liked them.
You know what, while riding back home sometime back from from work, I in fact was thinking, ‘it’s been a while since I heard from Katie!
Glad that I am missed 🙂 … I have missed reading your posts too. I will visit your blog in leisure sometime in the weekend. for sure. Have a great weekend
Best
Katie
Honest readers always leave a mark and are always missed.
Do take your time to go through them, I will look forward to hear from you in the weekends.
Cheers,
Rajiv
and you can check this star movie too… I don’t know if it’s gender liking…since it is fairytail romantic star movie… its calll the… Star Dust(:…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uopoXtR0Kjk
Here is a song for you…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk … woow sound so nice… its actually on a genious artist who was insane and bad but genious artist… never mind… and then the twinkle twikle little star… I think that song talks about the stars so well anyway… Rajiv nature creature… many times I wanted to check out the stars but comforts of being indoors and lack of patience takes me back in… chalo… here is another song for you you can sing it to your child when it comes by… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrOOW8wwx5k … and then any star sonf… yes yes this song… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xf-Lesrkuc … anyway… I imagine its very nice sleeping under the stars … but no one has the opportunity these days… anyway… I hope the songs are not spammies… and you guys should stop mentioning that wifey is boss and you got to listen to her… they show it on serials, movies and laugh about it…all exagerated, I am sure that was a joke but such a popular joke now it ceases to be a joke…anyway
Haha…! Thanks Maria!
Well it was not a joke per se but yes, it was on a lighter vein.. Haha !
Excellent capture Rajiv. Lovely images, take one to another world altogether.
Thank you Upendra. Glad that you liked them.
awestruck !!
chol beta ! next !
Haha..! Thanks! I am ready always!
Rajiv, I loved the camps picture and milky way. It is this love for milky way that we have been hiking to unforgiving places 😉
Milky way season is going away now. I will eagerly wait for next year to shoot some more pictures. This time it will be a dedicated trip to shoot milky way for sure 🙂
Thanks Ankur bhai. Yes, this was one of the primary reasons of my travel as well 😉 and if you remember, this is the same milky way image (the first one) which you processed on my request 🙂 . I can’t wait to see the Milky way trough your lens, they will be way way better.
Unbelievably stunning photos! I’m glad that you took the latter decision 🙂
Thanks Kat. The Himalayas are magically beautiful. And yes, I guess the later decision was right 😉
One question… I read like for Monsoon treks a raincoat is essential… where do they sell raincoats… or is it that one jacket is better just asking… one can get it online but one can’t be sure of the size, so asking.
The best place is Decathlon. I got everything from there and am very happy with them.
Thats in Mysore road quite far from the forks in the city…anyway thanks(:… is it necessary to have a raincoat though?… or is there a alternative… some jacket or something?…
Actually, now there are a lot of them all around Bangalore. Thankfully!!
lot of what?…
Decathlon outlets I mean.
Ok I will check it out then… worth a checking out for sure… when your going for the solo trip next month I guess…pleanty of long holiday in the coming weekends around…
Wow… what a beauty!… such beautiful captures…Loved it.. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Arun. Makes me happy to know that you liked it 🙂
Lovely pictures. I so miss the starry nights. You can rarely see them in the cities.
Thank Ami. So true about the stars, we don’t get to see any in the cities. But on the other side of it, it gives you yet another excuse to head to the hills, no? 😉
Woww.. superb
Thanks Ranjani. Really glad to know that you liked the pictures 🙂
Awesome captures. The night sky is so clear and amazing.
Hey thanks Somali! The night sky up there was magical, beautiful!
This is so stunning, buddy. You’ve had nights of a lifetime I would say.
I wish to travel to Spiti sometime and experience the sky over there!
Thanks Alok and good luck to you. Spiti is heavenly!
Wonderful snap… and climate on mountain…Really amazing…
The Himalayas at night and in the day, are indeed amazingly beautiful. Thank you 🙂
Wow nice …. Great work Rajiv. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, glad that you liked it.