All I had to do was fly to Delhi, then take an overnight train to Shimla (switch from broad gauge to narrow gauge in between), then drive from Shimla to a tiny village called Lhalung in Himachal located at an altitude of 4000 meters (imagine 6 Lonavlas of 624m altitude on top of each other). Lhalung’s population is less than the population of “A” Wing of the society where I live!

Getting from Shimla to Lhalung is also very easy. The distance is only 450km but you have to keep driving for 4 days for approx 8 to 10 hours each day, taking overnight stops at Kalpa (3000m), Nako (3500m) and Kaza (3800m). If you cover the distance too fast your body may not get acclimatized to the low oxygen levels and you could get headaches, giddiness or you could go into a coma.

Night driving is avoidable because out of the 38 odd hours it took us to reach Lhalung from Shimla, for 37.5 hours there was a DEEP valley on one side of the road. Plus it’s a one way kaccha road meant for two way traffic, so if you stumble upon a vehicle coming from the other side, first you have to pray to a God you really believe in.

When I finally got down to shooting the night sky at Lhalung it was mind-blowing. The Milky Way is visible with your naked eyes. IT IS MASSIVE! It was a sureshot way to put my bloated ego into place. I realized how tiny I am compared to this GIANT Universe. I also realized how petty, crummy and silly my life’s problems are.

At 4000m altitude it is so cold you need to have TWO pairs of gloves (inner and outer) to protect your hands. With gloves on, you can’t handle the camera and without gloves for an extended period in that extreme cold, the risk is not much.. at most you will have frost bites, and if they are bad the doc will have to cut off your fingers.

I was getting blurred images initially and I am grateful that my friend Manish Patankar taught me how to focus the camera to the nearest visible star which is ONLY 4.2 light years away.

Once I got that right, and I had gotten over all my WTF moments, I just had to follow the 500 divided by focal length rule and set the exposure to 20 sec. Then ONE CLICK and I captured the Milky Way. So easy na?

All this while my family and friends kept watching shooting stars and GPS satellites .. WITH THEIR NAKED EYES. Sheer Bliss!
(This was part of my trip to Spiti Valley in the Himalayas)