Who among us has not had the odd flight of fancy, yearning to get past our daily lives and be transported to mysterious, faraway lands? Go tumbling down the rabbit hole, perhaps, like Alice into Wonderland, or walk the lands of middle earth with Frodo. Who among us has not had a lump in our throat as we watched intrepid explorers scale jagged peaks, or traverse the long grass of the Savannah? The quest for travel, exploration & nature is one of the more enduring legacies of Man, one that’s buried deep within all of us. My own secret destination, closer to home perhaps than the Shire, but none the less alluring for it, has always been Ladakh. I was hooked when I chanced upon photos of a seemingly magical land – towering mountains, pristine lakes and surreal landscapes. A place so unlike anything I’d ever seen before that it was hard to believe it existed on the same planet, leave alone the same country. But exist it does. In a little corner of Kashmir bordering China &