"Let me tell you about that one time when I thought I would die on one of the snow ridden highways in India. You heard about the Leh-Manali Highway, right? It's a high mountain road which is famously dangerous for its uncertain weather, high altitude and extreme cold. This road is usually only open in summer. Avalanches and heavy snowfalls frequently block off some sections of the road and when we went to Manali, it was blocked too. This "we" actually consisted of two people, me and Siam from WRE. Now we thought, "To hell with the blocking! When will we come to Manali again! We're here now, let's try to see as much of it as we can." So we rented a bike and started driving on the highway. We had decided we would keep going until it was impossible to go further.
In the beginning, there were other tourists around us too. But at one point, we suddenly found that there were simply no people around. We had lost all the other tourists! Our phone batteries were also dead. But the surroundings were so beautiful with the snow-capped mountains and the distant valleys, it kind of made us lose our sense of logic. The mountain breeze kept calling us and we kept responding to it by going further- until suddenly, when we hit a total dead-end caused by what I think was an avalanche. It was at that moment we realized how much uncertainty we were in. Because now we had to go back a long way through many landslides and terrains.
Falling off the roadside meant certain death. I told Siam, "I think this very well could be it. I think we have a 50/50 chance of surviving." But luck favored us that day. We did somehow come all the way back avoiding any major accidents. After we came back, our bodies kept shivering for two hours or so. We realized how stupid we were to take such huge risks. Well, at a cost of that stupidity, at least now I have a cool story to tell people. Not that bad a deal, is it?"
Humans of BUET, Fb
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