I do not remember what I had for breakfast. I was too worried to notice what I was eating.
We had a lot to cover, a lot to drive, and a lot to endure. The toughest section of our trip lay ahead of us, and our Elephant was leaking.
On the bright side, she cranked to life on the first crank, thanks to the tarp treatment.
On the bright side, even the sun was shining brightly, even though it was -3 at 9am in the morning.
Our destination was the BRO workshop, where the men were waiting for us.
The BRO amazes me. These guys toil day in and day out, in the harshest of conditions. Peacetime or wartime, their job never ends. for their enemy is the terrain. Its the weather, its the harsh conditions.
Day after day they cut through mountains, lay down roads, and work with their bare hands.
They do not have the latest tools, nor do they have unlimited machinery at their disposal. Yet they go about their work day after day.
And when people like us come for help, they never refuse.
Whether its driving their transformers half a km away just to help a lone traveller, to to cut through mountains of ice, they take it all in their stride.
Today morning they were not idle. There was a big dozer not starting. The old engine oil had hardned up due to a week of inactivity, and engine was not turning anymore, thanks to the battery which got drained.
They had deadlines to meet, roads to make, yet when we turned up, their head mechanic started working on the white elephant.
First we stood there and surveyed the engine bay. The tiny 2 inch pipe lay deep inside, and tools would not reach there.
So it was decided, remove the turbo hose and the air filter box. They mostly had big tools, for their big machines. Luckily I was carrying a suitcase full of every concievable small tool you could need.
Spanners of all sizes? Check
Screwdriver with all heads ? Check
M-Seal? Check
Lubricants? Check
Ropes? Check
Cable ties? Check
And so they started to work. After an hour of effort, the tube came lose, and now it had to be fixed. Lot of options were thought of. Seal it with a condom and limp to leh? Put mseal and some additional rubber around it? Weld it using heat?
The chief tech Harbhan Singh would have none of it. He and another tech Sunil decided that a replacement would have to be found. They also decided to get some screw type clamps since the original clip on clamps were almost gone.
So we decided to raid their "Vehicle Graveyard".
Here all old machines go to die. Machines which are beyond repair, defeated by the mountains. There lay an old pneumatic compressor, used to give air to pneumatic drills for cutting rock.
Compressors usually have lot of tubing, so with hammers and whatever they could find, the it was ripped apart, and a suitable thickness pipe was found.
This pipe was much harder than what tata had given, and was made to withstand pressures the white elephant could not even dream of creating.
This also posed another problem. How to get it to climb on the metal ends?
Simple, they set it on fire using a kerosene stove. The stove had been doing duty under the big dozer, which they managed to start with over an hour of effort by a combination of under engine stove and jump starts from a truck.
Now this stove was lighting up this hose, and finally just before noon, the repair job was done.
The elephant was repaired. A quick run up the photi La road revealed no further leaking, and we were all set.
And with that, they shared my joy as we had a miny treat with the dry fruits etc,. we were carrying. They wanted us to stay back for lunch. They were cooking chicken. But alas, we had to start. Tso moriri awaited. Of course, we will go to Leh for a final checkup, but for now the Elephant was fine, and roaring without any coolant spraying anywhere.
So with one final snap with our new friends, we started our journey. Time to put up a pic with our saviors! the 124 RCC!
Not once but twice they had saved our skins.