[nanduchitnis]

Brilliant photography. Big challenges driving through snow and ice.This TL is a must read for Ladakh Travellers.

Well done Sir.

I and my wife just returned from Ladakh 2 up on a bike. Part of the story have written on Team Bhp.

Regrets have poor skills to write in such details.

Once again. Thanks.

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Then I saw this shop, I did not understand what business they are in (help please)

Hello Anand,

Great write up & pictures. Waiting for the rest of the story to unfold.

Anyways the Mayur Data Entry query you asked is for filling road permit forms.

There is a rule of Road permits in couple of states in India & whenever a truck from other state is entering in these states, a Road Permit has to be filled in. Thus it seems that Mayur Data Entry is in the business of helping the vehicles to prepare road permits if they have not are not haivng the same.

Thanks,

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by nishantdlv

Sorry, my bad! The new facelifted Captiva was launched on 14th of August this year.

But still, I believe the picture you have taken was before the launch! They must be testing it then

Interesting. Looks better than the outgoing model then I guess.

Originally Posted by nanduchitnis

Brilliant photography. Big challenges driving through snow and ice.This TL is a must read for Ladakh Travellers.

Well done Sir.

I and my wife just returned from Ladakh 2 up on a bike. Part of the story have written on Team Bhp.

Regrets have poor skills to write in such details.

Once again. Thanks.

Thank you, Captain sir, for your kind words. But please don't call me sir. I am way too junior.

I am also following your Ladakh experiences - on team-bhp as well as on HVK's facebook page. Hats off to both of you for doing Ladakh on bike at this age . That's a real challenge. Going there in a car/SUV is nothing in front of it.

Originally Posted by Jignesh

Anyways the Mayur Data Entry query you asked is for filling road permit forms.

There is a rule of Road permits in couple of states in India & whenever a truck from other state is entering in these states, a Road Permit has to be filled in. Thus it seems that Mayur Data Entry is in the business of helping the vehicles to prepare road permits if they have not are not haivng the same.

Thanks,

Thank you. That's an interesting information. Never imagined that there can be a business like that! Ours is truly an amazing country. So what about these "All India Permits" - no good for Haryana/Punjab???

Originally Posted by s_pphilip

Since at this point I only know of you having taken the Tucson this far, please do elaborate on its 4WD capabilities too, some bit of 4WD perspective where ever possible

I tested the 4WD today at the service center and captured it on video. Here are the details:
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/long-t...ml#post3231152

[Jignesh]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

Thank you. That's an interesting information. Never imagined that there can be a business like that! Ours is truly an amazing country. So what about these "All India Permits" - no good for Haryana/Punjab???

Those "All India Permits" you see on commercial vehicles are for vehicles only.

But these Road Permits are about intimation of goods that are entering the State of Haryana. While I was in sales, our clients used to send the Haryana Road Permits form to us (our plant) along with the order confirmation (& advance payment). Without these forms, out dispatch team were not loading trucks to Haryana.

Yes. strange are the ways in this country. Each state has it's own rules & regulations when it comes to Sales Tax & Octroi. As an trader it is very difficult to do business seamlessly in couple of states without local support staff in each of the locations.

Thanks,

[anandpadhye]

As we lost one tire, we were left with no spare. So we decided to change the plan (of going to Hanle) and go to Leh first and try to get a new tire.


A view of the boot before we left Tso Moriri (you can imagine the effort required to unload all this to take the spare tire out):


A few observations from our Tso Moriri (and Tso Kar) stay:
- We stayed at Tso Moriri resort. The tents were good - with attached toilets which is a big plus. Tents at Tso Kar did not have attached toilets and it was a real pain to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. And there is no sewage or septic tank at most of these tent camps. At Tso Kar, they have created a makeshift pit and they haven't even bothered to cover it properly. It's a sad scene. By 10 o' clock in the morning, it was stinking badly.
- My friends were completely dependent on bottled water, but I was keen on trying local drinking water - at least to know how it is. The local drinking water at Tso Kar tasted OK so I asked them for the source and they pointed me to a stream flowing nearby. They have simply connected a pipe to it and use it for drinking, cooking, washing and for the toilets. No filtration of any kind - of course :-) BTW, it's a miracle of nature: fresh and sweet water source near the salt water lake (Tso Kar)!!!
- The food at the Tso Moriri resort was pathetic. No taste. BTW, they offered Daliya for breakfast - both at Tso Kar and Tso Moriri and I feasted on it as food is generally hopeless everywhere in Ladakh.
- AT Tso Moriri, they had picked up a wounded Snow Leopard previous day and he eventually died. The care taker/manager at Tso Moriri was a very enthusiastic man and he was telling about it to all the tourists - even showing the dead animal to everyone. He was telling everyone that this being a sanctuary, they had reported about this to the forest department and asked for a postmortem report so that nobody will blame them for hunting. A lot of people took pictures. Interestingly, the Pajero guy thought it was incorrect to take pictures of a dead Snow Leopard and he discouraged his family from taking pictures. Somehow, we also agreed with him. My friend went to see the Leopard before leaving and he told me they were busy cutting his nails. When they saw our friend, they quickly put a blanket on the animal and diverted everyone! A lot goes on in every small corner of our big country...
- While waiting in the queue for the telephone, I was chatting with a local man dressed like a Lama. He asked me where we are from and he did not know Pune. So I mentioned Mumbai (Bombay) and he rejoiced. Below the hill was a camp named "Nomadic camp" - I wondered if it was some government shelter - people were playing cricket there. Turned out it was just another tent camp for tourists This man immediately clarified, "those are Indian tourists". That was quite disturbing. Why did he say that? Does it not occur to him that we are all Indians (including him)?

Anyway, we headed back to Leh. We merged the main highway at Mahe and I met the great river Sindhu (Indus as the foreigners call it):


I strongly believe in this:


The road to Leh kept running along the Sindhu almost till the end:






By now, Tucson had got nicely camouflaged with the background:


On the way, we hit a village "Himia" or "Himiya". There is school at this place and I think the session had just gotten over. Kids were out and two ladies asked for lift. They were teachers and wanted to go to Leh. I immediately obliged. They asked us our whereabouts, and how we liked Ladakh. They were very proud of Ladakh and became happy to know that we were liking the place. They apologized for the bad roads and said it was because of road widening, otherwise this road is generally pretty good. I was really impressed. We should be proud of the place we belong to. They told us this road widening is because of the troubles China has been making recently. To facilitate a faster army movement. As the topic came up, I asked them what they feel about Army (I have heard from many that during peace time, Army is generally considered as a burden/nuisance by the local civilian population, so I was expecting something negative). But both of them emphatically said, "Bhaisaab, Army ha isliye hum hain (we are here only because of Army)" which was a pleasant surprise. The conversation continued:
Me: "So do you know which regiments are deployed here in Ladakh? 62 mein Kumaon regiment ne zabardast kaam kiya tha (Kumaon did a great job in 62)".
They: "Bhaisaab, ab to apne Ladakh Scouts hai na. Woh to bade shoor hain. In Pahadon mein un ka koi mukabla nahi hai (Now we have Ladakh Scouts. They are very brave. They are the best in these mountains)"
Me: "And this is rever Sindhu, right?"
They: "Yes, we call it Singhe Kababs in Ladakhi language, meaning water from Lion's mouth. It comes from Maan Sarovar in Tibet and flows further in to PoK and then into Pakistan".
Me: "Wow, Singhe Kababs, water from Lion's mouth, great. And how is life in Ladakh?"
They: "It's very nice and peaceful. Unlike Kashmir. We don't know why we are part of J&K. We have nothing in common with them. We are very peace loving people."
Me: "I think Ladakh should be made a separate state. What do you think?"
They: "Yes, or Union Territory. Or at least, we should merge in to Himachal. We have a lot in common with the Himachali culture, we were part of the kingdom of Lahaul and Spiti in the past"
Me: "And what's with China? What do they want? Why are they troubling us? "
They: "Sir, they want entire Ladakh"
Me: "Why?"
They: "We don't know what's their problem. May be that their population is huge, and they need all the land that they can capture. Tibet to woh already kha gaye hain (they have already captured Tibet)"
Me: "What's the local staple food here? Yak?"
They: "no no, few people in remote villages may be eating Yak. But otherwise, just like cow, it's a pet animal used for survival so we don't kill Yak. And now, many people are becoming vegetarian due to teachings of Dalai Lama"
Me: "Really? But I am told Ladakhis are mostly non-vegetaris? Because nothing much grows here, no real farming..."
They: "yes, majority are non-vegetarians, but slowly some are changing"
Me: "Interesting".

They were really nice people. We stopped at Upshi for lunch. They paid for our lunch. I insisted that we will pay but they did not allow...I wished we had taken a photo with them. We completely forgot, we don't even know their names...

We reached Leh by 5 PM and what a surprise, we found a new tire! 215/65R16 is not a very common size, but one shop had 2 MRF Wanderers in that size. Rate: Rs.7400. I asked them to check if anything can be done about the punctured one, but as expected, it was a side-wall cut so no chance. I had to bite the bullet and buy a new one.

From here on, we completely followed HVK's advice from time to time and he put us in a good hotel "Jorchung Guest House" via last minute booking.


Before moving on, here is an unforgettable shot of the road, absolute infinity (click the picture to open in a new window to enjoy the full size panorama):


To be continued...

[anandpadhye]

We reached Leh by 4PM and it was Saturday. Market is closed on Sunday, so our first priority was to look for a tire. Visited a couple of tire shops on the Srinagar highway. I did not have much hopes of finding 215/65R16, but what a surprise, one shop had 2 of those (MRF Wanderers)! Duster effect? I asked them if anything could be done for the side-wall patching but no was the answer. So went ahead and got one brand new MRF Wanderer (Rs.7,400) and then went to the hotel. Thanks to HVK who got us one room in Jorchung Guest House without any prior reservation The hotel guy also agreed to get us permits for Nubra Valley. So we decided to go to Pangong, come back, collect the permits and then go to Nubra.

Next morning, we proceeded towards Chang La and Pangong Tso:


As we turned off towards Chang La, we were greeted with lovely greenery:


The view became more and more beautiful as we started climbing:




The entire valley seemed to have a green carpet!




Or was it a green river flowing through the mountains?


It's simply unbelievable that this place is almost shut down for half the year due to harsh winter and snow!!!

[anandpadhye]

It's been a year since we made this trip and I realized I did not complete the travelogue yet! I intend to do this over next few days.

So some more pictures as we continued to climb towards Chang la...











The Tuc that never let us down:


Snow snow snow...


We reach Chang La top:


Army men serve complimentary tea here:


It's third highest pass, again all thanks to BRO's project Himank:


Kashmir to Kanyakumari - India is one :


Health warnings by the Army:

[vittal]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

This travelogue must start from zero km:

Also, got the following stuff for the trip:
1. Two solid wooden planks – to get the Tucson out if it sinks somewhere
To be continued...

While I await for your complete travelogue, I have a question about wooden planks.

What size did you get (length, breadth & width) and type of wood is it. Did you use it and could it withstand the weight of your tuscon.

It will help me to get the right wooden plank for my XUV

[anandpadhye]

Originally Posted by vittal

While I await for your complete travelogue, I have a question about wooden planks.

What size did you get (length, breadth & width) and type of wood is it. Did you use it and could it withstand the weight of your tuscon.

It will help me to get the right wooden plank for my XUV

They are roughly 2 ft in length and 1 ft (or slightly less than that) wide. The thickness is good ~2 inches I think. We just went to local timber market and asked them for something that will allow a truck to pass :-) Forgot the type of wood (he told us the name, I will ask my friends if they remember).

We never had to use it. But having them in the trunk meant peace of mind.

[vittal]

Originally Posted by anandpadhye

They are roughly 2 ft in length and 1 ft (or slightly less than that) wide. The thickness is good ~2 inches I think. We just went to local timber market and asked them for something that will allow a truck to pass :-) Forgot the type of wood (he told us the name, I will ask my friends if they remember).

We never had to use it. But having them in the trunk meant peace of mind.

Thanks for your quick response.

This is a useful tip and I will also try at the local timber market.