[MX6]

Amazing photos again. And you do look tired. Add to that the stubble. Seems your human alarm has kept you awake most of the time!
Good going people!

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by Captdey

Hi Ramkya1 ,

Did you feel or find your scorpio engine gasping for
air anytime during your this high altitude driving or
any modification done to the engine air flow because
of High altitude thin air ?

Cheers

Good point, almost missed that one, thanks for biringing that up.......

I had the K&N stock filter till Leh, while servicing, found it to be chocked, there was no cleaning kit available, so took it out and replaced with the original OE sponge filter. After that, throughout, K-TOP and all the high passes, all the way back, drove on stock filter.

Above 12K feets, there was a perceptable drop in power, had to compensate with down-shifts and more right pedal. I think the Scorp can do Ledakh and more with stock filters without any problems.

There was no place, including a very difficiult water crossing around Sarchu and very loose sande de-tour before More plains, which 1st gear on the Scorp could not pull through. We almost got mired near More plains, it was a booby-trap of sand, we had momentum and escaped. We saw a Pajero going majestically on this terrain with ease, was a sight to see!!!

Originally Posted by MX6

Amazing photos again. And you do look tired. Add to that the stubble. Seems your human alarm has kept you awake most of the time!
Good going people!

I WAS tired, at Rangdum I was more like a Zombie, after Leh, I was more like a human, the stubble does make it look worse. I was feeling very good from 23rd onwards, was eating better and moving better and driving better

[Captdey]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

Good point, almost missed that one, thanks for biringing that up.......

I had the K&N stock filter till Leh, while servicing, found it to be chocked, there was no cleaning kit available, so took it out and replaced with the original OE sponge filter. After that, throughout, K-TOP and all the high passes, all the way back, drove on stock filter.

Above 12K feets, there was a perceptable drop in power, had to compensate with down-shifts and more right pedal. I think the Scorp can do Ledakh and more with stock filters without any problems.

There was no place, including a very difficiult water crossing around Sarchu and very loose sande de-tour before More plains, which 1st gear on the Scorp could not pull through. We almost got mired near More plains, it was a booby-trap of sand, we had momentum and escaped. We saw a Pajero going majestically on this terrain with ease, was a sight to see!!!

Thanks Ramkya,
Valuable piece of information,
I was going through your log sheet .
what a pefrect and meticulous product.

Cheers

[TSEA]

wonderful pics and narration ramkya1 and kpzen. Waiting for more

[Captdey]

From you Log.

21/06/2010 - " Car Starting Problems, Hot water treatment "

Could you elaborate this issue please.

Cheers

[ramkya1]

24th June, 2010: Early in the morning for us is 8 AM at Leh. Santhi guest house hosts were good, but hot water, breakfast and a little room service? Nix. We had to slowly get adjusted to the fact that getting running hot water there would be an event, Sharin (owner) constantly complained that Indians used lots of water, wasted water bla. bla.. bla, it was wearing thin by the end. Breakfast at 7 am was also dificult, they get up around that time there. Anyway, breakfast was Ladakhi bread (a different kind of Roti), masala omlet, jam and tea, I had the Ladakhi bread up to the gill I would scream if I see one anywhere else. Other than that, Sharin was very polite, always with a smile and a great host, it was a family run outfit, most work shared between him and the 2 women there, all of them were very friendly.

At 0845 we left for the highlight of the tour, route through K-top to Nubra. The Santhi stupa road goes up and cuts into the K-top road, tarmac was very good till south Pallu, reached there after 24 kms at 930 AM, just sign in at he TCP and we were off for the climb. The road deteriorated from there, mostly good, some sections with slush, pot holes and sharp climbs, nothing the 2nd and 1st gear could not handle. 14 kms and 70 mts later, we stopped for a couple of photo stops, we were at the highest road in the world, at 18730 kms, what a feeling that was.

It was cold, breathing laboured with all tourists jostling for space at the yello board for a photo pose. Jiggy and KP had a whale of a time playing around on the snow, we had carried rubber gloves for the very purpose and it came in handy. Spent about 15 mts there and rolled down towards North Pallu, the road down had more snow and was tougher, the pot holes more and snowy / watery sections more. North Pallu, 16 kms and 1 hour later came, we stopped at khargung village for a gret tea on the road side. At Agam village junction we learned that Wari-La is closed, the turn off is here and not likely to open any time now, at Khalsar stopped for Lunch, good option for lunch here, lots of dhabas. Around 1 we came to the junction, right going to Panamik / Shiachin and the left going to Hunder. The newly laid road goes straight as an arrow for the next 3-4 kms through the river bed and climbs up the mountain, lovely photo opps for any photographer. The next 15 kms is a breath-taking mountain road with the river on the one side and stark and tall mountain on the other side, very different terrain from what I have seen so far. You can see the river has meandeared throughout the valley below, making it a sea of sand and streams with geometric patterns of hues of brown. It started raining, we were worried, this is the wrong prescripton in this terrain but the rain Gods co-operated and stopped by the time we reached Diskit.

In Diskit market, lower road, we searched for a BSNL rechage card and found one, miraculously it also worked!!!! To get connectivity aroudn there was awesome, it was so out of the world and felt like we were in Tibet already. Tibet like terrain, chink faced people and Chinese sounding language, surreal. Reached the T junctioin, turned right into Hunder to search for Goba Guest house, again turned out to be good food, good stay and nice hosts. Would recommend to anybody, cost us Rs.1500/- tea, dinner and breakfast, the room was 700/- with extra bed.

We took rest for some time and went to the sand dunes by 5 PM. That is another great experience, a sand dune on the top of the world, lots of photo ops there for those who are interested. Spent lots of time and returned to Goba Guest House around 8 PM, a whole some day with a wholesome experience.

Prajesh has some knock-out pictures from this day too, truly inspirational one. KP load your beauties too here...

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[MX6]

That's the amazing thing! You cross mountains, you see snow peaks, then suddenly desert!
Great photos again people! And seems like Ramkya is bothered by the cold a bit here.

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by Captdey

From you Log.

21/06/2010 - " Car Starting Problems, Hot water treatment "

Could you elaborate this issue please.

Cheers

For those wondering abot trip logs, attaching the modified one, the remarks have more details on this one.

The log book was wirtten with great care by Jiggy, helped me convert it into an excel, took us about 3 hours of focused work. Thanks Jiggy for jotting in all the details, I know how difficult it is and in terrain like this its easy to forget writing down details.

@ Captdey: At Rangdum, Pangong Tso and Sarchu, where the night temp. dipped below 0, Wolt would not start. The hot water treatment was pouring a couple of buckets of hot water on the radiator, pouring slowly hot water on the fuel pump including the pipes and manually pumping the plunger on top of the pump a couple of times. After a couple of tries, the self kicks in and the engine purrs to life.

At Sarchu, I started the car at 9 PM and kept it running for 10 mts before turning in for the night. Next day morning, by the time I was up, Prajesh had the car started without HOT WATER with the help of a taxi driver. Prajesh, you can throw some light into the technique the driver used to start the car??

I think running it late in the night before sleeping helped it start next day morning. The night temp at Sarchu was below 0 that day.

--------

[TaureanBull]

I never knew there were camels in Leh/Ladakh.

How do they survive in that cold? Are they born and brought up there itself?

@ramkya : IMO there is something known as anti freeze mixture. Its meant for snow-bound areas. I never tried myself personally though.

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by TaureanBull

I never knew there were camels in Leh/Ladakh.

How do they survive in that cold? Are they born and brought up there itself?

That's another intriguing part of the land. This route at one time was the flourishing trade / spice route to north and some Bactrain double hump camels must have been left here by the Arabs, they were used as pack animals for trading, not native here. They have adapted too the cold, the keepers need them for tourist trade.

The animals looked poorely fed and cared for me, if its not for the tourists, they would have disappeared.

All fuel sold there already has anti-freeze pre-mixed, but still we had problems. Wonder if other people also had problems starting their diesel cars? What about petrol cars, any starting problems there?

======

[pradeep-ivon]

Great narration and Greater pictures Sir, especially the ones with two white Qualis jeeps passing beneath the snow-white frozen path is indeed awesome and fearsome picture of deathly whiteness all around! Their white color has all the more added a sense of chill in this picture that one can feel it.

[hvkumar]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

That's another intriguing part of the land. This route at one time was the flourishing trade / spice route to north and some Bactrain double hump camels must have been left here by the Arabs, they were used as pack animals for trading, not native here. They have adapted too the cold, the keepers need them for tourist trade.


======

The Bactrian camels are from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia-China, used to transport goods along the Silk Route from China across Central Asia to Europe. Nubra Valley was an offshoot of the Silk Route connecting India to the main one, and that is how the camels landed up here. There are hardly used to carry goods any more, since the road beyond Nubra Valley (Aksai Chin in China, and Swat Valley/Karakoram in POK) are now restricted. Locals use them to entertain tourists during the summer after which they wander off deep into the Valley.

[MX6]

Originally Posted by TaureanBull

I never knew there were camels in Leh/Ladakh.
How do they survive in that cold? Are they born and brought up there itself?

Originally Posted by ramkya1

They have adapted too the cold, the keepers need them for tourist trade.

Desert winters aren't charitable. Camels are made for extreme weather. Normally one associates desert with extreme heat and no water. Desert winters are very chill and with no vegetation, the wind literally brakes one's bones. Wind chill factors can be very huge in deserts. In deserts, during winters, temperature can go to as low as -10 deg.

Guess these camels here are facing those kinds of temp and not -40 which siachen faces. That would kill them.

[ampere]

Ramkya sir, you really looked tired in the last set of snaps! But amazing snaps!
My take on this: Take a shave in the morning and you are all fresh!

That reminds of the following four lines!

New born babes have no hair,
Old men's head are just as bare, (Any guesses?)
But between the cradle and the grave,
Life is but a haircut and a shave!

How is that!

Sorry for the OT folks.

[Ketan]

I'm late to this thread Ramky Sir, but good that I am here. I'm going to read thru this one during the weekend. I'm waiting too! Mera number kab aayega!!