5.00am in the morning. A nice cup of chai and omlete we headed straight to Nakeela. On the way saw the famous Ladakhi Goat. Nakeela was 15,547ft AMSL. The weather wasn’t cold here but the wind chill recorded -6°C. I was standing with the Officials since they were getting timely updates. News came that car no 11 was cruising and had overtaken few Gypsy’s on the way. Guess who it was…yes Aman!! Then comes Mr Handa, one of the organizers of Raid, reports car no1 for taking shortcut and they would be handed a penalty at the end of the raid. Who it was, our 5 times champion. Apparently drivers claim that he’s been doing that for all these years just that this is the first time he got caught.
Aman and Manoj arrived got serviced and headed straight to Leh, and so did we. Crossing the Morie Plains one of the service guy started showing the symptoms of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). Crossing Tanglang La pass (17,582ft AMSL) the guys really started to get the stick. None were used to high altitudes. As soon as we reached Leh, I took Jakir to the hospital. He was given 2hrs of Oxygen treatment and doc said he had minor cold and slight temperature.
At the Maruti service station in Leh the guys were really rude and knowledge less, basically incompetent. Firstly they were selling the spares at 3 times the actual cost and when some part failed to work they said we were lying. That irritated us and Aman actually had a huge fight with these guys! Frustrated finally we left for the hotel, had dinner, planned the service plan and headed straight towards Wakha.
Oh buy the way Aman finished today at 7th position. He gained 11 positions in just one day. Everyone was real impressed with his driving skills and there were talks of him even wining this Raid. We headed straight to Wakha. 1:30am the driver wasn’t willing to drive. All of us were tired. We parked the vehicle on the side and all of us went off to sleep. And that was end of a fascinating day.
Aman and Manoj arrived got serviced and headed straight to Leh, and so did we. Crossing the Morie Plains one of the service guy started showing the symptoms of AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness). Crossing Tanglang La pass (17,582ft AMSL) the guys really started to get the stick. None were used to high altitudes. As soon as we reached Leh, I took Jakir to the hospital. He was given 2hrs of Oxygen treatment and doc said he had minor cold and slight temperature.
At the Maruti service station in Leh the guys were really rude and knowledge less, basically incompetent. Firstly they were selling the spares at 3 times the actual cost and when some part failed to work they said we were lying. That irritated us and Aman actually had a huge fight with these guys! Frustrated finally we left for the hotel, had dinner, planned the service plan and headed straight towards Wakha.
Oh buy the way Aman finished today at 7th position. He gained 11 positions in just one day. Everyone was real impressed with his driving skills and there were talks of him even wining this Raid. We headed straight to Wakha. 1:30am the driver wasn’t willing to drive. All of us were tired. We parked the vehicle on the side and all of us went off to sleep. And that was end of a fascinating day.
Click below for today’s pictures
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