Flag out from Leh - 07th October 2008
Leh town was in deep sleep and so was the hotel staff when we woke up at 0300hrs and a frenzy of activity saw us packing our stuff as well. Why? Because after we attended to the flag off of the Raid, on its way to Kargil, we were headed back to Delhi. Dhruvan was flying out and me and Abhinav were driving back. Anmol was going to stay back for the return of Raid on 9th and would fly back only after attending the prize giving.
Grumbling to get awake as I had only grabbed couple of hours of sleep - thanks to late night call from Navdeep Thareja from Kargil, who wanted the results and start order. Now this chap had started from Kaza after all participants had left on 5th morning and overtook them while they slept warmly in their tents at Patseo and had driven right before them to reach Leh in the afternoon and carried on to Kargil. And on reaching there somewhere around midnight gave me the aforementioned call. Dedicated or foolhardy? I love him.
The cold water challenge saw the score jump to 6/6 with Dhruvan just numb from a buket full that he poured on his head for almost next ten minutes. Anmol was now using arguments as if born out from mind of a sharp criminal lawyer to wriggle his way out. The bet and the settlement unfortunately are beyond what mods will allow me to write 8-)
Starting the car I could hear gay chatter of others as they headed en-route to Kargil for duties on days section. A crisp "Good morning Raid" again brought transmission from Majeev. "Sudev, you better see what can be done about three Adventure participants who did not find acco yesterday. I think they are in Leh somewhere" ***!!!??? That is not a nice way to set the tone of the day.
Anyways when we reached J&K Tourism center we found the three Gypsies parked outside by road side with crews trying their best to get a shut eye. Fortunately Leh, for all concerned, was not as cold as it usually is at this time of the year. So I woke up the guys and asked them wehy they could not find rooms?
Them: "We went to the hotel as per slip you gave us but they did not have a room"
Me: "Why did you not come back here?
Them: "We did...at 2200hrs"
Me: "You got the slips from me before 1700hrs..what were you doing till 2200hrs? Why did you not come back here?"
Them: "Finding acco"
Me: EXASPERATED..."It took you 5 hours to realize that you do not have acco and drive all of 3 kms back here?"
Them: "We went to hotel and they said no room but then we attended to vehicles first and then petrol and then food and then.."
Me: Muttering to myself "they deserve it then and here I actually let go of two room yesterday night to a service team"
Anyways all I could do at this time was send them with Anmol to the hotel that had been just vacated by officials going to Kargil and get them hot water and some tea plus breakfast. And to partially help them I allowed them 30 minutes extra for Parc-ferme entry and radioed the same to Vijay. Who incidentally also landed up after a few minutes to give me news that I would not be having any more officials for the start as Bhaskar and wife had gone on to work enroute to Kargil. As per plan there were six of us to do the start but now we were two (Anmol having gone with the Outdoors-men and Dhruvan gone off to airport. Oh well.
What is a parc-ferme? Is short this is secure parking area where all vehicle have to be left. This is usually open from the time vehicles come in to the time they go out. Once a vehicle checks in you can not take it out. However in case of endurance events the rules allow for parc ferme to be established two hours before the start of the event and closes one hour before the start. This is to allow them facility to repair their vehicles. Any one reporting before one hour of the start pays a fine and can be denied start. There were three late comers who shelled out a fine oon the spot.
With only two people handling the start it was difficult to line up vehicles, fill up time cards and also do count down to start. So I asked help from Pradeep, a rally veteran and officials in the past Raids (but competing this time) to help out. Thanks fully with his help we were able to start the flag off in time and kept the whole bunch rolling out at two minutes intervals. Once Anmol joined back, Pradeep was relieved and in matter of two hours we flagged off entire Raid on its way to Kargil.
Only after 0815hrs we realized that not a drop of water or tea had gone inside us and suddenly we were hungry and tired. So we all piled in the car and dropped off Anmol back at the hotel. Then we stopped at the Giana Dhabha in the main market and had a plate of "channa-bhatura" along with sweet tea. At just past 0900hrs we rolled from Leh heading back to Manali.
In short we reached Manali at night and after a short night rest headed to Delhi. Leh Manali was done n just under 12 hours and Manali Faridabad in 14, out of which 3 hours were from start of Delhi to Faridabad - a mere 50 kms! Since I was only driving it was too much for me to push beyond Manali in one day, especially after we had sleet and rain accompanying us all across Rohtang La with it wonderful no-roads and slight snow fall when we crossed Baralaha La.
Last edited by sudev : 21st October 2008 at 16:11.
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