SLOW FOR SURE AND STEADY SOMEWHAT… 1st February 2015

The Ice Stupa slowly grows with the alternative water source from the drinking water source of the monastery… until the real pipes being laid now start working…hopefully in few days. These 4” diameter PVC pipes are themselves a Plan B…since our Plan A failed with the breaking (in transportation) of many of the originally planned 8” dia pipes form Jammu. So the drinking water pipe can be called the Plan C then.

In the last few days it has grown slowly with some problems in sprinklers… and some pipe joints coming off resulting in freezing in the whole length of the pipe. Finally they are sorted out and things move on. In the initial stage we use an external sprinkler to form the base of the Ice Stupa but then a fountain spraying water from the centre of the stupa itself.

The two main problems we have been facing is the frequent breakage of the Plan B PVC pipes being laid by the Ladkh Scouts soldiers. Cows, kids and falling rocks have broken many pipes and this system generally did not instill much confidence . So we embarked upon an ambitious Plan D. We will share about that in the next post.

Another problem was that even for the base making external sprinklers we used all froze in the cold and stopped moving after midnight. We even brought what was branded as frost resistant sprinkler but when we went to the site in the morning they looked more like pieces of art than anything of function. We are working on a solution to this also and we’ll share in a next post.

Meanwhile enjoy some pictures of the stupa and few of the problems… But then for Ice Stupa team... problems are what makes life interesting...

External sprinkler working at night...

Ice Stupa voluneersSonam Dorjay Wakha and Stanzin Shara taking a tea break inside the central dome.
Sonam Dorjay's looks remind me very much of Raj Kumar the Hindi film actor from bygone years.

Ice Stupa volunteers Yasin Ahmed, Lobzang Dadul and Sonam Wangchuk after fixing the sprinkler.
Yasin and Sonam Dorjai are from Kargil and they are also learning the technique so it can be replicated there.

This a tiny glowing ice flower... a small gift for you from the Ice Stupa team.