Our first cross country ride. Suhas and I were very excited
about the ride. We had our passports with us and the rented motorcycles.
And we are going to enter the backdoor of Bhutan! Through
Deothang.
Just a 100kms. Probably a 3 hours drive.
The countryside of Assam was so beautiful, we never realised
we were cruising through Bodoland, one of the volatile areas in India.
And after three and a half hours, we saw the Big Back door of
Bhutan. Samdrup Jongkar.
Soon after we entered, we were stopped by Bhutanese police.
Apparently, they don’t let tourists through the backdoor anymore. Huge Walls,
big gate, heavy patrols, now I see why Trump wants to build a wall. It is
really effective.
We wanted to request immigration to consider a special case
and help us enter Bhutan legally. Nada. Apparently, there are already too many
Indians stinking up Bhutan so bad, they didn’t want the back door to be blocked by Indian stinkers. So they plugged it.
We were allowed to ride to the nearest village called
Deothang which was few kms down the rear road. They had warned us that there
will be patrolling everywhere and if we try to sneak past, we will be shot or
arrested.
A sound warning. This time, I wasn’t in Gujarat or Ladakh.
This is alien land and I’m new here. But my dirty mind kept telling me to
violate.
After riding few more kms, we hit the highly monitored check
post of Deothang. As expected, we couldn’t ride past that place.
We rode back to Samdrup hoping to stay the night. Apparently
we need permission from the Immigration to stay in Bhutan even for a night and
even in the border village.
Staying in Bodoland wasn’t safe. Who knows whether we’d be
robbed or killed during the night.
By the time we started back from Samdrup, it was past 7pm. And
in the east, it gets dark at 5pm. Need daylight savings fellas. They ain’t
gonna split away from the country. Chill out..
We rode hard and fast. And within 2 hours, we were back in
Guwahati!
Phew. That was a close one..
In my experience, Bhutan is the worst country to travel to.
And believe me, I have visited it more than three times. Spend your money elsewhere!
Arunachal and Sikkim are way better than the Pee country!
Now that you probably figured, we are the authority in Rann
of Kutch Area.
I have been taking my friends from Chennai inside White Rann
area for 5 years now. This time, I was riding with the Titanic Passengers
(separate story). We were 4 of us and another friend joined us from Mumbai.
This time we rented BMW. Fuck yea!
The ride till Bhuj was normal and as usual. The thrill began
once we reached gorewali. Now the rann area was just stone throw away. But BSF
has increased the security near the entrance point and now they weren’t
allowing Riders to enter and ride in white rann area. But that’s only for
newbies right?
We grew up on this turf to be riders. Ain’t gonna back down
now. There is a secret passageway that leads inside the rann area. If you are a
tourist, you ain’t getting in. and we ain’t taking you in.
In this situation, there was a friend, Arshu who followed
rules and regulations. But rules on a trip? There are no rules..
I showed the way in and saw nobody follow me. What the
hell..
The rules following biker,… no.. now he made others follow
too,… Glad network was there in the desert area. All it took was one phone call
and a bunch of abuses to get them in. Have it hard or don’t have anything at
all.,
Every tourist followed suit after seeing us. There were cars
inside the marsh land. What the jhit.. how man. Use brains.
Or did we..? It is amazing to see crowd following one
anarchist.
Although we violated the unwritten code of Rann, We had fun,
enjoyed sunset and rode home. With ease.
We would be reprimanded by BSF on our third tour the same
year. But not yet, not now… hell eya
As a part of the stunt to cover all four corners of the
country, I added the centre of the country to the list as well.
Well, I wasn’t sure as to where the centre was, coz I hadn’t
done enough research on it.
Apparently, there are two. One for the undivided Indian
Subcontinent. The other for the Country of India.
I am definitely sure you must have heard of “Zero Mile” in
Nagpur.
Well, finding the centre of the divided land wasn’t an easy
task. It was the year 2015, and many had not ventured to that path yet. I did
my research and found out that it was located somewhere close to Jabalpur, MP.
Well, a known land for me.
By this time, my Hindi wasn’t as proficient as it is now. It
had been just one and a half years since I started my basic conversations in
the language. And, understanding village dialect was all the more difficult. I
could survive with my Hindi. But can I venture out bravely?
Pondering over that doubt, I completed my visit to Nagpur’s
Zero Mile with the help of a close friend Aditi.
Now the difficult part. Time to find a place that doesn’t
exist in Google or Google Maps.
The research indicated that there was a small village called
Podhi. And there is a much smaller hamlet called karondi next to it, with no
roads leading to the place. People at the bus stop were clueless as to where
the village was located. I used a GPS device to identify the nearest bus stop.
And at 10am, away I was. Elated to tick one more place of my
bucket list. Or so I thought.
Skipped breakfast as usual. Coz visiting the place was more
important than food. And breakfast in north india? Please,.. Starving is better…
I got down at Podhi. And I had to walk a good 5kms to the
village. I heard that there is a pillar constructed by the Indian Government that
denotes the centre of the country. More like landmark for fellow explorers.
I reached the village of Karondi. And to my dismay, there
was no pillar anywhere. I asked around whether they know that their village is
the centre of the country. They were pleasantly shocked to hear that. The entire
village gathered around me to know more about their village being the centre.
Okay… Now, I’m puzzled. I asked the villagers whether there
is any other village called karondi nearby. They replied that there are two
more karondis in a 40km radius. I immediately knew that this karondi wasn’t the
centre.
The time was already 2pm. I had a train back to Chennai on
the same night. I can’t afford to miss it.
I came back to the original bus stop and started hunting for
bus in the right direction. By now, I learnt the name of the place. It was
called “Kendra Bindhu”. Meaning the Centre Point.
As a part of 8 states and 4 countries record plan,
Suhas and I wanted to visit Myanmar anyhow. We didn’t have visas with us
though. But that had never stopped us from crossing borders (Bangladesh story
got insights!) However, our friend Khongjam was there with us. So, hopefully,
we thought we would make it into Myanmar hassle-free.
Imphal
All I wanted was to do a
touchdown and visit a village or two inside Myanmar.
Lunch at
Myanmar was the plan. Khongjam had traversed through the path once long back.
From Imphal to Moreh was a tricky ride. GR Infraprojects, damn you!
Rain spells
had already added more difficulty to the ride. Khongjam was leading. He
suddenly stopped and showed the road ahead. It was brown. He said “Look, Bad
roads”. I agreed but in my mind, I thought to myself, “I have seen worst roads;
what threat do you pose”. I thought wrong. I rode in first not realizing that
the road was slippery. 2 seconds. That’s how long I lasted on that road without
falling. Tamed in an instant..
Slippery Roads
I fell and
started laughing, realizing what a lesson that was. But behind me, I heard a
scratching sound. What the hell is that?! Apparently, after seeing my fall, Suhas
left the bike to its will and stood aside and watched. His bike slid next to me.
Now two bikes, one on me, one next to me; and here I am lying flat in the
middle of the road, laughing! Passersby were wondering what got into me.
After the fall
Getting the
bike to stand still on that slippery road was a tougher task! We had to taint
our boots during the entire ride just to maintain balance in those slippery
roads. This was the case from Thoubal to Kakching via Khongjam village (Earlier
Khongjam was a person, my friend). Intensity of the rain increased. And we
somehow made it to Moreh, the last village on the Indo-Myanmar Border.
The border
check-post guys in India said that Myanmar is observing a strike and that we
can’t visit. Lolz. Please dude. I will worry about it.
We stopped
at the border bridge and walked into Myanmar. There it was; Myanmar Border
control that checks visas. We went straight in and told them that we wanted to
visit Tamu. We got one day permit within seconds, at a minimum fee. Whooiee!
Permit done
We rode
inside Myanmar in full grandeur. Right side riding was fun man! By the way, Boiled
Chicken in Myanmar and Myanmar Beer, best combination ever!
On our way
back to Imphal via the Loktak Lake area and Keibul Lamjao, we were stopped
thrice by Manipuri Police and Indian Army and were strip searched for weapons.
And for
your information, Manipur is a dry state but you can easily buy alcohol there.
Yes, you read that right!
For lazy ass lyk me ride with theme
might remain as thought n Theory ....but this time the Theory is about to lead
wid Practical practices..yes we had theme for our ride named as Republic day
Ride to Border .. this time ride is planned for 1300km in 48 hours*riding
hours.. this numeric itself is so happening that GenX might go high with no stuffing
required to roll on..
We set team of 5. One new comer, Baniya, Who is
backseater plus motion photographer.
Here we thought of launching our page before proceeding
to ride so dat we can expose our experience and make others to pick for it.
We did launch our Facebook page and invited our
notorious friends to keep track on our ride with likes.
For this we worked technically hard and yes felt
great because theoretically planning itinerary was looking so cool.
With busy schedule we missed to book our bus to
Dehradoon.. and we reached Dehradoon 2 hrs late. Later caught all keys from mad
ass scientist. Pulled all bikes out from garage, wore helmets, knee pad, mask
and all set to ride.
We juz crossed 10km and here comes the uninvited
fog to ride with us, which accompanied us till the end of the ride.
Target for the day Ride was surathgarh*512km ,
later changed to Faizilka*463km. So from starting it was clear that we should
reach before 7 pm. We rode n rode n rode, never flashed on speedometer, no
count on km covered. We just aimed to reach. We altered the stay point 3 times.
We failed coz of a major Bike issue and fog slow
pacing our ride all the more, trailing 70km eating dust and night ride fear.
At last we stopped at Abohar*442km and started
finding hotel. We always we hunt the best accommodation, the tradition followed
and succeeded in coursing Mission hotel hunt.
All riders were completely tortured by fog, gang
was full on pain. Had dinner tossed pain killer, lights off, went on to dream
next day Ride escaping from fog.
Morning, Again on our avenger cruise 220s took
exit from abohar and proceeded to hindumalkot and next to fazilka.. Fog became
Pie in the sky. Same weather, normal temperature was 11 degree, riding temp 6-7
degrees..
1st stop was to Hindumalkot 38 km off road from
abohar. The border. Proceeded parallel to border. The border and barbed wires
were hazy coz of the fog. The later on we proceeded to sadqi, sulemanqi road,
NH-7 Faizilka.
We witnessed farmers entry to border fields with permitted
papers.
Continued Riding alongside border and reached
Amritsar. Heaven on border.
Golden temple, Langar and night halt at Amritsar.
Morning Jalianwala bagh. Theoretically, we were planning to visit hindumalkot,
fazilka, ferozpur and Amritsar coupled with visit to border in each of the
places while practically, we were able to witness border at Hindumalkot alone..After
the epic ride, on the third day, we started to ride back to Doon on AH-1
longest route of Asian Highway network.
Raced like crazy dogs on the 8 lane highway, with
fingers freezing and wet balls.
Finally reached home at 8pm on third
day. Completed 1200 km. In fog, covering borders, mountain roads, fertile plains,
blissful monument and innumerable memories.
It is true when they say ride designs its own map.
Second
time to Rann of Kutch. A place no one regrets visiting multiple times.
Silhouette - Toothless and Rann. Perfect Combo
Only
this time, I planned to ride all the way from Chennai. That is 2500 kms one
way.
Roads in
India are not brilliant. So, this is not doable in a day. I planned to do it in
3!
This time
I am riding with a Chaddi Buddy.
I rode my buddy’s Desert Storm till Pune and
planned to ride a Cast Iron RE loaned by an old friend for the rest of the
journey.
At the start of the Ride
I have
ridden all models made by RE with UC Engine. Never a Cast Iron Model.
Always wanted to feel
the legendary thump!!
1200 kms to Rann. Doable with Cast Iron? In a day? I am willing to take my chances.
Only issue was that the Motorcycle was not serviced properly.
We made it
to Bhuj with just minor hiccups in Cast Iron. Draining of Engine Oil, above
all.
Luckily, I
was able to find mechanics all along the way who fixed minor issues that arose.
We proceeded
to Narayan Sarovar and Guvar/Guhar, as a part of my record to reach all corners
of country in four months.
Westernmost Village
Next day was
to the White Rann. Every day during the ride, there were minor issues with the
Cast Iron and maintaining it by riding carefully under control was the biggest
challenge of them all. Meanwhile my chaddi buddy was cruising in full force in
his beast “Toothless” (His Desert Storm). Damn you bugger.
We made it
to White Rann. Peacefully
Ride on the White Rann
Although
there is heavy rush in December coz of Rann Utsav, there is a secret road which
leads right into the white rann. You can ride your bike there. And that’s what
we did!
I never
wanted to take chances in the wilderness coz of my Cast Iron. So, we returned
the same day back to Bhuj. Twas New Year 2016.
New Year’s
Day, We started riding back to Pune. Suddenly my bike stopped. Again, near a
mechanic shop. I don’t know whether to call this ride fortunate or not.
After
diagnosis, the results were….. Piston Damaged!
There is no
way to fix this issue. I made up my mind and sent this Cast Iron to Pune by
truck and rode the remainder of the journey till Pune as a pillion in Toothless.
After
venturing out deep into Apple covered Kinnaur Valleys, the ride took us through
Spiti. The change of landscape is akin to the one I had experienced from Ladakh
to Lahaul. Although, unlike Ladakh, Spiti is still unexplored by tourists and
was quaint in its own way.
Apple covered Kinnaur
In this
ride, a Nutcase, an old friend from my hamlet, accompanied me. Racing through,
we had experienced various varieties of Apples as we rode past districts of
Kullu, Shimla, Kinnaur and finally landing in Spiti. We had already covered
approximately 400 kms over the past three days.
I
specifically wanted to ride Electra through these terrains, as it is my first
choice while renting bikes. Little did I
know that rented bikes in Manali are worse for wear.
Yesterday
night, we had stayed in Ki Gompa, to experience morning prayers the next day.
Blissful experience as we sat and prayed along with the Buddhist monks early in
the morning.
Tingmo at Ki Gompa
Although we
enjoyed the experience, we had lost three hours and we had to ride to reach
Manali the same day crossing the giant Kunzom La after visiting Chandratal as
well. Ambitious, but doable.
Enroute, we
found a traveler tempo stuck in slush with tourists stranded since morning. The
Nutcase was eager to help, but it is going to eat out on our precious time.
Well, we
jumped in. With some tricks, we were able to get the vehicle out of the mud. We
resumed riding again. Since, we lost precious time and we were losing day
light, we started racing though the mountains. My intuition told me something
bad is about to happen.
It was
12pm. Just few kilometers left to reach Losar, a name that is going to haunt me
for the rest of my life. Something was weird in Nutcase’s back tire. Damn, a puncture.
We had to pull over immediately. Lucky for us, we had a spare tube and the
puncture kit. No No No.. I will rephrase it.
4000 meters
above sea level, we were trying to fix a flat tire with rudimentary tools and a
broken bicycle pump. After replacing the tube, it took us half hour more to
fill air in it with that stupid pump.
Nutcase and Electra
Just when
we thought we had done it, the tube lost air again. To our utter dismay, the
culprit was still stuck to the tire. A Nail. A big one. Just when all is
lost, we met two Russian riders, who lent their spare tube to us. Rule Number One.
In bike rides, say yes to any help lent when in distress situation. Although
the tube did not fit, we took it. Just in case.
Losar - The name that haunts
The next
option was to ride to Losar (4kms from current position) and hunt for help. I
took my bike and rode fast to Losar only to find that the puncture guy is not
in town. But he will reach Losar tonight. I rode back to where I left the
Nutcase and his bike. Now we had to ride the punctured bike till Losar. It ain’t
difficult. I have done it before. Being lightweight is always an advantage.
Nutcase
rode my bike and I took his’. We reached Losar. We left the bikes in shade and
went straight to the puncture guy’s house. We are going to wait outside his
house till he returns.
Half past
three. We were checking our wallets for money. We had enough petrol in the
tank. But we had 200 rupees in hand. There are no ATMs till Manali. Anyways, 200
is more than enough to fix a puncture. Or so we thought.
Outside the puncture guy's house
We started
hearing stories from the puncture guy’s wife on what an alcoholic he is. She further
adds that he seldom comes home. Now, what are we doing waiting outside this guy’s
house. We looked for liquor shops in the village. Lucky for us, there is just
one. We waited there for some time. No trace of him though.
Quarter past
five. It is getting dark now. We have to stay the night. Apparently, this guy
works in GREF, BRO’s malignant brother. We were walking around the village
enquiring about when the GREF truck will reach. We reached a police check post
who asked us to wait with them, as the truck will have to cross the check post
before entering the village. We befriended the constable on duty who worked out
a plan to help us.
There it was!
The GREF Truck! Finally.
We blocked
the route and peeked into the truck. Constable hollered. “Puncture Wala hai kya”.
“Haan”.
Our eyes
lit up. Although we could not get a good look at him, we were convinced that
our sorrows are over. Truck sped past and stopped at the GREF office. We rushed
to find the guy.
Alas, he
has magically vanished. We enquired everyone in the truck. Now they say they
have not seen him. Very convenient for alcoholics to skip help and get drunk.
We lost the
guy. He didn’t go to his house as well. Nor he was in the liquor shop. It seems
that the mountains have magically vaporized him.
Decision has
been made. We are to stop the first pick-up truck early in the morning, load
the bike and ride the other bike back to Manali.
With 200
rupees, there is not going to be a comfortable night stay. We had our blankets
and riding jackets. We slept on the street in Losar in -5ºC weather conditions.
