Thread: In pursuit of swarghat

Yes, the title is inspired by the BRILLIANT movie IN PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS. Why so? Because just like in the movie where the main character spends much of his time in pusuit of achieveing happiness, we, that is, Dipankar & Sandeep spent most part of the night in the search of the place called Swarghat.

Riders
Dipankar a.k.a rx100.7050 on P220 Fi
Sandeep a.k.a titanic4u on CBR 250

total kms done 750 kms

Destination: Swarghat, Himachal Pradesh.

So, I was mood for a shortish trip during the Dushehra holiday (Thursday). I have done few trips in the past but posted just one travel log which was my short honeymoon trip with my all time favourite pillion, my wife. I had to take one compensatory off on Friday & voila!! We get 4 days of holidays. Took prior permission from my wife about this trip. She had to reluctantly agree to let me off loose for few days as she couldn't get leave from her office (at this point of time, I get reminded of an TV ad of some liqour brand music CD where one of the guy becomes very sad when his wife's one week official trip gets cancelled. Other guy is very sympathetic to the problem. In my case, there was happiness all around.... my wife reads this & am a dead biker doing real ghost rider scene)

Mr. titanic4u is a relatively new guy in XBHP. He is also very new in biking activities. He bought 1st bike, a CBR 250. He does 1st trip & that too with me & that too on a stretch in which even seasoned tourer would think twice doing that stretch & that too in dead of the night.

Nevertheless, we started our journey to Swarghat on 06th Oct'11 at 1600 hrs from Rajghat.



More to come soon. There are many photos to share as Sandeep was carrying his Nikon DSLR & me carrying my new Canon Powershot SX 30IS. It will take soem time to upload pics & complete the travel log as all the pics are high res.

Thread approved

Waiting Waiting Waiting.........Bring it on man........

Bhains kee Ankh so you did it... and that also with a good new rider Sandeep....cmon bring on the whole log and the pics now DADA

Hope titanic4u also chips in to this T'Log; waiting for pics...

Aye, thank you brothers...

It was really an amazing and thrilling adventure for me.
To be frank, I was afraid (haven't ever done so long trip, new rider, never ridden so long in the dark) but under the guidance of our Dada, all went fine. Thank you Dada for this wonderful experience.


Here start my pics, which will tell the story of our journey:

Collected alll my belongings, which would be needed in the journey and borrowed the tripod from Sherry pazzi. Then i was to meet Dada at Rajghat, but when i reached there i was amazed to see the security around( i dunno how they knew I am arriving there and reached there for my safety, ). Later came to know that PM is coming there (when a bomb squad buss sued me from there to stand somewhere else), .


Journey Begins by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

Then Dada arrived and we started our ride, he said to cover the maximum ground while there is sunlight, so we were going pretty fast untill my body said I am aching, so we took few breaks to relax.


Ride Time by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

We started our ride steadily now as it was getting dark, till Panipat roads were good but post that so many diversion which slowed us down and we were getting hungry also,


Hungry!!1 by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

Met a stranger in the McD, who was keen to know from where we were coming and where we were going to, got a snap of his cute daughter,


Unknown & Known by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

When we ate enough and felt good to go, we started our ride again...


Dinner at McD by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

Reached Kalka in the night around ~11:00, then we thought to verify the route that we are going right or not, and few intelligent peoples gave us very correct advice about the route and said take U turn go back and take that specific route to Swarghat, when we verified with one and two more, we followed that route, which brought us the nightmare for the full night, /rofl

After following that Gaddho yukt, Tarkol less road for ~40-50 minutes, we found that way is no more, where to go, fortunately some construction work was going on and a watchman was there. We asked him about the way of Swarghat, He said there is way, you have to cross the bridge less river (Woah Crossing bridge less river ), he said don't worry water is not there, so took cold breath and approached to bank. But after looking at river, we were not having wits to cross it on our horses untill a WagonR came and went ahead to cross it.


River Crossing by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

Then started our ghost ride, we were going on unknown route, rarely find a sign board, I was feeling as a heroin of ghost movie running in a dark forest and behind is Bhoot, . And after seeing and hearing few Ajeebo Garib sounds, we panicked, Dada said stop following me, ride along with me and don't stop at anything even if bike broke apart, . Only i know how i was feeling that moment, hehe. But then thought this adventure was in our destiny, let it go.
After riding, which seems ages(2-3 hours) in those dark patches, we found a factory, whose watchman showed us next way.
Rode again for ~1-2 hrs and finally we were at Swarghat, i had forgotten that I rode continuously for 5 hrs and only one thing was coming in mind, my bed..................


View from our Window by sundeep_titanic2000, on Flickr

More pics to come,

Woah! Awesomenesss...

Btw, on the CBR, which tank bag is that??

nice log and pics Sandeep.
But I would like to see them lil bigger. kindly attach then here itself or provide us a link which has full resolution pics.

And which Tank Bag is it? Looks huge.. was it not uncomfortable on the ride?

Good; but I meant to say, Dipankar also chips in addition to titanic4u

Thanks a lot Sandeep for the AMAZING photos. Thanks for the kind words. You have been an amazing co-rider on this trip.

So, as Titanic said, I reached Rajghat at close to 04:00 PM & then we together started our journey. Since it was a day when goddess Durga is immersed in the river, we encountered quite a lot of traffic. We continued our journey almost non-stop to Karnal Jhilmil dhaba, where we shared one coke & chips. Next stop was at McD which is on Amristar-Chandigargh highway. Seeing two guys enter that premise & that too in full gears made the heads turn & we were enjoying the attention. We had a lot of CHIPS & huge burger each & left that place at 10:00 PM. So, we took the left to avoid going to Chandigarh & reached Kalka soon. Since, I forgot to carry the map, & detailed way points, I was referring to Titanic's printout. Not quite confident, we thought of asking 2 persons the way to Swarghat. They said that we had to take a left from Pinjor & it would straight away led us to Swarghat. We went back 8-9 kms to Pinjor & then took that "left" turn after which the INTERERSTINGpart begins.

It was quite late, around 11:00 PM. There wasn't many sould on the road but we could encounter few hooligans on bike. And when we got CBR in the scenario, the "pseudo" adrenaline of those illeterate baboons come into force in much stronger way. We, though, took it calmly, like Kung-Fu GRAND masters & let them do those morons "Heeeee HAAAAAAAAAAAA- Woooooooooooooosh" stuff
The roads were started becoming twisty with few elevations & depresions & I was happy. Could see dark shadow of the mountains in the horizon & was feeling happy. The4 stretch was pretty dark with very less habitat around. Slowly the roads started becomg bad. Bad would really be an understatement after few kms as it turned out that someone wanted to have the "feel" of Spiti, Leh-Ladakh roads & decided to built this kind of roads. Even Surpanakha's cheeks would have been smoother than this road!!! It was completely dusty, dark & devoid of any human existence. Supernatural existence could be possible, though. We would encounter few trucks in the beginning but then they too stopped appearing. And those which would be encountered, where parked alongside the path & driver was nowhere to be seen. I was enjoying the ride under the impression that it will soon end after 10-12 kms but I was quite wrong. I looked at Titanic, he looked at me. We didn't say anything to each other but we both understood that bomb has blasted in our underwears, literally. So, I countinued my tour & he continued his MAIDEN tour too. After a while we saw a tractor coming. We guestured the driver to stop. He was quite startled, just like us because am sure for the past 1 hour or so he didn;t see any human being on that road. Not even a KUTTA. So, asked him, the way to Swarghat. He directed us to go straight & when we find the Y fork road ahead, take the left one. Thanking him we moved forward. Oh, by the way, he was stammering & could continue to his next word after getting stuck only when he would give a light slap on his leg. Werd place & weird person goes very well together in creating further scary moment. It was already 12:30 now. Moved forward. Pitch dark. No roads. Our bikes takign beatings very badly & calling names to both of us. Few kms later we found one police barricade. I was so happy to see a barricade for the 1st time in my life. I usually find it PIA. We stopped. Tungsten lights giving a yellow glow to everyghing. Police booth is locked & no-one could be seen. GREAT!! Ofcourse! who would expect traffic here. Only HIGHLY intellectual-Noble prize winner material people woudl dare take this road. Finally managed to get a glimpse of a KHATIYA & 2 policemen sleeping on it. Blew horn & asked "Swarghat?". One of them gestured with a startled look to go ahead. We again continued. After a while we encountered that Y fork. Actually the road split due to a pond there & there was a small village surrounding it. Wasn't quite confident whether the Y fork was that only. Miraculously, there was a Santro guy. Asked him the way & he suggested that we took the left turn. We asked him how far it was. He said, another 15 kms or so. I wanted to throw myself into the pond but thought that would be too much for the new guy. 1st trip of his life & that too in dead of the night & through isolated non-existing roads. So, again continued our journey. Mind it, roads didn't improve at all all this while. Few kms down that road, we encountered 1st truck & then we saw an elevated stretch leading to somewhere. The ground was all gravel & stones. Seemed like some construction site. There was a chowkidar there. Asked him about "Bhai saab, Swarghat?"
He replied, "Haan, issi road se jaiye. Aapko nadi par karkein jana padega" - Yes, continue on this road. You have to cross a river. I thanked him. Suddenly. Wait a second, what did he say?? Did he say that we have to cross a RIVER????? BLOODY HELL!!! There was no river mentioned in the map or there was????? Confused, we moved a bit & found a full fledged river flowing right in front of us. OK, so that was to much for us. HELL. Titanic must have started cursing me now, gracefully. "Sala, pehla trip pe laya bhi woh bhi und-shund raston se, deir raat ko aur ab nadi bhi par karwayega mujhe, sala dada." Dead sure, he must have said it inside his helmet. So, there now, staring at each other on what to do now. It was quite dark & we couldn't figure out the depth of that river. Titanic started taking few pics. Just then, as god had sent that Santro guy, a Wagon R appeared & slowly crossed the river. Now, we were bit confident of crossing the river. Instructed Titanic, not to press front brakes while crossing the river & not to be very slow so that he has to put his foot down. We both managed to cross that river. Phew. Continued our ADVENTURE tour. Roads were in same condition. We reached at a place where we both could hear female shrieks coming out of the horizon. there was soem lights which we could see but couldn't understand whether it was real human voice or...... I told Titanic that no matter what happens, we will not stop & decrease the throttle. We just rode on that dusty, bad roads with fire on our respective ar**. Please don't ask what type of sound it was but definitely not pretty. We were now frustrated & giving graceful abuses to the HPTDC. Where the HELL have they built the hotel. We would be only one stayign in that bhoot bunglow of theirs, surely. Suddenly, on the horizon we could see chimney threwing smoke in the night sky. We knew it got to be some factory. Factory=workers. Workers= human beings & not zombies atleast. We continued for a while & saw the factory at last. The scene was this. All tungsten chrome yellow lights wherever your vision went. Huge structures. Chimneys billowing smoke. Dusty roads. We could see lines of truck assembled on an elevated ground. But no human being. Great. Welcome to Zombie factory now. But I was proven wrong thankfully. We encountered three human being. 1 Sardarji & 2 fellows. Asked them about way to Swarghat. He said couple of more kms left. He also said that we should have taken right from that Y fork & we would have reached Swarghat by now. We had no reactions to our face. God planned it & we played it. Simple. So, after kms of travelling through dusty, broken, immensely isolated roads through jungles & voices, we reached the busy NH21A where the truckers rule. We reached Swarghat "Hill Top" hotel at 02:30 AM. Hugged each other & tried feeling whether one of us had transformed to Zombie or not during the journey. We were not. Managed to woke up an employee, did check in & ordered 1 mazaa to fullfill our hungry stomach & crashed.


Will post pics taken by me in some while.