+1 How long I have to wait for the rest?

I know I am way behind on this - I will finish them this month for sure. Trust me, the remaining 3 days bug me as well

great ride with amazing log & pics BV sir.i was in sec 36 at that time when you were in sec 35.damn i didn't join xbhp at that time & hence missed a chance to meet you.i stayed there for 2 years & it's an amazing city to live in.

Only 2 days are left for this month to get over! Eagerly waiting for the remaining log.

Day 15th: Jaipur-Ahmedabad 677 kms

(PS: Long weekend, and I think I can finally finish the remaining 3 days logs, a year and half after finishing the trip. No excuses - just plain laziness. Anyway, better late than never! Lets see how well I can recollect from my memories!)

The previous night, the restaurant manager had promised me that the breakfast buffet will be spread out at 05:30am in the morning. I was very skeptical when he told me that - you know how is in India. So today, I woke up at around 5am after a nice, dreamless sleep, comfortable under the clean, white covers of the Red Fox hotel room and had a quick bath before heading down to the restaurant. As I walked down, I was doubtful if the manager will make good on his promise of serving me breakfast at 05:30 am in the morning. Imagine my surprise when I saw the full buffet laid out in the restaurant! And I was the only customer, the other travelers sleeping soundly in their rooms, unaware of the lone rider who wanted an early meal! It was nice to have some real breakfast after so many days early in the morning - most of the days I had to make do with some fruits and milkshakes bought the previous night.

After a hearty breakfast, I went back to my room, quickly packed my pannier and tailbags and went down to the reception to pay and check out. Seeing my helmet and leathers, the man behind the counter asked where I was going. 'Ahmedabad', I said. He blinked once, not quite sure whether I was serious and pulling a fast one on him. After he had regained some composure, he said, 'Ahmedabad? On a bike? In one day?'. 'Yes', I replied, and told him that the previous evening I had come in from Jaisalmer. That surely shook the morning drowsiness out of him, and I thanked him for the bill.

When I went downstairs to the basement, it was pitch dark. I could see nothing, and there was no watchman to turn any light on. Maybe they did not have any lights - the hotel was not 100% complete yet. But luckily I had my Maglite handy; it turns into a free standing 'candle' mode where I don't have to hold it. So with the help of the bright flashlight, I managed to mount my bags on the bike. And finally I was good to go!

It was still dark (around 6.45am) when I exited the hotel gates - one of the reasons I chose the Red Fox (apart from the comfortable stay and secured parking) is I had easy access to NH8. It is very near the Gopalpura Byepass road which connects to the NH8, so it was no trouble getting to the GVK expressway, with no city traffic to slow me down in the wee hours of the morning.


The smooth and wide GVK expressway out of Jaipur! Notice the 'pink city' slabs on the median


Very soon the Ninja 250 was doing close to triple digits on the GVK expressway on its way to Udaipur. Within less than an hour and half, I reached the Kishangarh fork where the National highway 8 split into NH8 and NH79A. I was told by many that I should take the NH79A instead of the NH8 to reach Udaipur, so that's what I did. And it was great advice - the traffic soon thinned out, and the roads became better, smoother, with great views on either side. Small hills started appearing on the sides with some vegetation typical of a dry area, and I happily cruised along on the road towards Udaipur, humming a random song.

I stopped to take a water in-and-out break and took some pictures of the surroundings:





I bypassed Bhilwara after a while and was very near Chittaur - the highway surface had switched to cement, and the Ninja just glided over the road at triple digit speeds.
I had been to Chittaurgarh a long time ago and I had loved the place, so I was hoping I could do a quick in and out trip on my way to Udaipur, but I looked at my watch (it was 11.30 am) and I knew if I did that I would get in late to Ahmedabad. And by now you know how I hate riding in the dark, so I gave up the idea of going in to Chittaurgarh. I had a tinge of regret by not going in, but I knew I made the right decision if I had to reach Ahmedabad by nightfall. Ahmedabad was 450 kms to go, and in India, that is a considerable distance.

But I did stop on the road with the Chittaur fort visible on the hills in a distance, and took a few more photographs while also cleaning the helmet visor and munching on an energy bar.

The Chittaurgarh fort visible in the distance:

The smooth, smooth cement surface of NH79A:



That's what happens when you have miles and miles of straights:


Some more beautiful straights on the way to Udaipur:





I reached the Udaipur byepass around 1pm or so. Again, I was very tempted to go inside the city, but I knew that idea will end up eating into a couple of hours at the very least. I had a quick urge to ride to Mount Abu and stay there for the night, but I realized that I had already used my reserve day with the Jaisalmer stay (which was not part of my original plan) so I gave up on the Mount Abu idea and decided to stick to the original plan to going to Ahmedabad. At many times, during the trip, I wished I had more days to do this trip, but taking more leaves might also end up in seeing a new face at my workstation when I got back to work!

When I was well past the city limits of Udaipur, I saw a tiny hill on my right so I parked my bike on the side of the road and climbed on it to get a few shots. It came out well, with Udaipur in the distance.











I often dreamt of riding the Ninja 250R over wide, sweeping corners and so far I did not find such a road on the trip so far. But that changed after just exiting Udaipur. The roads were carved out of small mini rock gorges and the roads were divinely curvaceous and smooth, with wide, wide sweeping corners. And the best part was it was a four lane road with no incoming traffic. This was actually one of my first trysts with a proper ghat section on my Ninja, and I went crazy like a kid in a toy store. After one fast corner when I went in too fast and almost clipped the median, I started taking it slowly, but thoroughly enjoying it at the same time.

I would love to go there again, and I wish I had a GoPro at the time, because I would have got all the action recorded on the memory card. But I took a few shots before the lovely curves began!





All good things come to and end, and this was no different. I soon hit the plains but the great roads continued. Smooth, quick straights, with little traffic to bother you. And the best part is that bikes pay no toll, so one could simply zip past the toll booth using the small service road instead of queuing up. Sometimes we see exclusion of 2 wheelers on expressways as unfair, but in the bargain, we get to ride most of the highways without any toll. I think that to be a fair trade-off!





I rode on the straight roads continued to Ahmedabad without much event and Naroda industrial area, the place where Dhirubhai Ambani started his first textile factory. The traffic also started getting progressively dense and that is when I started getting uncomfortably hot under the leather. I chose February as the month for the trip because it was just the right weather, but as I approached the last leg of my roadtrip, the weather had started getting warmer. As I was slowly crawled through the Ahmedabad, I felt the heat trapped inside my leather suit gradually started working on my brain. After spending 45 minutes or so getting to my hotel, all I wanted was to take a cold, refreshing shower! Soon, my toils were rewarded by the welcome signage of the Lemon Tree hotel. After checking in and dumping my bags on the floor of the room, I went straight for a long, refreshing shower which took the sweat and grime off my body.


I had made good on the time - I was in my room around five in the evening, so I could afford to take it easy. I was to meet a good friend, called Alkesh in Ahmedabad, and he came to pick me around 7pm, and I was thankful to be able to slip into a pair of jeans and a tee and slide into the air conditioned comforts of a car. Alkesh was a member of the popular Karnavati club, so we went there for dinner. We were still early for dinner time so he showed me the club. My eyes popped out when I saw the facilities inside, be it the state of the art gym with Precor machines or the perfectly maintained swimming pool. The dinner was great too! We had a delicious Gujarati thali, followed by super heavy Shrikhand. So heavy, that I was full as soon as I had one spoon of that!

The lawns of Karnavati club!


The meal was good, so good that I started getting drowsy, perfect for getting into bed after a while! Alkesh dropped me at the hotel, and after chatting for a while, he left for home. I spent sometime watching TV and then dropped into blissful sleep, helped by the awesome dinner working its effects on my brain...

So finally, you get the time to serve us the rest of the trip..

Bring on the rest, an let it be quick this time.. Please..

You mean shrikhand!?

Lol, yes, Shrikhand. By the way I love the restaurant Samarkhand in Bangalore! Will wrap up the blogs this weekend, that's for sure!

I figured out your love for that place when I read the name. Seems like its been long you went there. (I heard the chicken there is AMAZING).

Looking forward to the logs. I'm pretty jobless since this morning.

Amazing!!!!
Thanks for sharing mate, saw this thread today and thoroughly devoured it

Day 16th: Ahmedabad-Pune 688 kms

I slept well the last night. Really well, thanks to the scrumptious dinner. Having woked up refreshed, I walked down to the breakfast area and helped myself to a full buffet breakfast, filling up the reserves for the long ride ahead. Back in my room, I went through my packing ritual, and I also emptied the mini fridge! Not much nutrition, but it was still better than nothing




I got delayed because of two reasons - when I was checking out, I gave the receptionist a list of things which I took from the minibar; I went to the extent of writing it down so that checkout is easier, but no sir, they wanted to send someone to check and count. It was still early morning, so they had sometime locating housekeeping and by the time they made the list, they had taken 15 minutes of my time. I was slightly annoyed by all this, and when I went downstairs to the parking, someone had made an attempt to move my motorcycle around. In the process, my Xena lock had gone inside the front cowl and I had to move the motorcycle to move it back. I promptly called the front desk manager and gave him a piece of my mind! This done, I thumb started the Ninja and rode out of the hotel. Not very happy with Lemon Tree hotel Ahmedabad, no sir!

There is a beautiful expressway which connects Ahmedabad to Vadodhara, people tell me. But sadly motorcycles aren't allowed on that road, so I had to make do with the old highway. The road is wide and the surface isn't all that bad, but the traffic surely was lethal. It was technically a four lane road, but without the median most of the distance, so it gave drivers a free reign to overtake cars which were in turn overtaking a truck. So on many occasions I had to go to the extreme left. There were also long columns of trucks and other vehicles, so I had to slowly overtake them from the left. I crossed river Mahi after sometime, where I stopped to take a few pictures.

The river Mahi:





Vadodhara came up on around 9am, and that is where the national highway merged into the expressway exit. The roads became wider, four lane still, and I continued riding towards Bombay. Now if you remember, I had burned my the bottom of my tailbag on my exhaust pipe while doing the high speed Delhi Ambala stretch. So my friend in Ambala had wound a special tape around it. Somewhere between Ahmedabad and Vadodhara, I got stuck behind a long convoy of trucks, and while I was waiting for the traffic to clear, someone on a motorcycle pointed out that the tape was coming loose. So I got off the bike and tied it tightly. (or so I thought).

When I was riding at a speed of around 90-100 kmph on the Baroda-Surat highway, I was amused and slightly puzzled when a few ladies travelling as a part of a large family made some frantic gestures from behind the glass of a Scorpio's (SUV ) which was right ahead of me. They made gestures with their index finger, moving it around in a circular motion. My first impulse was that they thought I was a crazy dude riding a green motorcycle, and I was nuts to be doing so. But when they repeated the gesture again, I knew they were trying to tell me something. After a few unsuccessful attempts at playing dumb charades, they finally pointed at the rear of my motorcycle. When I look in my rear view mirror, what I see almost made my heart stop. The strong, heatproof tape which was supposed to be wound around my exhaust had come unwound, and stretched itself outward for a good 20 feet or so. I immediately pulled over to the left and took some time out to make sure that the tape was wound tightly this time. I imagined the loose tape getting stuck in the wheels of a car behind, and that would meant an instant fall on the highway! So with the tape incident behind me, literally, I moved on.

Near Vapi:







I soon pulled into a McDonalds on the highway in Vapi and helped myself to a Fillet of Fish and a few bottles of water. I called up Ketan (ketan_r15) in Mumbai who I was to meet just outside of Mumbai. Ketan and Karan (invincible) had offered to help me navigate Mumbai and get onto Pune, an offer which I graciously accepted. Ketan suggested that we meet at the Fountain hotel on Ghorbunder junction and then we could then ride towards Panvel/Pune highway from there on.

I think it was around 1.30 or so when I reached fountain chowk. True to their words, Ketan and Karan met me there. After spending some time there over a few colas, we got on our bikes and rode towards Panvel on the Ghorbunder road, right of the NH8. It was smooth riding for a while, but we got stuck in a huge jam because of some festivals, and that is when I started getting really, really hot and uncomfortable because of my riding suit. I could feel the sweat trickling down the neck down to my torso, and my brain felt as if it was ready to explode! I opened the zip a bit to let some air in, and finally after 30 minutes we could get moving again.

Ketan and Karan led me through Vashi and Navi Bombay so I could experience the palm beach road, which as promised, was a treat to ride! Soon we reached the Mcdonalds in Kalambori in Navi Mumbai, where I got to meet other members from the xbhp, including the famous Raje (Dark_knight)! At this stage, I was feeling so hot and uncomfortable that all I wanted to do was to rip my clothes off and jump into a tub of cold bath water, or at least strip my jacket off! But doing that in the air-conditioned McDonalds could have shocked my body, so I kept my leather jacket on and let the cool air work its way from the outside. But I went through a few bottles of water - I was mildly dehydrated - due to water retention, my face had bloated up. Though I felt slightly better than before, I was still exhausted!

After a nice meal of burgers, we stepped outside for a photo ops session with Raje, Ketan and Karan!




Ketan and Karan bid me farewell after showing me the entrance to the Pune highway (a few kilometers from the McDonalds) and gave me tips on how not to accidently get on the Pune expressway, where motorcycles are banned. But I was so, so grateful for Ketan and Karan's help - without them, I would have been totally lost in Mumbai, and probably severely dehydrated as well. Thank you, my friends!

But as I rode on the highway towards Khandala, I realized my body was still short on water. I imagined the water levels of my body dropping to the lowest levels, so I stopped at a shop soon, and drank 2 liters of water in one go. Yes, 2 litres. But the funny thing is, that after drinking so much water, the body seemed to absorb all of it - nothing came out.

The ghat sections started, and the traffic was insane! From small cars to large trucks, they were just jostling for space on the narrow road. I had never imagined it to be like this, and far from enjoying the curves, as was in the case in Udaipur, it became a high altitude commute. I took frequent stops because I was exhausted - I took some pictures during one of such breaks.





The ghat section ended soon, but the traffic did not. It accompanied me right up to Pune. I was to stay at Alok's (inflammable) place for the night so I called him when I reached Dehu chowk, a few kilometers before Pune. Alok told me to keeping riding, and they would be waiting on the left. After riding for 10kms or so, I see two guys on the left with reflective jackets, and though it was dark, I knew it would the reception party! It was Alok and Inder (inder.cool) on their Pulsar and Zma, and we went straight to Alok's place (just off the NH4) where I changed into a pair of jeans! Finally!

Many members of the Pune xbhp chapter were going to meet tonight, so I went along with Alok to a mall (I don't remember the name) and met Trust Vishwas, Ankit, Rishab and then we decided to go to a restaurant on NH4. We reached there around 9pm or so, and had dinner around 10.30pm - it was lovely to meet people who I previously knew only online.




After the post-dinner photo ops, we parted ways and Alok and me went back to his house. It had been a long day, it felt longer and more tiring than any of the rides I had been doing the last two weeks. But it was over. The realization of the fact that tomorrow will the last day of the trip brought a small tinge of sadness, but I looked back at all the days behind, and I was so glad doing the trip, meeting so many friendly people who helped not only me, but the children at dream-a-dream too!

But tomorrow beckons!

And finally this thread is back to life . Must've been a scary experience with the tape O_O. Thank God nothing happened. So the next day is the last right?

thank you for writing the next part...hope you write the final part before next year

Finally..........nice log & pics. So now, what about the last day? Do we again have to wait for one more year?

Over 1.5 yrs now, you haven't reached B'lore!!

C'mon, bring on the last day's log.

He sure rides slow