Thanks Pranit. And congrats to you too for the new R15 I may be late in wishing you but kindly adjust

Thanks buddy! Well no incidence as such but Jaipur and Agra were the only places where we got those strange looks/stare from almost every road user and am sure it was due to our attire. It was extremely uncomfortable and gave us that feeling of being unsafe. And unfortunately at both the above mentioned places we had to roam around for quite long in search of good accommodation .

Ketan, why directly to Amritsar from Jaipur?Why not hault in Delhi?Close to 650 kms i guess (as per Google maps) and in this hot summer, i can understand how difficult it would have been.

Bring it on Sir jee. My office hours on bench are mesmerizing- thanks to your thread.

+100

Beautiful pictures

And we met on the way to Srinagar. Remember the three guys on RTR 180 (x2) and Avenger.

Nice one Ketan & Mandar.

I still want to know what actually happened at Himmatnagar that you dont want to disclose here .

Hi dude, i used mobil 1 racing 4T 10w 40 fully synthetic oil and its for bikes u can google it and find. bike performed very well during entire trip. i changed the oil at leh coz bike oil level was low. i was carrying 1 extra can with me so i changed oil there and filled up new can and my bike still running on same oil.

Hey nice start ketan.

Sorry for the delay in updating the log. Been busy for past few days.
Meanwhile enjoy this video I recorded at Wagah Border, Amritsar.

YouTube - ‪Wagah Border Flag Lowering Ceremony‬‏

First of all, really sorry for the shaky video. The place was extremely crowded and there was hardly any place to stand there. The particular amphitheater where I was standing was meant for only 50-60 people to stand comfortably but there were hundreds of people trying to find a place to stand in that space. In fact there was a kind of stampede at the entrance to get inside. Not a good experience. The camera was shaken by people standing next to me. Still I tried my best to make the video as shake-free as possible.

We had decided to visit Delhi while coming back to Mumbai. Couple of days were assigned for Delhi sightseeing. That's why directly to Amritsar.

Ohh, I didn't know you were on xbhp too. Good to see you here mate. Hope you enjoyed your ride. The last interaction between us was at Titanic view point. Later that night we changed our plan and stayed at Pahalgam instead of Srinagar.

Thanks Rak.

Day 3 : Jaipur - Amritsar via Rohtak

Despite the Police station goof up, the night before, we woke up on time on 4th June. We knew it was going to be a long day but had never thought it would be so long and tiring. After the regular morning stuff we both got came down stairs to load the bikes with luggage. Clicked a few pics of the hotel before leaving.

Our bikes in the parking..


Hotel was spacious and had ample parking space..




After getting out of the hotel and on to the main road, first thing we wanted to do was to reach national highway before traffic increases on inner city roads. We managed to do so without much trouble and were cruising towards Shahjahanpur, the place from where a small road takes us to NH71 which in turn will lead us to Amritsar via Rohtak. The usual route goes through Delhi city and then to Amritsar via Ambala city. But we did not want to waste time crossing crowded Delhi roads at rush hour. Also we had received an update from Deepan Devraj group that there are a lot of diversions on Ambala city road due to ongoing construction work. Our decision to use the Rohtak route made sense after considering above points.

Though the road till Shahjahanpur is a national highway, it is in pathetic condition. To add to it absolutely people with no road/traffic sense make it even riskier and more dangerous. Truckers and local jeep drivers are out there only to kill you. I was so frustrated that I remember sending an sms to people back home about how idiotic and pathetic traffic sense people in Rajasthan have. No offense. I am just sharing what we faced while riding in that section. Satyen even replied to my sms saying, hey hang on! It just gets worse as you move up north.

Jaipur to Shahjahanpur is not a small distance and while confirming the route with a local, we understood that road via Bawal chowk to Rewari is better than the Shahjahanpur - Rewari road. So our next target was to reach Bawal chowk and take left turn towards Rewari.

On the way, we stopped at a stall for a quick water/cold drink break.


Truckers, jeep drivers and Haryana tourism bus drivers are so reckless that we actually saw an accident as we drank water at the stall. Two cyclists were carrying chairs on their cycles and a HSRTC bus almost banged them from behind while overtaking a truck from the wrong side. That was indeed a scary moment.

Somewhere on the way my bike crossed this milestone of 33333 Km


After riding for sometime we reached Bawal chowk and took the left hand side road to Rewari. It was a two lane highway and we were being extra cautious to avoid any unwanted incident, especially while overtaking HPSRTC buses. We even stopped at a petrol pump and tanked our bikes. Petrol pump attendants asked us hundreds of questions seeing MH registered bikes. They thought we are from army and asked, "Kaha posting hai aap ki?"

A water break just after Rewari.




We were then in Haryana state and it was an abso-bloody-lutely boring state. Nothing, absolutely nothing exciting to see around. Even people were unfriendly and boring. It soon started feeling like a punishment - crossing Haryana. We were riding since morning without any breakfast and had started feeling hungry. But there was not a single restaurant/dhaba where we could stop for food. Instead there were "Theka Sharab ki Dukaan" every 10-15 minutes. Road wasn't great either. It was totally frustrating. I was literally cursing that state and that road.

Finally after few Kms we saw a dhaba where a lot of trucks had halted for food. It was a shady place but we had no choice. We stopped there and the only food available was parathas. We ordered one each for both of us and tried to take a nap while the arrived. We only tried, could not sleep because the place was such that we never actually felt safe.





Our breakfast - Paratha, Tea and biscuits.


This particular dhaba didn't have mineral water bottles and the water he served tasted weird. The only nearest place where one could get mineral water bottles and cold drinks was a Theka Sharab shop on the other side of the highway. We were thirsty and had no choice but to go there and buy the stuff. I went to the shop while Mandar had food. Couple of well built locals were sitting there with alcohol bottles in their hands. They already looked drunk. They were invoked upon seeing someone in army pants and one of them tried to have a conversation with me. Things could have gone wrong had I not answered his questions and ignored him. He could have got angry. So I peacefully tried to answer all his questions and just when things started to get ugly I insisted him to gimme sometime. I told him I'll just give my friend these water bottles and come back to you and we'll have a good chat. He actually ordered a chaar pai and asked me to bring my friend as well. This is exactly the reason why we never felt safe in that region. I told Mandar bout the drunk man and we quickly geared up after paying the bill. We preferred leaving the place before situation got out of hands.

As we moved on towards Jhajjar and Rohtak, road condition became worse from bad. Broken roads without any sign posting and absolutely dull, boring vistas around. Our mood was totally down and we were just dragging our bikes through that hell.

Roads were in such bad condition that even a comparatively smaller distance between Jhajjar - Rohtak and Jind took a lot of time. Soon another thing was added to the list - Heat. Somewhere on the way I was bitten by some insect on my neck and it was burning horribly. Thar part had swollen pretty much.

Another stop just before Jind to refuel water bottles. It was a dhaba.


Since Jind is close to Haryana - Punjab border we saw a lot of Sardar ji and realized that we are not far from Punjab now. After crossing Jind we inquired for a good place to have lunch and some one guided us to a dhaba called Saini da dhaba. Fortunately it was a good place and we had the best dhaba food there till that time. Sitting on char pai and having lunch on wooden plank in open air was quite some experience.



If you see the route on the map, it's pretty straight forward and there shouldn't be any problem reaching Amritsar. But like I said, there was absolutely no sign posting in Haryana(or I don't know if we both missed any milestones). After resuming the ride from the dhaba, I don't remember how and where but we messed up with the route. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and kept on roaming in circles, round and round around the same place . We wasted everything - time, fuel, efforts.. bloody everything. We even tried to take help of V6200 cell phone but even that didn't help. Asking people for direction proved useless as everyone directed us to different directions and we ended up riding miles over miles.

Finally after lot of efforts and time we were in Punjab and could see a sign board showing directions to Ludhiana, then to Jalandhar and finally Amritsar. We decided, chuck it..we ain't leaving this road now. Even if it's a longer route we gonna follow it. We didn't want to get lost anymore. Not at all. We were dead tired.

Somewhere on the way we stopped at a small road side stall which sold lemon soda aka Goti soda. We really needed some refreshment. Just as we sat lifeless on the chairs, an elderly sardar ji came there. Seeing us in army pants he thought we are from Army and riding to our work place some where in north. When we saw MH registered bikes, he could not resist having a conversation with us. He checked the R15 inside out. Was surprised to see a bike fitted with radiator etc. We told him how we got lost after Jind and how tired we were. He felt sorry for us and was eager to help us. He checked the time and said if we chose to go via Ludhiana and Jalandhar, we were sure to get stuck in dirty evening rush hour traffic. Ludhiana and Jalandhar are pretty big cities and we could imagine the kind of traffic he was talking about. He suggested us an alternate route which would by-pass Ludhiana and Jalandhar. He didn't know proper and hence he talked in Punjabi all the while. We could not understand punjabi that well and therefore there was some communication gap between us. But we could see his urge to help us. Genuine feeling. At first we were afraid to try another unknown route because we had already had a bad day so far.

That sardar ji sat beside us and made a few phone calls just to check if the route he suggested was in good condition or not. I mean who will make calls and take efforts to help strangers whom he met few minutes ago. Seriously, his attitude and enthusiasm took away some of our fatigue and tiredness. One of the guys he called up confirmed that the route is fine except for some 10-12 Kms where the road is not in good condition as it's not yet fully constructed. Looking at his helping nature and confidence we decided to give it a try and agreed to use the route suggested by him. To make sure we don't get lost anymore, he asked another elderly husband-wife traveling on their scooter to escort us to the point where the road bifurcates. We could not thank him enough for what he did for us. Hats off to his nature and attitude!

We followed the old couple till the point where we asked us to go ahead. This new route goes to Barnal - Moga - Harikapatan etc and finally to Amritsar. And ohhh my God, what a change it was. From an absolutely boring Haryana roads to these refreshing and naturally beautiful Punjab roads. Simply amazing. We forgot all our pains, fatigue and started enjoying those beautiful roads. It reminded me of our beautiful Konkan. It was a two lane highway but pretty wide and smooth. We could easily maintain high speeds till Moga. After Moga, road became narrow and wasn't in good condition either. Sun had set and we were riding in dark. To make sure we didn't get lost again we asked and confirmed our route at every bifurcation/cross road.

By the time we reached Harikapatan, our bodies had started to give up. We were totally tired. And then we all of sudden road disappeared and we were riding on extremely rough and uneven road. We realized this was the under construction patch. Those 10-12 km felt never ending and every jerk every pothole sent knives through our butts. All the joints in our body were crying for mercy. Only we know how we crossed those few km before getting back on the smooth highway to Amritsar.

I was so frustrated that I straight away opened the throttle and zoomed ahead. Due to night riding experience and powerful headlamps am pretty good at night riding. I was actually cruising at 100-110 kmph following a fast moving Swift Dezire. Based on discussions I had with Mandar in Mumbai, before the ride, I thought Mandar must be good at night riding too. But I guess I was wrong. He faced quite some problem with the oncoming traffic's lights and even had a close call where he was forced to get off the road by an oncoming heavy vehicle.

As we reached closer to Amritsar, we started asking for directions to Golden temple. On our way, I saw a young sardar ji riding a white RTR. I went next to him and asked him how to go to Golden temple and if we'll get a good accommodation there or not. All he said was "Mere piche aao ". LOL, since that point we simply followed him and took us through some really complicated and narrow lanes of Amritsar. We all stopped just before the main entrance of Golden temple and he said we can look for accommodation in Golden temple bhakt niwas or look for a place in hundreds of private hotels around. We were there at wrong time. It was a Saturday. So most of the bhakt niwas rooms must be full and private hotels charge more on weekends. But we had no other option. We thanked him for all his help and he moved on. Our main concern was to find a hotel with good parking but at the same time we were so tired that we could not even think of checking out different hotels. That's when a local hotel agent approached us and offered an AC room with safe parking for 1000 bucks. To be honest Rs. 1000 was out of our budget but since we were so tired we didn't think much before asking him to take us to the hotel. All we wanted was a comfortable bed and AC to relax. We unloaded the luggage and parked our bikes in safe parking. Some how.. literally somehow climbed to the second floor of the hotel to our room. Thankfully the rooms were worth the money we paid. Very nice and comfortable. As soon as we entered the room we played music on the LCD to refresh our minds. Got fresh and crashed on the bed. I don't even remember if we had dinner that night or not. I think we didn't but am not sure. See, we were that tired.

A long and boring day had finally come to an end. Day 4 was reserved for Amritsar sightseeing - Golden temple and Wagah border.
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What a day!
Ha ha.. Haryana is like that only. Its their way or the highway, pun intended. About the thekas, even in a "city" like gurgaon, thekas outnumber kirana stores and are open way into the night, more than medical stores.
Though, its best to stick to prominent national highways. The ambala road does have lots of diversions, but you can still maintain good speeds.

Good start ketan bhau its nice to see that the same r15 that i saw on deccan signal is cruising to such mesmerising land scapes ....
anyways please give us good dosage of logs at a decent intervals of time ..

A Heartly congrat's to Ketan & Mandar both of U for being Leh'd.....
The clearity of Pic & Videos are amazing...

Egarly Waiting for the Log Saheb....

That's well said man.. and true too.

Yes, while coming back we used the ambala road and realized that though there were lot of diversions, we could easily maintain a good speed and actually surprised Shivanshu by reaching Delhi way early than the time we were supposed to reach. Mandi to Delhi was some ride man. Haha. Total rip fest. For that day we had kept everything out of our mind, fuel efficiency, engine over heating... every god damn thing. All we knew was to rip as hard as possible and enjoy the highway.

Thanks a lot Kartik and Prasad. Will update it soon

Day 4: Amritsar Sightseeing

We had covered more than 1800 Kms in 3 days i.e almost 600 Kms every day. We needed a break and some good rest. That's why we decided to wake up late on Day 4 and relax as much as possible. Day 4 was anyway reserved for rest and Amritsar sightseeing - The Golden temple and Wagah border.

We woke up by 10.30-11 am and got fresh. There was only one reason to worry though. It was a Sunday + a festival or something. That's why all the hotels were booked beforehand by thousands of tourists visiting the Golden Temple. We consider ourselves lucky that we got accommodation on Day 3. The problem was the particular room we stayed in, was booked for Sunday and we were supposed to check out by 12 noon. What that meant was search a new accommodation for Sunday night halt. We somehow convinced hotel staff that we'll check out on time but to take care of luggage in the lobby by the time we searched for new accommodation. They were kind enough to let us keep the luggage inside the room and extended the check out time till 2-2.30 pm.

Mandar clicked some pics in the hotel room while I got fresh.




Hahaha..Watched this movie today


By the time we got out of the hotel it midday and the sun was beating down in full glory. Streets were crowded with hundreds and thousands of visitors. First we went to a near by restaurant and had breakfast cum lunch . Food was not at all good . We then went straight to the gurudwara. Marbles were hot like frying pan and it was impossible to walk on it after keeping our footwear at the chappal stand. Thank god they had laid carpet on the floor. People were running helter-skelter to walk on the carpet as it was very narrow .

Heat was deadly and there was a very very long queue to enter inside gurudwara. I have visited Golden temple when I was a kid but for Mandar it was his first visit. But the kilometer long and slow moving queue coupled with heat forced me and Mandar to take the decision of not going inside the gurudwara. We offered prayers from the outside.










The decision of offering prayers from the outside saved a lot of time. We knew checking for accommodation in temple rooms was useless, especially after seeing the number of tourists but we still tried it and went to the temple accommodation office. We got the expected answer from the office staff - No rooms available. But we met a local guy, kind of tourist agent who promised to help us find a cheap accommodation. He asked us to follow him. We wanted to arrange an accommodation as soon as possible and hence without thinking twice, we started following him. He walked quite a distance through the narrow lanes of Amritsar. Even walking is dangerous in those narrow lanes. You never know when some scooter wala or rickshaw wala will hit from behind. They don't even honk or whistle. One rickshaw wala hit Mandar on his leg and he got hurt as the bolt holding the wheels hit his leg very hard. F***rs! The agent kept his word, he actually took us to a damn cheap hotel. OH MY GOD! That was some hotel or a Khandar I should say . An absolutely dirty, shady room with metal beds without mattresses, just a blanket on it. Not even a tube light. Just a bulb. Surprisingly, the attached toilet bathroom was pretty clean. He asked Rs. 250 as the rent. That's Rs. 125 each when shared. Now that's definitely cheap . But we didn't have any other choice. Because time was running fast and if we get too late, the earlier hotel owner would have charged us extra. So we agreed to spend a night in that khandar. After paying him the rent in advance we walked to our earlier hotel and checked out. This new hotel room was on 3rd floor and it was a pain in ass carrying all that heavy luggage to the 3rd floor. Hotel owner had agreed to let us park our bikes inside the building but there was a problem. Hotel premise was elevated and one had to climb 3 steps to enter inside. So getting our bikes inside was impossible without a wooden plank or only by lifting them. He took soooo much time to arrange a wooden plank that everything started to get on our nerves. We started cursing ourselves for visiting the place in the middle of a festive season.

We wanted to witness the flag lowering ceremony at Wagah border and we knew that it happens as the sun sets. Wagah border was 30-35 Kms away from our hotel and there was not point going there so early in the afternoon. So we decided to take rest in our luxurious royal suite . Our suite had an extremely efficient and high tech water cooler in it. Please have a look at it And yes, it was an absolutely noise free cooler.


We took some rest till 4 pm and then got ready to leave for Wagah border. It was quite a task to get our bikes inside the premise and hence we decided to go to Wagah border on Mandar's bike only. Thanks to Mandar for being understanding and co-operative. Getting out of those narrow and complicated lanes was quite confusing. We got lost a couple of times and rode a few kilometers extra before hitting the correct road. Mandar was totally out of his mind and ripped like crazy (), overtaking hundreds of tourists vehicles full of tourists going to Wagah border. That really helped skipping at least a hundred visitors in the long queue to enter the amphitheater. There was total chaos and confusion at Wagah border, be it parking the vehicles, finding the correct queue to enter inside or even buying a water bottle. Hundreds and thousands of people were eager to get inside through a narrow gate which was closed. There was absolutely no order and discipline. Everyone was sweating due to heat and it felt so dirty and stinky being in that crowd. When the army officers opened the gate, people started pushing each other and there was actually a stampede to get inside. Very sad experience . To our bad luck, there was an even worst stampede at the amphitheater stair case and people were pushing each other like animals. Even women and children were not spared.

I have posted a video of Wagah border flag lowering ceremony on previous page and have mentioned there that there were hundreds of people standing in a place meant for only 50-60 people. Sun was beating down. The cement floor of amphitheater was hotter than a frying pan. So one couldn't even sit down. Water bottles aren't allowed inside the premise. So lots and lots of dehydration. Time was around 5 pm and the sun set time was 7-7.15 pm. You can imagine how spent those couple of hours in that heat and crowd. UNBELIEVABLE! Yuck! But heck, the spirit of watching the ceremony kept everyone glued to their place. We saw a woman being carried away by people as she fainted due to dehydration. Finally after a long long wait, the ceremony started, which lasted for another hour or so. At sun set the flags were lowered and then the same people who were fighting to get inside started rushing to get outside.



Respect


People on the other side of the Border - Pakistan.









My shirt was wet due to bucket full of sweat and I wanted something to drink, immediately. First thing I did after getting out of the amphitheater - bought 3 pepsi bottles One for Mandar and two for myself . Tab jaake ke jaan mein jaan aai.

Well hang on, it's not over yet. The ride from Wagah border to Amritsar city was fine but then we were royally ****ed. As there was festival and that too on a Sunday, streets were jam packed due to traffic. There were pandals everywhere serving water to devotees and causing hell of a traffic jam. By the time we got back it was dark and imagine finding the exact spot through those confusing lanes after dark. Bloody everything looked the same. And we didn't even know the name of our hotel . I mean there wasn't any board outside the hotel and we didn't care to know the name of that khandar. I thank god, that we had a small visiting card that we collected before leaving the hotel. Totally frustrated after getting lost and riding through that terrible traffic, we called up the hotel owner and asked for a near by landmark. With the help of that we finally reached the hotel and parked the bike. Phew.
The Hotel parking


Mandar was so tired and frustrated that he refused to have dinner but I insisted and took him along with me. We walked a few blocks and had dinner at Hotel Neelam. Made a few phone calls back home as we walked back to the hotel room and crashed on the bed. Thanks to that ultra silent and efficient water cooler, we had a very nice and relaxing night sleep. Rs. 250 - Full on paisa wasool! eh Mandar?

Day 5... Amritsar to Pahalgam.

Ketan saheb mast log....

But whn the page ends..... ohhh s***......

Waiting for the log eagerly....