Subscribed!

Excellent pics Ketan and detailed writing... keep it going

Thanks!!

nice video there. you have made the the mount very smart and good video

wow....so little luggage...

Om you remember how much MG & me were loaded up & you & anahita travelling together were still with so little lugage

Day 2 Himmatnagar(Gujarat) - Jaipur(Rajasthan)

As mentioned in Day 1 log, we stayed at Hotel Navjivan on 2nd June. Air conditioned room helped us get some good sleep and rest and we woke up with fresh minds on 3rd June. Bags and everything was already packed the night before. It didn't take us long to get ready and go down stairs to load the luggage on bikes.




Then we had a quick breakfast at the restaurant and got our water bottles filled. We knew we had a hot journey ahead and therefore I got the Glocon-D mixture ready before leaving. Our bikes needed fuel after previous day's 600+ Km ride. So we went to the BP pump and tanked up bikes before hitting NH8. The first few hours in the morning felt nice as everything was perfect. Not so hot weather conditions, super smooth roads and almost negligible traffic. That helped us cover good distance and we were closing on to Udaipur. There's a small ghat like section before Udaipur with some nice curves and we thoroughly enjoyed riding our bikes in that part of NH8.

We stopped for some photos at this entrance which welcomed us to Rajasthan - the land of Kings!












We continued the ride after re hydrating ourselves totally unaware that a dirty traffic jam was waiting for us before Udaipur on a 2 lane highway. As we inched closer to Udaipur, the smooth 4 lane highway suddenly disappeared and we were riding on a not so good 2 lane highway. Not a big problem as long as the road is traffic free and thus safe. But soon we found ourselves stuck in an at least 4 Km long traffic jam. We got off the road and started using the border of the road to move ahead. Riding over stones, rocks and what not we tried to skip as much traffic as possible. Rude and idiotic local two wheel riders made our life even tougher by riding in wrong direction and turning without any signal at all. One of them almost crashed on to me as he entered our lane through two parked trucks. While negotiating through narrow gaps in between two parked trucks we asked people about the reason behind that traffic jam but no one knew. After quite a struggle we reached a point from where we could see open road ahead. There was an Octroi/check point or something which had caused the long traffic jam. It was such a relief to get out of that jam and we finally got to open the throttle.

It wasn't actually our lunch time but we decided to have a an early lunch at Udaipur. It wasn't proper Udaipur city as such but somewhere in Udaipur on NH8. Found this restaurant on an inner road off NH8. We were taken to a comfortable room which had carpeted floor, pillows and a marble center table.

The restaurant


The food


Funny part was we didn't check the menu card for food rates before ordering the food. When we finally got the bill, Mandar asked for Menu card and here's his reaction




As we started gearing up, the guy at the hotel inquired about our day's destination. By that time we had no doubt in our mind cause we thought we are supposed to follow NH8 all the way till Jaipur. But that guy told us to take the left turn at next cross road and that'll by-pass a lot of bad roads and traffic jams. We were quite unsure about it but decided to give it a shot as we already had to find our way through an ugly traffic jam. We followed the road suggested by hotel boy and found ourselves on NH76 instead of NH8. That created a bit of doubt and confusion amongst us but we saw Jaipur milestones and signboards on the way which kept us going. The road as told by the boy was absolutely fantastic - smooth and traffic free. In fact, at times we could not see a single vehicle for 20 odd minutes. Slowly it became boring, riding on that arrow straight road without any action. Heat also started to trouble us as sun moved from east to west. Water breaks increased and soon it became unbearably hot and boring. Our water stock quickly got over and we stopped at a dhaba kinda restaurant to buy more water.


Yes, everyone was feeling heat and needed re hydration...






Later NH76 goes on towards Kota and we were on NH79 towards Jaipur. Roads are just too good but super boring as there's hardly anything to see around and it's arrow straight.


We saw plenty of such trucks and tractors on our way. I was speechless upon seeing these... well I don't know what to call it...




Sometime later, stopped for another water break opposite this weird looking mountain. Actually photograph isn't doing justice to it's beauty but in reality it looked totally weird.


Trust me guys, it was extremely boring riding on these National highways and by early evening we were back on NH8, the Ajmer-Jaipur highway.


Vehicular traffic increased as we moved closer to Jaipur. We were totally tired due to dehydration and mindfu**ed due to boring highway riding. Finding a good accommodation in Jaipur was the next big task for us. We were expecting hotels right next to NH8 like Himmatnagar but here it was different. We were asked to leave NH8 and enter the city for accommodation when inquired with the locals. Roads were a bit confusing and we had hard time finding our way through city traffic. To add to the frustration we were stuck at a rail road crossing and once the gates opened, local bikers literally tore our bags apart by brushing and rubbing their bikes to them. We could not find good accommodation for quite some time as some hotels were too expensive and some were of pathetic quality and unsafe parking. It was dark and only 3 near by hotels were left to checked out. Fortunately we managed to negotiate an AC room for Rs. 500 at one of those hotels.

Our riding gear, 'Army pants', luggage and 'MH' registered number plates attracted a lot of attention of locals and it almost landed us in deep trouble. We checked in at the hotel but this time the boy at the hotel forgot to take any ID proof xeroxes. Even we did not bother to ask him why didn't want any ID proofs. Since we were too tired all we wanted was to get fresh and relax. So we rushed to our rooms and got fresh. Since the hotel didn't have it's own restaurant we left the hotel after sometime and started walking on Jaipur streets looking for food options. Came across this dhaba where we had a good dinner.


While paying our bill we had a good chat with the restaurant owner about our ride. He was surprised to know we had come on motorcycles all the way from Mumbai. He also suggested us an alternate route to Amritsar than what we had planned. As we walked back to our hotel, the boy and watchman stopped us and gave us the most unexpected bad news. "Saab, aap ko Police ne thaane bulaya hai". I was like..WTF ?!? When asked why he said they have no idea but you must go to the police station. There wasn't anything wrong to go and visit the police station as we had not done anything wrong but then I sensed something unwanted. Even the police station wasn't near by. It was few kms away and on a confusing road. I refused to go to the police station and asked him for the reason. He said, "pata nahi.. aap ka ID proof bhi bahi tha toh shayad bulaya hoga. Police ne unka number bhi choda hai. Call kijiye unhe." I told him, if you wanted ID proofs then you should have asked for it. We'll give you the ID proof xerox right away but we aren't going to police station at that hour. I said, hume number do, hum phone pe baat karenge. We then gave him our ID proof xeroxes and even tried calling on the number. But the line was busy.

I was a bit tensed after that event and could not sleep properly thinking what if police comes and troubles us late in the night. We had another long day on 4th June and a sleepless night was the last thing we needed. But nothing of that sort happened. Before going to bed we discussed about next day's ride and the new route suggested by restaurant owner. Mandar called up Abhilabh who used Google maps and helped us clear some doubts. After a long discussion we decided to chuck the confusion and to stick to our original plan.

Day 3.... Jaipur - Amritsar. One of the longest and most tiring days of the journey.

Cool,

Nice write up,

Keep posting brother, i mean rest of the log.

bootiful ..!!
cops are still searching.. am sure they might catch other riders having MH no. plate if they see around
keep going man..!!

Haha, hopefully they don't trouble anyone else. I guess they wanted the ID proofs and that's why they didn't bother us after getting it. But yes, like I said, army pants, luggage, riding gears and MH number plates troubled us in only two places - Jaipur and at Agra in UP.

it's awesome... speechless... you guys rocks... really want to join you someday... for a long tour....

Thanks and congrats in advance, for your CBR

Beautiful, Detailed Log..
congrats on the completion..

Great write-up Ketan I totally enjoyed reading it....wonderful log and good pics.... and yes as Knighty said.... cops would be looking around for MH number bikes, and good decision made not to go to police station at night. Sometimes these hotel guys think since these guys are coming by bike so must be having good amount of money..... though I am eager to know about your Agra incidence... now waiting for Jaipur to Amritsar brother

Oh I can never forget that. I have never seen a R15 loaded with so much luggage.

I can't imagine what will you do when you have a pillion along...