Travelogue approved

waiting for further details and pics...

helen is ur bike/wife/GF...?

sirf teaser se kam nahi chalega,keep the trip log coming.

Can't see the photographs... Is that name inspired by the Troy one, or the "Piyaa tuu" one

Chapter 1 : The Pre-Ride

With me, usualy, there is a long planning before the ride, the route map, where we'd stay the night, packing, tools, money for expenses, that kinda stuff. I had done the same on the last two excursions, infact, the plan for my 2nd tour was so extensive that it was started 3 months before the actual ride. But this time around, there was no plan, the was no route map, no packing, zilch tools, no money planning either (had to use the ATM card), we just wanted to ride, to feel the buzz in the air when you know the next few days will be memorable.

The seed of this tour was planted by none other than Shivanshu Bhaiyya. It was on a late, cold evening at the xbhp dhaba, when I asked Shivi bhai about where I could head for 3-4 days tour. He said that since I had been to Uttarakhand twice already, it was time I gave the mighty Himachal a go. That day he had unknowningly set ablaze a fire inside me. Since that day, I've been itching for this moment. The moment when I could finally see for myself, why the state of Himachal Pradesh have such devoted followers that even though they've been through those roads many times; they've seen, experienced, felt, enjoyed it's beauty more times than they can remember, still they keep going back on the same roads, through the same villages and cities, to see the same places. The bar had been set very high in my mind, and it was finally time to see what Himachal had to offer. I was finally ready.

Arjun called me at about 1800hours on the 16th to ask if I would be interested to ride to Himachal. Obviously my answer was yes, followed by a quick question: "WHEN?". When Arjun told me that we were to leave in a few hours, I won't lie, I did feel a little bit of hesitation. I mean, we weren't talking about a highway blast to Murthal for some paranthas, this was going to be a 3-4 day trip. I had exams coming in less than 2 months. I hadn't talked to my mother about it. I was not sure if I could make it. I told him that I'll call him back. After I put the phone down, I realised everything that you've just read in the paragraph above, I knew that this trip wasn't with my usual planning, but I also knew that I'd really regret not going. Another thing that made me say yes was that I've known Arjun for a long time now. I've ridden with him both in sunlight and in the dark, we both know each other's riding style and were comfortable with each other. Hence I called back Arjun to let him know that I was in.

And so it began.

Helen is my bike man, I'm not anywhere close to taking my gf on a trip.

Thanks for reading.

Log traffic jam mein fans gya tha dost, bas abhi pahuncha hai.

Don't worry, The photographs will come as the log progresses. Helen is named after Helen of troy, no disrespect to Helen the actress.

Chapter 2 : The Dark freeway

It was around 2300hours on the 16 of March when I reached our meeting point and saw Arjun and his friend waiting for me. Yes there was his friend too who was going with us. I did kinda fail to mention him earlier, sorry for that. Anyways, his name is Saji and he was going to be riding primarily as a pillion with Arjun. A couple of smokes later, we were rolling on the highway.

The beginning moments of any ride are very special, just like with a relationship. The excitement is enormous and this was a ride I've been waiting to be on for a while now so factor in that too. I was so excited that I found myself smiling for no reason more times than I could count. Our first halt was 'planned' to be at Panipat, which is a good 90 KMs away. The highway was dark, well it was midnight now, I wasn't expecting anything else. Rows of road lights were stacked on each side of the highway for the first kilometer or maybe even less. After that, we were at the mercy of our headlights. I don't know why it always happens with me, but the last time too I saw some bad shit right at the start of the tour and I wasn't very lucky this time either. I was doing about 90 kmph when a drunk man on a bicycle tried to cross the highway. I was going too fast to come to a halt completely but I tried to shed some speed. Luckily that guy too stopped pedaling when he saw that he'd hit me. After I crossed him, I had half a mind to stop him and call the highway patrol but he had gone into the fields by then and Arjun wasn't in sight so I decided to continue. It was a close call and my speed dropped from 100-110 to about 80kmph.

I caught up with Arjun a few minutes later and told him what had almost happened. Now both our cruising speed dropped to 80. A little while later we reached Murthal. For those who haven't been through Delhi, Murthal is about 40kms from Delhi and is famous for it's dhabas which serve some very delicious food. I wasn't in favour of stopping as we had 'planned' our first halt at Panipat but this whole trip has been one where everything that happens is anything but what the plan is. So we stopped, we ate till we could eat no more and then we left.

The highway becomes a dangerous place at night, it's much more dangerous when your stomach is full to the brim and you're feeling sleepy. We all tried to go on but as soon as my eyelids began to feel heavy, I signaled Arjun to stop. This was at about 0100hours on Day 2. Some pics:







A couple of smokes later, we started again. I still was feeling sleepy and Saji wanted to ride so I became the pillion. An hour and a half passed like 10 minutes and we were around panchkula when we took yet another break. Hills were gonna start soon and I was looking forward to it. But it was still dark and we had no intentions of scaling mountains with low visibility so we took it slow from here on. Also, I was back with helen now.

You guys are probably getting bored with my banter so I'll post some pictures now.

The first rays of the day and we were at a bridge. I love bridges, don't know why but I do. Here are some pics of the beginning of Day 2.







We started rolling forward and after 30 minutes stopped for breakfast at some Dhaba along the way.



Now it was time for some hill riding. Finally we were going to do something fun. The roads were not in a good condition and there was no REAL speed being put through the corners but we still enjoyed it a lot. Some pictures :









Even though the roads were not good, we were still enjoying the ride. Infact we were enjoying it so much that we forgot to take any pics for the next 6 hours. Oops...

This is the first waterfall I came across. It was around 1400hours in the afternoon.









Looking back at things, these pics were a bad idea. Why, you ask? Read on. When I stopped for these pics, Arjun and Saji were already ahead of me. I figured they won't get that far away but I didn't realised I spent about 10 minutes here. ANd that is a lot of time for them to get some distance between us. When I realised how late I was, I saddled up and rode like a maniac in order to get to them. During this period, I took a wrong turn and didn't figure out till I had ridden a good 30 kms that I was going in the wrong direction. The road I took was going back to Delhi. Anyhow, I called Arjun and told him to wait for me at Bhunter. Then took a U-turn and rode as fast as I could.

Meanwhile Arjun and Saji, after waiting for an hour and a half decided to continue towards Kasol, our destination for the day. They left me a message and when I got to Bhunter, I finally read the message. I was about half an hour late. Anyways, I asked a few locals about the direction and rode on. I reached Kasol at around 1700hours and found Arjun and Saji sitting on the side of the road. Finally relieved to be back with my friends, we continued towards Kasol which was a mere 10 kms away.

We had reached Kasol when there was still some sunlight left so we decided to make good use of it. We checked into a hotel, parked our bikes, threw our luggage on the beds and went out to check out the town. Of all the Hill Stations I've been to, I liked Kasol the best. It doesn't have the typical hustle bustle of Manali or Mussoorie, nor is it dull like Lansdowne. We had some food as we had skipped lunch and then went back to the room. Sleep came withing seconds of hitting the bed and Day 2 came to an end.