Topic Approved

Wow Himalayas!!! great man....

I was just trying to imagine a Campfire and a tent beside those bikes....

Nice,Cant wait for the details

Cheers
Biru

nice trip man...lets the pics and rest of details flow in...

Seems to be a wonderful ride. Pour some pics Sir!


Regards,
Nagesh

great teaser shot!!

but now pour the full T'log bro!

bring it on..wr's the rest of the pics ??

The Journey

At the outset, I am sorry for the delay... I was having a super busy time at this time of the year in college! But better late than never!

Prologue
June 2010, Ladakh. I almost didn’t know how to ride a bike. It was the penultimate day of our month long stay in Ladakh. I and my friend wanted to hire a bike, and spend the day riding. By riding, I had meant sitting pillion. By a twist of fate, my friend misunderstood, and ended up hiring two bikes, one for each of us. This simple misunderstanding changed my life. Forever.

I became a biker.




April 2012
A few months before I am due to leave the country, some friends convinced me to do one last road trip. Being an avid biker, it wasn’t very difficult to convince me. The problem was taking time out from our busy college schedules. Relief came in the form of a four day holiday in the firs week of April. We decided to ‘do’ Kolkata-Gangtok-Kolkata in those four days. The plan was that four of us will go on two bikes, a Pulsar 150 and a Fazer.

The evening before the D-day, it started raining. Raining will be an understatement, it was a mighty thunderstorm. I checked up the weather forecasts for the next few days, it was not too assuring. However, the anticipation of bad weather couldn’t deter us, and early next morning we set out for our destination.

Day1
The plan was to start by 4:00 am, but as usual we faced the early morning woes. We ended up starting at 5, and we hit the NH-34. Riding in the early morning chill was fun, and thankfully, the rains didn’t bother us. About 30 km on the highway, I faced my first puncture scare, when I felt the bike wobble a bit. But my fear was unfounded. We continued on the pot-holed NH-34, and after Ranaghat, the road conditions improved a bit.

We had our breakfast at a dhaba just outside Behrampore. One thing we realized on this trip is that none of these dhabas have any fixed rate, everything is decided based on the vehicle you arrive in. After a hearty breakfast of AlooParathas, we continued on our way. After Behrampore, the road conditions became worse, the pillion started suffering with each bump and pothole!

Our woes started on day 1 with the first puncture on the rear tyre of the Fazer. It was an old puncture, which started to leak. To our dismay, we realized that we had forgotten our tubeless kit, and the highway tyre shops didn’t have any tubeless puncture repairing equipment. He did a makeshift job with some sort of glue and pieces of rubber, which lasted for precisely 2 kilometers. At the next tyre shop, it was again repaired from inside. Again, the repair didn’t hold. At Malda, we decided to put a tube inside. After this, we started to roll, but soon the Fazer started to wobble. The tyre had developed a huge crack, and the inner layer was protruding out! It was decided that two of us would take the Fazer back to Malda, some 25 kms behind us. The trip to Malda to get a new tyre would be etched in our minds forever… Murphy’s law was followed to the hilt, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong!
Due to severe thunderstorms in the evening, we had to stay that night at a small town called Gazole, some 230 kms from our target for the day!

Day 1 pics:

Day - 2

Day-2
We started as early as possible, and hit the road towards Dalkhola. This stretch of road is being four-laned, so it was full of construction vehicles. At stretches, the right side of the road is open to traffic, thus we had the divider on our left side. Now if an oncoming vehicle was overtaking another, and was speeding towards us, we had no space to get our bikes off the road. Twice I had scary situations, where the truck or the bus nearly nicked us. We reached Dalkhola, and took the four lane NH-32 for Siliguri. After the horrible NH-34, it was bliss! Splotch

I was shit scared after hearing about rock falls! I was of the opinion to go back, while my friends insisted that we go on! I was voted out 3 to 1, and thus we continued on our way, once the rains subsided. Soon the sun came up, and the beautiful vista all around us wiped away all fears! It was a bit tricky riding in the mountains after heavy rains, with small streams flowing over the roads, rocks and debris lying around, and the ubiquitous mud and the slush. We reached Gangtok by early evening, and we had ecstatic to have reached our destination! We spent the evening strolling around M.G Marg. Our day ended with a hearty dinner at a nice restaurant on M.G. marg.

Pics of Day -3

Siliguri - so close!




and.. Welcome to Sikkim!!!




How could we miss the landslides after the ominous prediction?

Great going! Some questions:
> Can't Kolkata to Siliguri be done in a day (early morning to evening)? ; doing a very tight schedule ride next month, need to know!
> Heard other state vehicles are not allowed in Sikkim, any provision done now?

Day 3 and 4

Day 3Day 4

Hi.. Yes, its absolutely possible! We did siliguri to Kolkata in the same day on our return journey. Just start early to avoid as much of sun as possible! Regarding vehicles from other states, I don't know of any such rules. We were not even stopped once in our entire journey.

One hell of a travelogue bro .. enjoyed reading every part of it.. the rains the rock slides and specially the puncture and the tyre replacement .

Punctures are my biggest nightmare too and sometimes I feel like they are chasing me .. Almost every 50-60 kms I get a feel that I have flat tyre.. Stop the bike check the tyre curse myself for illusions and move on