the total journey and Mumbai to Delhi (Detailed)

The Journey
Date Start Finish Distance (Appx.) Road Quality Night stay @
Thursday, June 18, 2009 Mumbai Udaipur 770 Good Udaipur
Friday, June 19, 2009 Udaipur Udaipur 40 Good Udaipur
Saturday, June 20, 2009 Udaipur Delhi 720 Good Delhi
Sunday, June 21, 2009 Delhi Delhi 30 Average Delhi
Monday, June 22, 2009 Delhi Kullu 550 Average Kullu
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 Kullu Manali 45 Good Manali
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 Manali Manali 30 Good Manali
Thursday, June 25, 2009 Manali Baralacha 190 Bad Baralacha
Friday, June 26, 2009 Baralacha Sarchu 30 Average Sarchu
Saturday, June 27, 2009 Sarchu Pang 80 Bad Pang
Sunday, June 28, 2009 Pang Leh 175 Average Leh
Monday, June 29, 2009 Leh Leh 10 Good Leh
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 Leh Leh 80 Good Leh
Wednesday, July 01, 2009 Leh Leh 140 Good Leh
Thursday, July 02, 2009 Leh Leh 0 Good Leh
Friday, July 03, 2009 Leh Leh 90 Good Leh
Saturday, July 04, 2009 Leh Leh 90 Good Leh
Sunday, July 05, 2009 Leh Leh 10 Good Leh
Monday, July 06, 2009 Leh Hunder 125 Average Hunder
Tuesday, July 07, 2009 Hunder Leh 125 Average Leh
Wednesday, July 08, 2009 Leh Karzok 250 Average Karzok
Thursday, July 09, 2009 Karzok Leh 250 Average Leh
Friday, July 10, 2009 Leh Leh 10 Good Leh
Saturday, July 11, 2009 Leh Spangmik 80 Average Spangmik
Sunday, July 12, 2009 Spangmik Leh 80 Average Leh
Monday, July 13, 2009 Leh Kargil 200 Good Kargil
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 Kargil Sonamarg 150 Average Sonamarg
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 Sonamarg Sonamarg 35 Good Sonamarg
Thursday, July 16, 2009 Sonamarg Srinagar 110 Good Srinagar
Friday, July 17, 2009 Srinagar Srinagar 130 Good Srinagar
Saturday, July 18, 2009 Srinagar Pahalgham 100 Good Pahalgham
Sunday, July 19, 2009 Pahalgham Udhampur 200 Good Udhampur
Monday, July 20, 2009 Udhampur Jammu 100 Good Jammu
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 Jammu Amritsar 300 Good Amritsar
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 Amritsar Bikaner 640 Good Bikaner
Thursday, July 23, 2009 Bikaner ….. 1370 Good Highway
Friday, July 24, 2009 ….. Mumbai Mumbai

A road trip is considered one of the most exciting adventures in terms of the demand it puts on man and machine. I had little idea of what I was getting into save the desire to do some serious long distance biking. I had no plans of where would I head and where would I halt, what would I eat and what route would I take! Just a hope to fulfill a long pent up desire in my heart and a prayer for some avoiding any major mishap I took to the road…
The following is a just a random and eclectic collection of my journey and thoughts along the way. The thoughts expressed are a mix of what happens to a person, what is the reaction to the events impacting one’s life, the mistakes made along the way and above all the changes it leads to in a person’s outlook to life in general and one’s own self in particular.

The Start
They say a good start is half the job done. What is a delayed start then? I desired to start at 5:30 so I would be out of Mumbai by the break of dawn. I desired to make 5:30 as my start but only managed to do it by 6:30. Yet another hour lost to sloth and sleep. The bike was serviced and raring to go save a thirst for some fuel. That done I hit the highway with a very untypical slow speed to adjust to the additional weight laden on my bike and adjusting to the monsoon cross winds. A funny feature considering the fact that monsoons were delayed and I just hoped today would not be the day they would strike with a fury. As a counter to the heat I expected to encounter enroute I was dressed in a pair of cargo shorts and a t-shirt. A rather stupid idea given the fact that 8-10 hours of sun exposure was all my thighs needed to get sun burnt. (Not advised)
I managed to ride Mumbai to Surat non-stop. The experience was good but the heat was a major detriment in not allowing it to be a great experience. The only fatigue causing factor in what was otherwise a good initiation to the trip. The break at Surat doubled up as a “call home and inform I am well business” and also for some liquid replenishment. Food can be a burden while biking over long distances thereby I had decided to stick to “Tang” which would replenish the lost salts while riding and chocolates to provide me with the much needed calories without filling up my stomach the way conventional food would. That done I set off again for Ahmedabad and encountered my 1st sighting of a highway traffic jam, a typical bottleneck at that juncture on account of the sudden narrowing of the road. That apart the ride was steady and uneventful. The thought of halting for the night at Ahmedabad was a lip-smacking idea replete with good food, comfortable stay and adequate rest. But the extremist that I often am it made me realize that a halt at just 600 kms of riding on day 1 would leave me in a precarious position to make it all the way to Delhi(1450 kms) in just 2 riding days. Thus, I decided to labor on in the heat and try to make it to Mt Abu or Abu Road adding another 200 kms to my total ride. At about 2:45 in the afternoon I was on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. A quick inquiry at the fuel station with a trucker revealed that Mt Abu would be a diversion if I desired to go to Delhi. I was advised to go to Udaipur instead and then head to Ajmer, Jaipur and eventually Delhi.
That left me with 240 kms of further riding to Udaipur and not a lot of time to make it if I were to keep my promise of not riding in the dark. At that point in time I did not realize that this would be one among the many promises I would end up breaking along the trip!! I just decided to ride flat out and the beautiful roads only helped me in my natural and instinctive riding style. It was fast and semi furious till about 5:30 pm by when I had managed to cover a major portion of my journey to Udaipur. Save my sun burnt thighs I was quite comfortable and quite enjoying my biking travels. Then as fate often has it, it decided to laugh on me and even test me. Of all places I rode through morning, some of which received as much as 250-350 cms of rainfall annually the rain Gods were kind enough not to pour down on me. But it differed in the hinterland of Rajasthan. It started to rain when I had managed to complete three-fourth of my journey from Ahmedabad to Udaipur. Rains can always pose a problem for biking and more so when it is the 1st sprays from the heavens. They tend to make roads very slippery on account of the dirt and oil spillages they tend to wash away from the roads. To compound matters 1 has to contend with the spray from the tyres of truckers. That led to me slowing down from cruising in mid 80’s to ambling in lower 40’s. And as my luck would have it there wasn’t even a shed where I could stop and wait for the rains to do the same! Finally, after an hour and half of riding in the rains I reached Udaipur, phew! Totally messed up as I was it didn’t surprise me much when I was asked to pay the money for my stay upfront!! How much do looks influence the choices we make and the ones others make about us!!
With a room to rest for the night I headed straight up and took a long shower. That was followed by a quick dinner of some succulent Rajasthani cuisine. That done I was done for the day and decided to get rested. As I lay in bed, reminiscing my last visit to Udaipur circa October 1993, the thought occurred to me to stay a day in Udaipur and visit around or a day. A phone call later, I was good to sleep but for some reason as it has been doing for a very long time it eluded me. Even after 12 hours of biking and 770 kms away from home I was still not able to sleep. My only satisfaction lay in completing half of the journey to Delhi in a day. Finally, I got some sleep closer to 12:00 am and thankfully It was a good sound sleep till 5:00 am and then again I managed to grab a few winks.

I so wanted to sleep till late as I knew my next few days are going to involve some serious travel which was bound to get tiring as the journey progressed forward. But alas, I think there is a nature clock controlled by the almighty which only allows you as much sleep as you have allowed your loved one3s to peacefully sleep. In essence, the quantum of sleep one gets is inversely proportional to the number of sleepless nights one’s actions have given others.
Day 2 was spent in milling around Udaipur and visits to The City Palace and Sajjangadh fort. I had an early start and was out of my room by 8:00 am and inquired with the hotel staff which places I should visit. City Palace topped the chart and how!! I decided to head to City Palace and enroute also visit the latest attraction in Udaipur, a ropeway. The ropeway took us up to a small temple atop a hillock. The ride on the way up was more far more boring than I can best describe so I shall not attempt to do so. What acted as a double whammy was the views it offered of the city. It painted a scary and appalling picture of a city which I remembered as a city of pomp and splendor, the 2nd largest city in the state. The lakes had virtually dried up, the rains from y’day had left no material impact atleast none visible. Also, with all the plastic in varied shapes, sizes and form dumped into the lake it resembled a “nullah” i.e an open flowing sewer the likes of which can be commonly seen in Mumbai and Chennai, or for that matter the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi as can be seen from Rainy well! The corners of the otherwise splendid waterbody looked like a plastic scrap factory, quite a sore sight to see plastic in its non-utilitarian form. A wonder that in a city that takes so much pride in its heritage, little is being done to tackle the issue of “waste disposal and management” . I wondered how much of a role these plastic materials played in lowering the ground water levels which may have lead to a subsequent decline in the water levels in the lakes compounded by failing monsoons. All in all, the ropeway ride left a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. What have we allowed our environment to become! This was something I later encountered in the more pristine surroundings of Ladakh and the verdant regions around the valley of Kashmir. Little wonder plastic usage is the bone of contention between environmentalists and industry.
My next stop was the city palace which has a varied and colorful history just like the land it occupies! It is not exactly an architectural marvel like some of the creations by the Mughals despite the fact it dates back to a similar period. The amazing thing about its construction is the fact that the whole of the Place wasn’t built at a go, rather, it was like a process of accession. The ingenuity of the design lies in terms of making the whole structure look like a single planned monolith as opposed to a series of construction on a core structure over a period of time. Rajasthan has a lot of ‘old world charm’ on offer for people who can appreciate it!
No description of a land can ever be complete without one of the people that inhabit it. That is where Rajasthan takes away the brownie points from so many other places in the Northern part of India. A generic observation of the hoi polloi amazes one with the amount of vivacity the people of this beautiful land exhibit. It wasn’t very difficult to figure out that most of the people in that region did not make a lot for themselves in terms of our commonly defined monetary standards. Their faces and body language however told a remarkably different story. The pride in their manner of walk and the glint in their eye clearly indicated how much they liked how and what they were and more importantly how they felt about themselves.
Another exciting feature about the people was their attitude towards guests. I was having lunch at a restaurant and it being a working day in the middle of the sweltering heat of June, I was the sole customer in the restaurant. It came as a bit of a surprise to me that as many as 3 attendants were at my beck and call. I had a sumptuous meal of traditional Rajastahni food and paid for my food with a Rs 500 note as I wasn’t having any change. They did not have the change as well! The dedication to their work could be seen from the fact that 2 guys went out in the sweltering heat to get the change for my bill. He got back in 5 mins but without any luck. I offered to take him on my bike but was flatly denied. I was told by him it was his job and he would not trouble me for it. He took a cycle, rode out in the boiling heat and rode back in 10 mins with change in tow!
Customer service at its finest, indeed!


I desired to leave Udaipur t next day as early as possible. Hoped for a start by 5:00 a.m, but I guess the food took it toll on my body and made me lazy, not much of a surprise considering how rich the food was indeed! The start happened a little later around 6:30 and I began my journey North-west towards Delhi through the heart of Rajasthan and also the richest part of the state! I don’t know what is it with delays and me but whatever it is, sure is a cosmic connection. I started out by taking the road that led me to NH 8. The road was beautiful and even green in parts until Nathdwara, appx 60 kms from Udaipur. The ghaats along the way also offered some crisp and wide turns to negotiate, mild mannered twisties @ best! That completed the route went on a totally different tangent, with vast and arid route replacing the semi-green hills. The NH8 was a straight run until Ajmer and from there onto Jaipur.
Breakfast was ata one of the many little joints dotted either side along the highway. The journey till Ajmer had a number of small breaks taken every 40-50 kms. The only saving grace along the journey was the constant cross winds which made the ride a lot better than it would have been without them. The biker in me suggested a non-stop ride from Ajmer to Jaipur but the heat wouldn’t have any of it! My initial thought was that the 450 odd kms till Jaipur will be managed in time for lunch. Needless to say yet another hope tasted dust!! The real estate development on the periphery of Ajmer along NH8 was a practical joke, and might I add the size and scale of which I hadn’t thought possible! All said and done I finally managed to make it to Jaipur around 2:30 p.m.
Jaipur to Delhi was done and I was home by 7:30 p.m, and with nothing to do and nowhere to go, I decided to sleep early and visit Jama Masjid and Red Fort the next day. That done I grabbed a quick bite and off to bed. Once again, sleep successfully eluded me and I had a long and meaningful chat with Ravi, one of my best and closest friends.

From irrationally rational to rationally irrational – Prologue

Ladakh

From irrationally rational to rationally irrational – A Road Travelogue

If one is a keen traveler and more so an adventurer at heart with a specific love for two wheels there is nothing that can be as joyous as a cross country ride across India. A country so widely divergent in geographies, cultures, religions and the peoples themselves it is a marvel to ride through just a state in India and see how different things get in how small a span of time and how small a distance! Now just imagine doing that through 10’s of states and Union Territories!!

As is it commonly said about travelling, it is the journey that truly defines the travel and not the destination. The Leh route via Manali is the most adventurous of all biking routes passing through two of the three highest motorable roads enroute! That apart, it is a lesson in geography replete with sky-high mountains, vast and expansive plains, treacherous passes, distended rivers and the works. What makes it all the more remarkable is the stunning and captivating visuals the journey provides. WOW!!

Another surprise the route throws along the way is the element of spirituality that it provides, partly engendering from the sheer magnificence of nature and largely from our own inability to be at home amidst Mother Nature.

There are many ways in which the journey can be undertaken mainly Air and Road. But there is only one way to do it if u are a natural born vagabond. BY 2wheels which are the only known transport to man capable of moving a soul. Someone told me there is a thin line between madness and courage, and i am still undecided as to a 7000+ kms road trip all by one self qualifies on what side?!! I always loved two wheels more than flying or driving or the railroads, but little did i know what am i getting myself into wen i started d trip. All i had was a desire to bike up to Ladakh from Mumbai and return hopefully on d same set of 2 wheels...

My journey spanned 37 days and appx 7300 kms and yet not a single day was planned at the outset. All i intended to do was ride on instinct and ride till i didnt feel lik it any longer. Basically stop to eat when you are hungry and sleep when you tired. Had always desired this though never done it. I was kicked up and just hoped to have an exciting trip.

The journey spanned Maharastra, GUjarat,Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. Riding through rivers,deserts,snow and some spectacular highways.. A ride through heaven and hell!!