Day 1 ----------------------Delhi to Chandigarh
The excitement of a big long adventurous trip kept me awake almost the whole of Friday(29th June) night.
Random imaginations of Ladakh and bikes and sometimes the risks involved. I kept thinking i
need to sleep but somehow could not. Finally fatigue overcame all the random thoughts and
i fell asleep by 4AM and by 415AM the alarm rings :-). Couple of snoozes and i was up.
Shashi had already given a missed call. I was ready by 445 and Shashi gets the cab after
10 more minutes. The journey before the big journey had started. We picked up Sandy and Manish
on the way. Thanks to Manish's and Sandy's skills we started from their homes only after 6AM.
Finally we reach Bengalooru international airport by 7AM. Thanks to Shashi's and my ignorance
we did not have a print out of our flight ticket :-P. We waited for Balu and Haseeb who carried
the print out of everyone's tickets. While waiting we had our breakfast.
The first delay in our mega trip started from day 1. Sandy's flight was on
time but for some reason our flight was delayed almost by 45 minutes. The sleeplessness
was not only my syndrome it was a common problem. We all realized that none of us had slept
properly. I caught some sleep in the flight. Finally Mr.Pilot announced we are descending
to IndiraGandhi International Airport. The first nightmare came true when Mr.Pilot announced 42 degrees
outside. Delhi indeed gave us a very warm welcome :-). So warm we were all sweaty and wet!
Sandy and his group had already reached the railway station and had struck a deal
with the railways workers to pull out all 5 of our parceled bikes for 2k. Meanwhile Ajit and
Bilal hired a Bullet 350 and a thunderbird respectively. The railways parcel division for some
reason is still in the 1950 mode. Manual ledger entry for each small parcel and 2 counters
for the whole of New Delhi railway station. For all those who want to try this stunt allocate
at least half a day just for this in your itinerary. We had to wait for almost 2-3 hours in long
queues after paying 2K for pulling out the bikes "safely". We did not mind this. We were here
for an adventure and this for sure was a good start. I searched for the nearest eating joint.
To my luck i found one very close to the parcel center. Ginger hotel. Best thing was "AC" :-D.
Ok jokes apart good filling food and by 5 o clock we started after initial posing and clicks.
We headed towards Chandigarh amidst a horrible evening Delhi traffic asking the route towards
Chandigarh at least 10 times. Finally we hit the GT Karnal road. Haseeb somehow missed one road
and ended up rounding New Delhi railway station again :-P. We waited for him in the outskirts
and kept posing. Finally Haseeb joined and we started.
Good flat roads. Easily touched 80kmph and sustained it for a long time. So
the first day ride turned out to be a cake walk as we ripped past Karnal and then Ambala.
I had heard stories about tasty Dhabas between Ambala and Chandigarh. We stopped in one
such Dhaba. The food was decent i must say. This is where we met one more biker's gang
which happened to be our co-gang which gave outstanding support through out the trip.
Mr.Manthan Adiga's gang :-). We finished dinner and set off to finish the remaining
small part for day 1. We reached Chandigarh by midnight. I must say awesome planned city.
After some searching we finally gave up and asked a Auto Rikshaw who took us to
a "sastha" but not so "sundar" lodge. Hell yeah! We only had to sleep somehow for 6 hours
or so. So all slept off by around 2 AM in Chandigarh. That's it for Day 1 :-).
The excitement of a big long adventurous trip kept me awake almost the whole of Friday(29th June) night.
Random imaginations of Ladakh and bikes and sometimes the risks involved. I kept thinking i
need to sleep but somehow could not. Finally fatigue overcame all the random thoughts and
i fell asleep by 4AM and by 415AM the alarm rings :-). Couple of snoozes and i was up.
Shashi had already given a missed call. I was ready by 445 and Shashi gets the cab after
10 more minutes. The journey before the big journey had started. We picked up Sandy and Manish
on the way. Thanks to Manish's and Sandy's skills we started from their homes only after 6AM.
Finally we reach Bengalooru international airport by 7AM. Thanks to Shashi's and my ignorance
we did not have a print out of our flight ticket :-P. We waited for Balu and Haseeb who carried
the print out of everyone's tickets. While waiting we had our breakfast.
The first delay in our mega trip started from day 1. Sandy's flight was on
time but for some reason our flight was delayed almost by 45 minutes. The sleeplessness
was not only my syndrome it was a common problem. We all realized that none of us had slept
properly. I caught some sleep in the flight. Finally Mr.Pilot announced we are descending
to IndiraGandhi International Airport. The first nightmare came true when Mr.Pilot announced 42 degrees
outside. Delhi indeed gave us a very warm welcome :-). So warm we were all sweaty and wet!
Sandy and his group had already reached the railway station and had struck a deal
with the railways workers to pull out all 5 of our parceled bikes for 2k. Meanwhile Ajit and
Bilal hired a Bullet 350 and a thunderbird respectively. The railways parcel division for some
reason is still in the 1950 mode. Manual ledger entry for each small parcel and 2 counters
for the whole of New Delhi railway station. For all those who want to try this stunt allocate
at least half a day just for this in your itinerary. We had to wait for almost 2-3 hours in long
queues after paying 2K for pulling out the bikes "safely". We did not mind this. We were here
for an adventure and this for sure was a good start. I searched for the nearest eating joint.
To my luck i found one very close to the parcel center. Ginger hotel. Best thing was "AC" :-D.
Ok jokes apart good filling food and by 5 o clock we started after initial posing and clicks.
We headed towards Chandigarh amidst a horrible evening Delhi traffic asking the route towards
Chandigarh at least 10 times. Finally we hit the GT Karnal road. Haseeb somehow missed one road
and ended up rounding New Delhi railway station again :-P. We waited for him in the outskirts
and kept posing. Finally Haseeb joined and we started.
Good flat roads. Easily touched 80kmph and sustained it for a long time. So
the first day ride turned out to be a cake walk as we ripped past Karnal and then Ambala.
I had heard stories about tasty Dhabas between Ambala and Chandigarh. We stopped in one
such Dhaba. The food was decent i must say. This is where we met one more biker's gang
which happened to be our co-gang which gave outstanding support through out the trip.
Mr.Manthan Adiga's gang :-). We finished dinner and set off to finish the remaining
small part for day 1. We reached Chandigarh by midnight. I must say awesome planned city.
After some searching we finally gave up and asked a Auto Rikshaw who took us to
a "sastha" but not so "sundar" lodge. Hell yeah! We only had to sleep somehow for 6 hours
or so. So all slept off by around 2 AM in Chandigarh. That's it for Day 1 :-).
