Himalayan odyssey 2008

“Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I- I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference”

Himalayan odyssey was my dream, our dream. It happens once in year, conducted by Royal Enfield for the bullet enthusiasts. And royal Enfield call it as “an ultimate battle between the man and machine”. I thought these words were only marketing strategy until I experienced it. It was tougher than I expected, the ultimate head rush. Now let me steal and modify couple of sentences from Che Guevara’s “Motorcycle diaries” for a fine introduction,

In June 2008, two young men from Bangalore set out to explore Himalayas on their “Royal Enfield’s”, the powerful: 350cc Classic and 535cc Lightening. And these guy’s plan was to join their fellow riders from Delhi. And they were Nish and I.

Day1

Delhi

27-June-2008

Doom Day: Starting of odyssey

We met our fellow riders from International youth center, Chanakyapuri. It was the briefing day. I could see participants from across the country. 50 riders, 12 crews - crews include medical staffs, mechanics and the organizers - Also there were couple of media personals who were travelling with us. Everyone introduced to each other and sachin briefed about the trip.

Day2

Delhi

28-June-2008

Flag of from India gate –Start of a great journey from a great place.

Delhi – Chandigarh

Distance: 240kms

Altitude: 365 meters

The very first day of the ride, everyone rode as if all the blood were flowing to their right wrist. All were testing their bikes, more specifically their speedometers. Especially Nish, he rode as if, he wants to set fire on the road. I never saw him until we met in chandigarh. He was waiting for me with a smile on his face. This chap was/is my only concern.

Day3
Chandigargh

9-June-2008

Ride to mountains

Chandigarh – manali

Distance: 320kms

Altitude: 2050 meters

The only day in odyssey in which I was more keen on photography than riding. Manali was beautiful, but we could come across more beautiful places than this during our journey. I felt Manali is more commercialised.

Day4

Manali

30-June-2008

First glimpse of snow filled mountains

Manali – keylong
Distance: 115kms
Altitude: 3350 meters

Roads were becoming tougher and tougher. We had to cross couple of steepy mud roads which were slippery and were a warning bell for all the riders. It was just the alarm for the coming days. I could see soldiers helping out riders to cross the muddy roads. Thanks to this place that made me to realize the power of my 535cc lightning for the first time when other bikers were struggling to cross the slippery muddy roads. My bike was so powerful that it was just taking me thru these rough patches.

I loved it.

And the military trucks were the other threat for the riders. For the first time in my life I was riding thru the snow filled mountains. It was heaven. Truly heaven.

Day5

Keylong

1-july-2008

Gateway to Himalayas

Keylong – sarchu

Distance: 109kms

Altitude: 4253 meters

Ride was tough and more interestingly today’s stay was on tent. It was a luxury in middle of no where. And the sad news was that Nish’s bike started giving problem. We have to wait for 2 more days to reach Leh for bike service. Also he badly hit by altitude sickness. Worst day for Nish.

Day6
Sarchu

2-July-2008

When I got up this morning I had symptoms of altitude sickness - severe headache and breathing trouble. Doctor gave me some medicines for altitude sickness and also boosted my morale. And I’ve decided to ride.

Sarchu – Rumste

Distance: 173 kms

Altitude: 4325 meters

Sadly I could not complete today’s ride because of headache. I had to stop ride at half way when we were at the regrouping point – Pang. Oh boy, I swear, it was the worst headache ever had in my life. Nish rode the lightning while I was coming on the support vehicle.

Day7

Rumste

3-jul-2008

“If there is heaven on earth, it is here – Jammu Kashmir”

Rumste – leh

Distance: 78kms

Altitude: 3506 meters

It’s true. I forgot about my last day’s physical issues and all set to hit road again. The charm of Kashmir is beyond words. Today nish was my pillion and we were heading to Leh- Laddakh.

The shortest ride.

Day8
Leh

4-jul-2008

Into the rooftop of the world.

Today is the rest day. Riders got the opportunity to service and tune their machines. Some went to visit budhist monasteries in and around Leh. While Nish and I preferred to walk around the ancient Leh market, visited the 17th century Leh palace. Most importantly I got my bike serviced and also tried traditional Tibetan cuisines.

Leh may be the only place in India where foreigners outnumber nationals. And the season starts from the month of May to august. And interestingly a survey says that Leh is one of the 100 places you must visit before you die.

Day9
Khardung-La

5-july-2008

Highest motorable road in the world - 5580meters.

Leh - Khardung-La – Leh

Distance: 78kms

Altitude: 5580 meters

All riders had a common goal. Ride thru the highest motorable road and it happened today. That made me to feel great. Wow!!

Now we are riding back home!!

Day10

Leh

6-July-2008

Leh-Tso-Kar

Distance: 130kms

Altitude: 4485 meters

One frame - 50 riders - Group photo

Day11

Tso-Kar

7-july-2008

Tso-Kar to Keylong

Distance : 223kms

long waiting in rain on frozen mountain for bike repair

Day12

keylong

8-July-2008

keylong-kaza

Distance: 107kms

Altitude: 3600 meters

The toughest ride I ever had in my life

The toughest ride I ever had in my life. I am really lucky to survive this day without any damage to my machine and myself. This ride had everything. Rough patches, stream crossing, slippery muddy roads and even rolling stones. The terrain was completely different than the other areas we rode on. It had very loose soil and rolling stones were always a threat to the riders, the area had zero vegetation and all I could see was big rocks. Interestingly there was no road at all and this is the only day we rode with our headlights on. It took 14hours to cover just 107kms!!!

Day13

Kaza

9-july-2008

Kaza-Kalpa

Distance: 217kms

Altitude: 2900 meters

Day14

Kalpa

10-July-2008

Apple trees

Kalpa - Rampur
Distance: 115kms
Altitude: 1005meters

Ride thru the himachal villages were amazing. The scenic beauty were just beyond the words. Long strech of roads were thru the apple farms in the valley and atleast for sometime I was interested in scenic beauty than riding.

Day15

Rampur

11-Jul-2008

Rampur - Solan (via Shimla)

Distance: 165kms

Altitude: 1467meters

Picnic has begun again. I felt just "wow!!" riding thru the best hill station in the country - Shimla. Pine trees and thick fog were adding excitement to the ride. Excitement did not last long. A bad news was awaiting for us. One of our fellow rider met with an accident fortunately survived without any injury.

Day16

Solan

12-July-2008

Solan - Delhi

Distance: 280kms

Altitude: -

The last day of odyssey. I was feeling sad when I got up this morning. Odyssey was getting over and we all will apart from Delhi. But we were riding back home and that brings back the excitement!!

Bad day, very bad day. Accident again. This time it was more serious than that of the previous ones. It was a head on collision with a truck and we have to take Jamshed to the emergency. I just couldn't do anything other than praying for him. Only the skelton of his bike were remining in the spot. We all crossed our fingers for good news. And it came in no time. Jamshed is fine. Oh boy!!

We got instruction to move on and this time Nish came in as my pillion. That gave me a lot of ease while riding back. It was so nice to share the happiness after fulfilling our dream.

A thought came in my mind when we were riding back..It was the mailing signatute of one of the rider in odyssey and which was,

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.Discover."

Into the ruins of an ancient kingdom: Hampi

Hampi is a symbol of history, art, architectural excellence and the hard work of those talented workers who constructed this beautiful capital city of vijayanagara in 14th century. For me Hampi is a poem made with big black rocks. She is still standing tall even after destruction. I am just wondering how she would have been in her prime time and also how could people be so ruthless to destruct this amazing piece of art just for conquering a small portion of land. It’s very sad!!

A visit to Hampi was not in my wildest dream until I discuss it with nish on 6th may.

6/may/2008 – 8:00am:

Bangalore: When I woke up this morning I felt like something was missing in my life. But I never had any clue about what was missing until I opened a mail from my dear mate – Nish. It was surprising to hear that he too was missing something in his life. But we never knew what it was. So we have decided to meet after the office hours for finding out the “missing stuff”

10:30pm: Discussions started on a dining table of a hotel @ koramangala in the night.

Torture the reality until it confesses the truth – And the truth is we are “born to be wild”. And the wilderness was missing in our life from couple of months.

We have decided what we need while having dinner. We need to travel to a place where there is peace. We have decided the place, how to go, when to go etc. And we were ready for the new journey. Our journey starts right now, right here from this dining table. And the destination would be the capital of ancient kingdom “Vijayanagara” – Hampi.

Bangalore – Hospet - Hampi

11:30 pm: We were at Majestic bus stand wearing the same dress what we wore to office. No extra pair of dresses, no mobile chargers, no proper information about the destination. Adding to the wilderness (wilderness for us and may be foolishness for others) of the situations, our phone batteries were getting empty. I felt good for it. No connectivity to the external world. I whispered: “Break free brother!!!” Here we are, starting our new journey. We boarded bus to Hospet from Majestic bus stand @ 11:45pm. 7 hours journey. Distance: 350 kms. It was a Rajahamsa bus and was almost empty as it was a weekday. Bus started moving slowly, and my inner being was screaming. I hope so does Nish’s!! I looked at him and smiled.

7/may/2008 - 7:30am:

Hospet: We reached Hospet by 7:30am and we could find a decent hotel (Hotel Malligi) without much hustle. It was clean and neatly maintained. We had yummy breakfast. It was not in my wildest dream that I would be in this place on a working day!! Hampi is 13kms away from this town. We boarded a local bus to Hampi which took around 30 mins to reach the capital.

As soon as we step into Humpi, we could see a marriage procession passing thru and it was a pleasure to watch. wow!!

a marriage procession

into the entrance of ruined kingdom

a pond

Here comes the next challenge, Hampi is geographically distributed across 33kms. So moving around places to places will be almost impossible without a vehicle under the buring sun. The options infront of us were to join the trips provided by the KSTDC, or to hire a local guide. Both options were not okay for us beacuse the fun is limited in the guided tours. We have decided to move around of our own with my outlook traveller guide. We could rent our Inidan version of Harley. Accoring to nish, we should have the feel of the ride and we hired two bikes!!

a break after riding Indian - harley :)

And

"we rode, we rode and we rode

we rode like we have never ridden

punishing our body up and down every hill we could find"

Ride gave us an added excitement to the Hampi visit. Here we are, exploring new place by our own, without help from a local guide, or without using a guided tour. But I strongly recommend to opt for a guided tour when you visit this place for the first time.. Rent a bike only if you are crazy like us!!

But we explored the places the way in which we want, which a guide may not have taken us to. Here is some snaps,

These are the few precious snaps we could click before our camera battery goes down. These photos do not really speak about beauty of Hampi. We could really did not capture the amazing moments in Nish's SLR. But we have decided that we will come back to this place with our dear mates (with crazy devils).

To explore Hampi in its maximum,

to find the soul of the kingdom and

to read the poem written in black stones!!