Another destination...
Another bike trip...
This time the destination has been choosen by Amal. Few days before he sent a short msg to everybody...and without thinking a lot we decided to go. Then in the meantime the main initiator decided not to go...but as always he joined us in the last moment...eh Amal.
The plan was to leave on Friday morning. Very morning. Somehow from the big group of ppl only me and Tom were ready to leave on Friday but we still wanted to go. Yasmina has jumped on the back sit of Tom. Luckily there was another friend of Tom, Rajat, who first of all knew the way, second of all knew the way and third of all was Indian (could speak Hindi what was very crucial at certain point of our trip). The rest of the team: Javed, Balis and Amal with Serena supposed to join us the next day.
We left Gurgaon at around 5.30 am. We were heading for Delhi to pick up Rajat on the way and then...direction of Lansdowne. The road was pretty good even with a crazy traffic in Meerut (around 80 km after Delhi) we were still in a good moods and happy to be outside of lovely, sorry "lovely" Gurgaon.
Then after another 30 km sth has happened with a bike of Tom (what a surprise). The piston has been changed few days before but the engine started to make a strange noise. Fortunately the bike still could go so we decided to search for a mechanic. It was in the middle of some field, big nowhere...but still there were some ppl we, I mean Rajat could ask about the way. We turned back and we landed in Mawana. Somehow we managed to find Royal Enfield workshop. It turned out we have to stay there for some time as the oil was licking and the engine was making a strange noise and etc (I have no idea what was the exact problem). Anyway it took them more or less 6 hours to repair it as they had to go for a missing part to another city and etc. In the meantime we were doing there for a tourist attraction (not so many white ppl are visiting those cities) so we decided to go to do some sightseeing around.
2 meters of Tom jumped on the bike of Rajat and I took Yasmina. We found a nice temple close by with a nice place to eat.
Somehow the time passed but we were running with the time. With the speed of 40 km/h as the Tom had to safe his engine we managed to do another 80 km and reach Najibabad. We passed the city and then we found ourselves in the middle of the forest. We realised we are lost. As it was already dark after a short discussion the idea to spent a night in the closest hotel turned out to be the best option for us. We were tired. Hungry and we definitely needed a shower! So we asked locals and they brought us to a nice place.
Shower.
Food.
Beer.
We recovered and we were back to our senses!!
And here, in the hotel we met an interesting person. Chris, Canadian guy, who left his country 7 months before and decided to come and travel in India. He bought a Royal Enfield and was riding all over the country. Crazy and nice person. We invited him to join us in our room for a small talk and beer. We passed few hours talking about our Indian experience and biking in this crazy country. It was very cool evening.
We woke up the next morning and me and Tom had some issuse with our stomaches. Probably that was the chicken from the previous evening. If we were in Delhi I would call it "Dehli belly". Ha ha ha. It took us ages to get ready and to organize ourselves. We stopped in the closest pharmacy. We bought sth to surrvive the day and lets go!
The road to Lansdowne was amazing. I am glad we didn't ride at night like this we would miss all the views and countrysides. We could see the snowy top of the Himalayas and beautiful valleys. On the other hand it would be also kind of dangerous as the road was narrow and full of curves (if I can say so in English).
We reached our destionation at 2 p.m. 24 hours later we supposed to reach. As we knew it's the long weekend and we could have problems with finding accomodation we started searching for something. We were 4 ppl, the other 4 ppl were on the way...We were trapped. All the places were full and they didn't have a single room so there was no way to accomodate 8 ppl at all. We were still searching... and...at certain point, after 30 minutes we met the other group. That was amazing. We left Gurgaon exactly 24 hours before them and they reached the destination 30 minutes after us. Hm...what do to!
We were glad to see them anyway! We went for food and we were sharing our experience from the way here. Unfortunately we couldn't find the place to stay in Lansdowne so we were forced to go back to Kotdwara where we found a hotel very easily. That was not touristic place at all!
Again shower, food, beer and conversations:)
We decided to woke up in the morning very early to catch the sun rise in the mountains and do a morning ride. The only that woke up on time: me and Serena. So we decided to come back to our beds and wait for the rest. When they got up, it was around 7-8.00 we took our bikes and we rode around mountains again. The weather was very pleasant. Still not warm so our heads didn't get melted under helmets. We grab some tea and coffe and came back to the hotel to pick up the others to start going back to Gurgaon.
The way back home was smooth till Delhi border which personaly I hate. I guess not only me;p Going through Delhi it is like never ending story so you need to be patient, be patient, be patient... and on the way find a spot to have some ice-cream and gather more patience for the highway (Javed's way).
We were wasted...and happy! Maybe except poor Tom who after all this trip got a flat tyre in Gurgaon.
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