Thursday, November 26, 2015

Part 13 - Ranchi to Mumbai via Kanyakumari -The Home run!


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After a fabulous stay in Ranchi it was time to move on and frankly speaking the thought of getting home was pretty motivating! But it did involve a few thousand kilometres of riding before we could rest our heads on our own pillows. And so we moved on to Nagpur where we spent a couple of days with Aditya’s  cousin who went that extra mile to ensure we were extremely comfortable. They also ensured that the local press got to know of our travels who then interviewed us in the electronic media and newspapers too.

 The local Royal Enfield motorcycle club too ensured our rides were serviced well for the rest of the ride. Special mention here to Nagpur’s Zero Mile Riders’ Club whose members ensured that our 


bikes were taken care of. Shahnawaz Khan (member of ZMRC) who owns the garage took personal interest in getting our bikes ready. Thank you guys! And a big Thank you to Shezad Doongaji, a local motorcycle enthusiast and entrepreneur who spent most of his waking hours with us, while we were there, to assist us in getting introduced to the local RE club and taking us around.


Then we moved on to Hyderabad where we spent a couple of days taking in the popular sights and the pilgrimage to Paradise café for their famed Biryani.


By the time we reached Puducherry the rains caught up with us and we spent a couple of wet days by 


the seaside.


Kanyakumari beckoned and we rode on to the southernmost point of India which is where we decided to head straight for home rather than going up via the western coast. The main reason was of course we were feeling tired and secondly because the western coast was well explored by both of us a number of times hence did not excite us.

So we turned up our rides nothwards and rode home via Hubli, Satara and Pune.

Our homecoming was a tame one compared to the thunderous send off that we had.


It was just us hugging each other at the completion of our epic ride of 13000kms in 72 days. On the 73rd day we were at Bandra Kurla Complex, from where we had set out, congratulating each other on the splendid time we had!

Hope you too enjoyed reading about our ride as much!!

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Part 12 - Paro to Ranchi


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After our brief tryst with Paro we rode on to Thimpu. In Thimpu we stayed in Riverview Hotel that 

                                     
is beautifully located as the name suggests and visited 


the largest Buddha statue in the making, 


the Royal Palace and walked around the main street 


visiting the restaurants but after Paro, Thimpu was nothing to write home about.
Soon it was time to leave Bhutan and head towards the Indian coast of Orissa which we did via Phuentosholing, Purnea, Farakka, Bankura, Bhubaneshwar to Puri. The ride was a mix of very bad 


(high density of truck traffic) roads to bad to some very good roads. It was a pure transport section where one’s skill to manoeuvring through traffic was tested. This journey took us five days. 


We visited the famous Sun temple in Konarak on the way from Bhubaneshwar to Puri. I consider that as the highlight of this route for me. In Puri, there was some special puja going on due to which we could not get darshan of the dieties. But the ambiance of the temple pervaded everywhere we went in the city.


While in Puri we got information of the impending HudHud cyclone which would land on the eastern coast. Due to this we had to make a route correction and instead of proceeding down the eastern coastline to Kanyakumari  we headed inland to Ranchi. Why Ranchi? Well because Diwali was fast approaching and what better way to spend the festival than with close friends. Aditya’s schoolmate