When excitement and concern mix, the result is obviously going to be a sleepless night. I learned it the hard way. Despite hitting the bed pretty late for an early morning start, I was struggling to get a much needed sound sleep. I surely was excited to hit the road but I was more concerned about Linda. In the past 10 years, she had bravely faced my 'stupid' ways, but this one was a different game altogether. It will be some time before we would see each other again.
I never was and will never be good (I guess) with farewells. Unknowingly I always end up skipping some of the most important chapters in the farewell manual. No matter how much I rehearse, when it comes to the showtime, I always end up saying “Shit! I forgot to say ------ & ------ & -------” after the show. This time was no different. The only thing that I managed to tell Linda was, “Take care” & “I’ll be fine and I’ll not have a single scratch on my body”. With those farewell lines and a slightly rattled mind, I hit the road by 7 am.
When I was somewhere near Yeshwantpur, I asked for a direction towards the highway to one auto driver. He was an old guy. He looked at me but didn’t reply. Just when I thought he was a grumpy bloke, I saw him putting his hearing aid. I thought that was a nice way to unbelong. When you don’t want to listen to any crap of life just plug the hearing aid out and you get to keep your inner peace.
When the technology had enhanced his senses, he asked me, “What Sir???”. I asked him the direction towards the highway once again.
“Where do you want to go???” asked he in return. The impeccable English of that gentleman left me dumpstruck and confused. I didn’t know how to answer. I was thinking whether to answer him in one word or in a grammatically correct sentence. I didn’t want to gamble with my grammar, so I replied, “Hubli”
“Then you should take Tumkur road. Go straight from here, once you reach a circle, take the first left and then go straight. That’s Tumkur road”, said he smiling. I thanked him and rode ahead, now only dumbstruck.
I was out of city limits by 8:30 a.m and once I was on the highway that's when the trip started for me. Open roads threw its arms wide open to welcome me and Chitti (that’s what Linda calls my Royal Enfield classic 350 inspired from the movie of one of our favorite actors - RAJNIKANT !!!). Though the road was tempting, I ensured that Chitti would not run beyond 90 km/hr. It’s just the right speed that Chitti starts singing to me & it’s a song that I have always enjoyed listening to. Any speed beyond that, the melodious thumping song of any Enfield gets lost in an attempt to stabilize the bike as it starts vibrating too wild. Besides, a tyre bursting at high speed is just the right ingredient for a distasteful accident.
The highway was bordered by lush green fields on both sides. I knew that the scenario will not change much throughout the journey as it was monsoon time. Monsoon had acted like a naughty child with a green paint splashing green colour on everything within her reach.
Few hours into riding and I got used to people staring, smiling or waving at me when they could figure out that I was riding solo with decent luggage indicating that I was going to be on the roads for quite some time. My motorbiking gear (shoes, protective pads and helmet) added to the dramatics.
The ride from Bangalore to Hubli took me through some beautiful sunflower and marigold fields.
The marigold reminded me of where I had to reach by Dashera. Dashera being the most celebrated festival in my hometown is also a great time to catch up with friends who fly in from different places where they are earning their living.
After all the scheduled hydration breaks, I stopped for lunch somewhere near Hubli at a Punjabi dhaba named Golden Punjabi Dhaba.
As the Dhaba was managed by Punjabi family the taste of the food was, like its name, truly golden.
The weather app had forecasted rain in Hubli but when I reached Hubli at 4 pm the weather was just fine for me to ride further. As I had a long riding plan the following day, I decided to stop at Belgaum – The land sandwiched between Karnataka and Maharashtra.
It started raining while I was on my way to Belgaum. Since I was very close to Belgaum, I decided to use only the British army rain cover. I reached Belgaum and checked in the hotel by 6 pm. The manager had a look at me and asked if I was from the Army. My camouflage pants, army styled riding boots, helmet, army rain cover and haircut too led him to believe that.
I thought army tag was a very safe tag to adopt when riding solo because no one messes with army personnel but I told him that I was not from the army.I noticed that the rain cover too was not very effective as water had seeped into my jacket so that called for buying an additional rain jacket.
At the end of the first riding day, I had covered 549 kms & I realized that riding about 500 kms was easily doable if the road conditions are good. So, for the following day, I had Mumbai as target destination (original plan was to stop in Pune).
Just before I retired for the day, I got a message from Linda which read, “A warrior must only take care that his spirit is not broken. Gr8 going my warrior”. I never had such a promising Monday ever.
#Royalenfield #trip #leh #bikeride #adventure #ladakh #travel
Really like the way you introduce chitti in each of your posts...Linda and Rajnikant must be glad too :)
ReplyDeleteLinda definitely yes. Cant say about Rajnikant :)
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