Week 3 – 22 Jan – 27 Jan – Jaisalmer to Ridermania, Kikar Lodge

22^nd January – Jaisalmer

Couldnt Sleep. Strolled around the desert till the boys woke up at 7am.

Hot Lemon tea was served in a bowl, and breakfast of 6 measly, but delicious parathas between the 4 of us.

 

Back at Badal House, I took a 30 minute power nap on Badal Singh’s suggestion

Plan for the Day – Neet brothers would head to Bikaner and then to Venue. 

Ravindra and I wanted to check out tanot temple 120km away, first and then head to Bikaner. or Phalodi, based on time and Distance we had left for the day.

 After 40kms in the HOT sun, Ravindra and I were very drowsy, and in no condition to ride. We decided to head back, grab lunch and take a call on the options.

Lunch was at Pakwan restaurant outside the fort. We were drawn in by the posters of pizza and pasta on the outside windows, but we got only north indian.  Here we decided to stay back in Jaisalmer, and rest instead of risking a ride to Bikaner!

(Most of the biker brethren stayed at places that charged around Rs. 500). All for good parking!

Ravindra confessed that even when riding with the Chennai Madbulls, he made them give up a good bed at a hotel and made them stay in a dormitory along their route, only because there dorm had bike parking!!!

We slept like logs on comfortable beds from 3pm to 7pm.

Ravi was fed up with north Indian food, and didn’t want to chance with “south indian food” in Jaisalmer.

Another night of fitful sleep and we were ready to head to Bikaner.

23rd January – Jaisalmer to Suratgarh

We were able to leave only by 9:30am as it was too foggy to leave at 7am.

 We went to the fort area and I spent 4k on bhang biscuits for Samarth from the Govt Authorised Bhang store.  We left finally at 10:30am

The ride to Bikaner was COLD but roads were superb all through. We reached the outskirts of Bikaner by 1:30pm.  We had done 330kms in 4 hours. Stopping for 15 mins every 100 kms.

We stopped at a roadside hotel for lunch of parathas and called  prashi, adie from road survivors and deepesh from Bikaner.

Dipesh suggested we stay back in Bikaner for the night and leave early next day to Chandigarh.

After lunch, we reached the Bikaner by-pass very early before 3pm and decided to take our chances with riding as close to Chandigarh as possible.

We weren’t keen on the karni mata temple, and we wanted to ride in as much daylight as possible, we took the Bikaner bypass and wished to hit hanumangarh 230km away.  2 hours of daylight left. 

Next 100kms, we hit bad road, no road, and only a few patches of good roads.

We got to a Y junction, right takes us to hanumangarh (125kms) and Left to suratgarh (40kms).  Deepesh advised us to get to the nearest place for a stay as fog can envelope the road anytime.

We headed to Suratgarh, hoping for accommodation close to the highway.

40kms took an hour due to more of bad roads, and high beam headlight traffic Ravindra, with his LED fog lights, was able to ride much quicker and he was well ahead of me in no time.

At Suratgarh, we checked into the only hotel, Hotel Pancheria At Rs. 800/- per room.

500kms in a day, through cold, fog, heat, road, no road

24^th January – Suratgarh – Kikar Lodge (Ridermania Venue)

Suratgarh to Kikar lodge was 400kms. While we were looking forward to get to the RM, reports had come in of Rain, of fog and the cold, so we assumed it would be a tough ride to the venue considering I did not have any rain gear!! .

After about 40-50kms we got good roads through Punjab state highways. Double lane and very scenic with fields of yellow and fog on the outer edges of the horizon.

We had planned to stop every 120 kms for a bum break and we worked our way up to Bathinda for the first stop since Suratgarh. (153km)

We stopped outside Radiant Toyota / Bathinda and we were accosted by onlookers asking the questions of who, what , where and why!

We chatted for 30 minutes with the owner, over chai and biscuits. He had a Thunderbird with which he had toured lahaul /spiti and surrounding areas.

We bade him goodbye! Around 1pm, and I asked Ravindra to stop for lunch on route.

He had a weird habit of stopping AFTER taking the turn alerted to him by his GPS. Quite a bit of time was spent in hunting for Ravi,

Was hoping for a grub stop at Ludhiana but a major part of the trip was spent in fighting traffic and hunting for Ravindra.

We had to take a turn off by the side of “neelam canal” that lead to Ropar directly, by passing the main highway/Chandigarh etc.

I saw Ravindra stopped at the side a few kilometres in. 

Our last morsel of food was the biscuit we had at Bathinda at 12:30. It was 5:30pm.I ignored him stopped by the side taking pictures of the canal, and rode on. 

He came upon and was wondering where I was!  Apparently he had stopped in a food court on the opposite side of the road, but saw me whizz past so he followed suit!

He was rushing to meet up with the rest of the gang waiting 30 kms from the venue. We started our ride again, sans chai or food, as we were only 30-40kms away.

We reached Rupnagar, and ended up going to the wrong side of the canal. He followed his GPS while I asked the locals. He took off in one direction, and I in another! No GPS like the locals . Valuable lesson learnt!! 

Found White lily restaurant packed with bullets from all over. The guys from various different clubs had congregated there.

I was starving, and ordered rotis/ eggcurry and horrible gobi Manchurian for lunch at 6pm! We went outside to find out that Arun Anbumani and team had left Delhi at 1pm and RTMC  (Rolling Thunder Motorcycle Club) wanted to “ride in” together. 10pm is when the boys from Delhi rode in!

We rode in the cold through roads that kept getting narrower and narrower towards the venue.

Our “entry” was a damp squib as there wasn’t any major welcome for people coming in at 11:30pm!!

The registration process though was a breeze! .. they just tagged a green band on our wrist and informed us that we can collect the goody bag anytime during the event from the merchandise stall.

Tents were pre allotted so it was pretty easy to get done with! Our tents were at the farthest end of the line.

24^th – 25^th January – Rider mania.

This ridermania was a very different for me. I suppose I missed the usual folks that I hung out with as this group was largely interested in drinking for most of the event! A large contingent of Madbulls, and most of the tamil speaking / understanding folk were grouped together, except for the linguistically challenged like me!

The place was beautiful and would have loved to explore it. But the cold was not something I would have liked to walk or bike my way through.

The event had a lot of Punjabi dance music, obviously, and heavy metal / hard rock .. both of which were of bands I hadn’t heard of nor wanted to .

They had a burnout competition which the indiethumpers won. One competition that didn’t make sense to me!

They have to pay for burnt clutch plates and gearboxes! A lot of smoke and noise later this ended.

25^th was the dirt bike time trials which was the “main” event.

Some headed out on 25^th itself.  I had half a mind to leave as well, and maybe ride back to Bangalore. but another 4 Days of riding would have made this trip too long away from home.

26^th January – Return to Chandigarh

26^th we left around 2pm as Chandigarh was only 80kms away with some of the Madbulls and stayed at Gulati Bhavan – a guest house run by some trust.

Got very good rooms for 300/-. Had dinner with the mad bulls at Pal Dhaba. My first taste of Good butter chicken and dal makhni!

27^th January – Return

Agarwal Packers gave me an address at an industrial area in Panchkula. I didn’t know then that Panchkula was a city outside of Chandigarh!

 I left at 9am hunting for this address. I asked around for industrial area and the kind locals sent me to the Chandigarh industrial area. Agarwal later clarified that htey were in Panchkula and not Chandigarh Industrial Area, I rushed to panchkula. not wanting to miss my flight back home, found the place and was done with the formalities by 11:30am.

The kind manager insisted that his driver would drop me to the airport which was 20 mins away !

Reached the airport only to find the flight was delayed by 3 hours!!!

Spent 400/- on a crappy breakfast of two sandwiches and coffee at the airport and a snickers bar 

I was finally back in Bangalore at 6:30pm, to a warm 26 Degrees. Missing Rajasthan already.