Sinking into emptiness of everyday monotonous life with my mind and heart filled with anger, failure, frustrations, blames, stress and god only knows what not, I was desperate to escape. Biking word did not bring across a big grin on my face anymore. I had started living a monotonous life and my everyday routine was work-home-work-home and so on and on it went. Riding, touring, speeding all sounded like words from some alien dialect and from an avid Biker I had somehow become just another regular city commuter.
Getting LEH’D, the dream ride of every hard-core biker, has always been on my mind since last 4 years but every time other priorities and responsibilities of life have come up and compromised the trip. I took lot of time to recollect and organise my priorities I had made up my mind that no matter what, this year I will go to Leh. I am always known to be impulsive and yet again I was being impulsive but this time I was going to follow it and had a big smile on my face realizing that I am going to be Leh’d. There is a fine line between dreams and reality; it's upon us to draw it. I draw it in my way.
The Preparations: I started the preparation last to last year. But I had to drop the plan for last year for some family as well as financial problem at that time. Last year, in the month of September or October I got friend request from Angshuman Dutta AKA royalbullmadtraveler on Orkut, avid rider, mad for travel and biking. We used to chat online about the ride. Later on more people came in, namely Arunava, Nitai and very lately this year Anindya and Saptarshi, all are almost same age. Now the team sized to Six People
1. Angshuman on Enfield 350
2. Arunava on Enfield 350
3. Anindya on ZMA
4. Nitai on Enfield 350
5. Saptarshi on P220Fi
6. Sudipta (me) on Fazer
It was me and Ananda who actually planned the itinerary. First meeting held at Ananda’s residence. Everybody participate except Arunava and Anindya as they had some family priorities to settle. Second meeting held at my residence on Independence Day with me, Saptarshi and Anindya only. They came to see my preparations and want to have the idea of the volume or thing to be carried.
I purchased new fazer in the month of July 2011 as my favourite gladiator is although competent to make the trip but alone. Keeping at per with two three times more capacity bikes are quite tough job with 125 cc engine.
BCMTouring helped me a lot to gather information for the trip. However I also looked to other sites like XBHP, XKMPH and 60kph. The list of things is a long one with essentials like tools, spare parts, food, clothing etc.
Final Itinerary comes up as below. Places are meant to be halt for night
16/09/2011- At night start respective residence
17/09/2011- Allahabad
18/09/2011- Meerut
19/09/2011- Udhampur
20/09/2011- Sonanmrg
21/09/2011- Kargil
22/09/2011- Leh
23/09/2011- Permit day
24/09/2011- Hunder
25/09/2011- Shakti via Wari La
26/09/2011- Pangong
27/09/2011- Marsimek La
28/09/2011- Tso Moriri
29/09/2011- Tso Kar
30/09/2011- Pang
01/10/2011- Darcha
02/10/2011- Manali
03/10/2011- Dehradun
04/10/2011- Allahabad
05/10/2011- Kolkata
The main focus was to cover the entire circuit which includes the highest khardung la and marsimek la, the toughest Jalori Pass. But the God has decided out fate to some other way.
16/09/2011: At last, the day came. Everybody was excited. I had my office. I left from the office around 4:30 pm. I had to purchase sleeping bag and had to pick up a tent also. I finally returned home at 7:30 pm. immediately I started to load the things on bike but my bag started giving problem. Anyhow I finally load all the things. My brother helped me a lot. But it took a lot more time extra than that I expected. I finally ready to go. But all of a sudden all plans gone in vain as from just before the schedule departure time down pouring start and it was so badly continued through the night that we could go only up to Ananda’s home town Chinsurah. We stayed that night on high way under a broken hut.
Except me, every body with his bike.
Once again the sky started becoming cloudy and all of a sudden tremendous down pouring started. I became isolated from the group as I took shelter underneath a flyover to avoid rain. After taking required protection against rain I started off once again but could not find any one. As schedule stoppage was Durgapur, I continued and reached Durgapur around 7:30 pm. But till now I found no one. So I make call to Ananda and came to know that they were at Burdwan as Nitai’s bike engine got ceased and they made their mind to go back to home and cancel the tour. But I was in some different mind setup and decided to continue alone. In the mean while Saptarshi called me up and I express my plan. They (Anindya and Saptarshi) decided to continue. It was around 8:30 in the night and raining. I decided to stay at Durgapur and wait till morning. Both of them came around 10:00 pm.
Distance Covered: 174 Petrol Purchased: 700
18/09/2011: Durgapur – to - Aurangabad : Significant time gone by in the morning to washout the mud on our bikes. We started off delayed around 11:30 am. We merely came up to Assansol, once again it started raining. This time we were well prepared, hence continued moving forward. We halt for pic break at Barakar Bridge just after entering Jharkhand.
19/09/2011:Aurangabad - to - Kanpur : There was no more rain. We woke up, load and tied up luggage and started off at 8:00 am.
In front of the hotel we stayed, before start in the morning.
We reach Benaras around 11:00 am and refueled our bikes. With another two hour we came up to Allahabad bypass bifurcation by 1:30 pm. Took some rest, had some fruits and juices and then we took the Allahabad bypass. The bypass is superb, concrete road, four lane highways. In general only multi axle vehicles use to take this road. Here I got drowsiness and hit a cow’s head almost at a speed of 90kmph while over taking a multi axle truck. Still I remember, my right side vision gone blank whereas left vision was completely ok. I don’t understand till now how did it happened. Immediately front faring broke and came out, break lever gone, handle bent and my hand was badly injured specially on the baby finger. Blood clotted beneath the nail. Thank god that I hit the cow on the head. If I hit near even the neck it going to turn out to an ugly accident. It took half an hour to reduce the pain. Then I looked to my bike no major bad things happened. Only the front fairings got cracked and the side one is broken although good enough to reassemble and run the bike without much problem. I took another 20 minutes to do the job.
Meanwhile Anindya called up as he was ahead of us and waiting. I explained the whole story and asked him to wait till we came there at the end of the bypass meet the NH2. We reached there. In between he enquired about the YAMAHA dealer nearby. We came to know there is place named Shainee on NH2 itself and there is dealer. We went there. His mechanic somehow managed to make the handle almost in correct position. Dealer gave me the number of Fatehpur YAMAHA dealer. I called up and explained my problem and asked for a handlebar. The receptionist, listening my problem said that she will took it with her as she stays near by the showroom and by the time we reach Fatehpur the showroom will be closed. We reached there around 7:00 pm. She handed over the handle bar to me. The lady turned out to be very nice and she then said that she is the owner of the showroom. I thanked her for the trouble she took for me. And head towards Kanpur. We reached Kanpur around 9:30 pm.
Getting LEH’D, the dream ride of every hard-core biker, has always been on my mind since last 4 years but every time other priorities and responsibilities of life have come up and compromised the trip. I took lot of time to recollect and organise my priorities I had made up my mind that no matter what, this year I will go to Leh. I am always known to be impulsive and yet again I was being impulsive but this time I was going to follow it and had a big smile on my face realizing that I am going to be Leh’d. There is a fine line between dreams and reality; it's upon us to draw it. I draw it in my way.
The Preparations: I started the preparation last to last year. But I had to drop the plan for last year for some family as well as financial problem at that time. Last year, in the month of September or October I got friend request from Angshuman Dutta AKA royalbullmadtraveler on Orkut, avid rider, mad for travel and biking. We used to chat online about the ride. Later on more people came in, namely Arunava, Nitai and very lately this year Anindya and Saptarshi, all are almost same age. Now the team sized to Six People
1. Angshuman on Enfield 350
2. Arunava on Enfield 350
3. Anindya on ZMA
4. Nitai on Enfield 350
5. Saptarshi on P220Fi
6. Sudipta (me) on Fazer
It was me and Ananda who actually planned the itinerary. First meeting held at Ananda’s residence. Everybody participate except Arunava and Anindya as they had some family priorities to settle. Second meeting held at my residence on Independence Day with me, Saptarshi and Anindya only. They came to see my preparations and want to have the idea of the volume or thing to be carried.
I purchased new fazer in the month of July 2011 as my favourite gladiator is although competent to make the trip but alone. Keeping at per with two three times more capacity bikes are quite tough job with 125 cc engine.
BCMTouring helped me a lot to gather information for the trip. However I also looked to other sites like XBHP, XKMPH and 60kph. The list of things is a long one with essentials like tools, spare parts, food, clothing etc.
Final Itinerary comes up as below. Places are meant to be halt for night
16/09/2011- At night start respective residence
17/09/2011- Allahabad
18/09/2011- Meerut
19/09/2011- Udhampur
20/09/2011- Sonanmrg
21/09/2011- Kargil
22/09/2011- Leh
23/09/2011- Permit day
24/09/2011- Hunder
25/09/2011- Shakti via Wari La
26/09/2011- Pangong
27/09/2011- Marsimek La
28/09/2011- Tso Moriri
29/09/2011- Tso Kar
30/09/2011- Pang
01/10/2011- Darcha
02/10/2011- Manali
03/10/2011- Dehradun
04/10/2011- Allahabad
05/10/2011- Kolkata
The main focus was to cover the entire circuit which includes the highest khardung la and marsimek la, the toughest Jalori Pass. But the God has decided out fate to some other way.
16/09/2011: At last, the day came. Everybody was excited. I had my office. I left from the office around 4:30 pm. I had to purchase sleeping bag and had to pick up a tent also. I finally returned home at 7:30 pm. immediately I started to load the things on bike but my bag started giving problem. Anyhow I finally load all the things. My brother helped me a lot. But it took a lot more time extra than that I expected. I finally ready to go. But all of a sudden all plans gone in vain as from just before the schedule departure time down pouring start and it was so badly continued through the night that we could go only up to Ananda’s home town Chinsurah. We stayed that night on high way under a broken hut.
17/09/2011: In the morning we went back to Ananda’s residence as it was raining continuously. The rain stopped around 12’O clock and we immediately started preparation to start the journey. We finally started off from Ananda’s residence at 1:30 pm. We could hardly come up to Shaktigarh; hit the NH2. I to the pic as an official record as starting our journey.
Except me, every body with his bike.
Once again the sky started becoming cloudy and all of a sudden tremendous down pouring started. I became isolated from the group as I took shelter underneath a flyover to avoid rain. After taking required protection against rain I started off once again but could not find any one. As schedule stoppage was Durgapur, I continued and reached Durgapur around 7:30 pm. But till now I found no one. So I make call to Ananda and came to know that they were at Burdwan as Nitai’s bike engine got ceased and they made their mind to go back to home and cancel the tour. But I was in some different mind setup and decided to continue alone. In the mean while Saptarshi called me up and I express my plan. They (Anindya and Saptarshi) decided to continue. It was around 8:30 in the night and raining. I decided to stay at Durgapur and wait till morning. Both of them came around 10:00 pm.
Distance Covered: 174 Petrol Purchased: 700
18/09/2011: Durgapur – to - Aurangabad : Significant time gone by in the morning to washout the mud on our bikes. We started off delayed around 11:30 am. We merely came up to Assansol, once again it started raining. This time we were well prepared, hence continued moving forward. We halt for pic break at Barakar Bridge just after entering Jharkhand.
19/09/2011:Aurangabad - to - Kanpur : There was no more rain. We woke up, load and tied up luggage and started off at 8:00 am.
In front of the hotel we stayed, before start in the morning.
We reach Benaras around 11:00 am and refueled our bikes. With another two hour we came up to Allahabad bypass bifurcation by 1:30 pm. Took some rest, had some fruits and juices and then we took the Allahabad bypass. The bypass is superb, concrete road, four lane highways. In general only multi axle vehicles use to take this road. Here I got drowsiness and hit a cow’s head almost at a speed of 90kmph while over taking a multi axle truck. Still I remember, my right side vision gone blank whereas left vision was completely ok. I don’t understand till now how did it happened. Immediately front faring broke and came out, break lever gone, handle bent and my hand was badly injured specially on the baby finger. Blood clotted beneath the nail. Thank god that I hit the cow on the head. If I hit near even the neck it going to turn out to an ugly accident. It took half an hour to reduce the pain. Then I looked to my bike no major bad things happened. Only the front fairings got cracked and the side one is broken although good enough to reassemble and run the bike without much problem. I took another 20 minutes to do the job.
Meanwhile Anindya called up as he was ahead of us and waiting. I explained the whole story and asked him to wait till we came there at the end of the bypass meet the NH2. We reached there. In between he enquired about the YAMAHA dealer nearby. We came to know there is place named Shainee on NH2 itself and there is dealer. We went there. His mechanic somehow managed to make the handle almost in correct position. Dealer gave me the number of Fatehpur YAMAHA dealer. I called up and explained my problem and asked for a handlebar. The receptionist, listening my problem said that she will took it with her as she stays near by the showroom and by the time we reach Fatehpur the showroom will be closed. We reached there around 7:00 pm. She handed over the handle bar to me. The lady turned out to be very nice and she then said that she is the owner of the showroom. I thanked her for the trouble she took for me. And head towards Kanpur. We reached Kanpur around 9:30 pm.
20/09/2011: We decided to cover up the delay go as far as possible. As per our plan we were supposed to reach Meerut through NH91 via Aligarh. On expressing our plan to hotel manager, he said, road condition is bad ahead. He suggested to go to Agra then to take the Aligarh Road. We had our lunch some 150 ahead of Kanpur.
Planned route for the day.
Some pics of the day.
We came up to Agra and then took the Aligarh road. It was so bad shape that it took four hours to come across only 65 km. We reached Aligarh around 9:45 pm. We decided to stay at Aligarh itself.
Route we took.
Distance Covered: 353
Petrol Purchased: 0
21/09/2011: In the morning we found mine and Saptarshi’s bike got a puncher each. Repairing puncher, loading luggage on the bikes we started for Karnal and face the same kind of bad road. Near Hapur, one truck driver warned us not to continue on that road as road condition is far worse ahead. He suggested going to Bagpat and hitting NH1. Massive time of the day gone to reach to NH1. We drove till 1:30 and reach Karnal. We stayed at Youth Centre to have a much required rest and sleep.
Pics of the day.
Waiting for Saptarshi.
Saptarshi came.
Distance Covered: 285
Petrol Purchased: 850
