Bike-nomad: 1700kms, Mumbai - Kutchh, One man, One bike!

Prologue:
It’s a great risk... but it would be a great adventure too... it would be good to go in a group... I think 3-4 should be just fine - not more.... there should be at least two people... rather only two should make this journey on different bikes... what if the other one drops out in last moment... what about work! I may not get leave… But I want to really do it. I badly want to do it, just for the sake of it.

Yes! I was almost mad to take this decision to do it; but then that’s what differentiates adventurous from so called sane people. I may be wrong, but the adrenaline was high; so was my nervousness; but the will of mind won over sanity and I set out on bike, all alone for a journey that I had calculated to be at least 900kms one way, before actually setting out on it.

The preparations, especially the mental preparations began months ago. Rather I should say that I got the idea a couple of years ago. I hadn’t taken any long journey on bike till then and when I shared the idea with one of my uncles, to my surprise, instead of opposing the idea, he readily promised to join me. Well, the seed of this “Su-side” idea (one of my pet names happen to be SuChhe – from initials of my name, if they were to be written in Indian languages) was sowed into my mind and the idea started to develop into a plan.

Maybe I could have undertaken this journey a year back, had it not been my work that packed and sent me off away from India and my dear bike. When I was back to India a few months ago, the plan began to unfold again; I was then waiting for the right moment. My parents had to be away from home and I wanted to do it at some occasion.

This Dussera my bike completed 3 years (as per the Hindu calendar and about 3 years and a month as per English calendar). This was the occasion I was waiting for. Also my parents had gone to Kutchh for a couple of months, so there was no one to stop me from executing the plan.

On the first weekend of November, I rode the bike to Mumbai to have it serviced and the garage owner also suggested some body work (paint et al) that would give my bike a new look. I felt the occasion would be wonderful. My Silver Splendor was going to get a new look; black color with ‘fire’ design on it. The pillion seat was to get some elevation too. I didn’t want too sporty look for my bike. What was important for me was to get the machine maintained for the ride, that I had planned in last ten days of the month. Even at work I was getting a perfect window for leave and I had got it approved from my manager. The garage owner promised my bike back in two weeks on 20th. But I was about to personally experience a harsh reality; never trust garage owners with stringent deadlines.

My uncle had promised to join and I had left upto him to collect the roadmaps and needed directions. However, somewhere at the back of my mind I had a hunch that I would be traveling alone. So these two weeks, almost everyday, I was surfing out net to find the distances and roadmaps between Mumbai and Gandhidham. I had little success, but whatever information I could muster; I chalked out a plan. During my eight day leave, I planned to spend first day in Mumbai; start the actual journey on the second day; reach destination on the third day; take rest for two days; start the two day return journey again; take rest for one more day before returning to work. Almost every night during the last week before the journey, I used to mentally take a ride over this stretch. Almost every night I used to dream that I am undertaking this journey.

I was all set; I took leave from my manager (I had not told him of the feat that I was going to perform). A couple of friends, whom I told about this trip, mocked at me before getting shocked about my seriousness. Thankfully, they didn’t have any contact or whereabouts of my parents; otherwise my plan could all be foiled before even I could kick start my bike. I was pleased I was going away from my hectic work for full 8 days. A lot of things were going through my mind as I left from Pune. I couldn’t judge for myself whether it was anxiety or nervousness.

20th November 2007: I reached Mumbai. I had talked to the garage owner a day ago; he promised to deliver my bike this evening. And as per my plan I would set out on the journey the day after.

But reality was far from such expected clockwork. When I reached the garage in evening to have a look at how my bike was being clothed in its new dress; I was shocked to find, it was still stripped of its machinery. The paint work was not yet finished; I doubted, if my bike was serviced. The mechanic asked one more day. I had not time to spare. He promised to give my bike the next morning. I couldn’t take that risk either. I asked him to assemble my bike and have it sent to me that evening itself. No matter how long it takes that night.

I was done with my dinner and the clock struck 10pm. My bike was still not in sight anywhere. The mechanic was still servicing my bike. I went to bed; my plans were all going down the drain. I started imagining my self at work the next day, and my friends mocking at my foiled insanity. I was at my uncle’s place (the one who was going to accompany me at this trip); and he had stepped out of the plan some time ago, forcing me to seriously re-consider my decision. The things were not going in my favour.

Just as I was drifting into sleep; thinking of the Murphy’s Law that if the things go wrong at the beginning of a mission, rest of it has to go fine and eventless; I heard horn of a bike. My bike was at the door. I was elated. I was finally going to take the journey. I went off to sleep, pleased and excited.

21st November 2007: I had planned to start at 6am. I woke up on time, but it was still dark and my bike was running on the last liter of petrol. I had to delay my start until first light of the day broke out. I mounted my bike at around 7am and followed my uncle’s direction to nearest petrol pump. It was just under a kilometer far. And yeah! I forgot to mention - my bike odometer read 9896 kilometers. :) I was about to cross a milestone.

As I touched the Western Express Highway in Borivli, the odometer read 9900kms. My journey had begun. I was all ready and made up my mind that I was going to make to the other end. I was all set except a few shortcomings:

• I didn’t have a valid PUC certificate.
• The pillion tire of my bike had been damaged of a puncture some 4000kms ago; the mechanic was unable to find a suitable replacement tire anywhere around. I was riding on a huge risk of bike getting punctured.
• I was not carrying any equipment to set right a flat tire. I would have to rely on puncture setters if any of the tires when flat on the way.
• I had not informed many people about my journey. Though I kept messaging about my whereabouts to my uncle regularly.
• I had very limited first aid in case of troubles.
• I had no road-maps; just name of the towns that I ‘might’ pass during the journey.
• I was going to face cold during mornings during the journey; I wasn’t sure if I was adequately equipped to fight that.
• I just had Rs500 cash with me.
• I wasn’t in the best of my health; I suffered from a little cough and cold.
  

Even I wondered for a few minutes if it was a suicide mission in true sense. :)

I filled Rs100 worth of petrol and started going North after reaching Western Express Highway. The roads were quite clear because of the early morning time. It wasn’t too cold. My first goal was to get hold of some PUC station so that my paperwork would be complete in all aspect, before I entered the other state.

It was not until around 8:30am when I was close to Charoti and had done almost 90 kilometers that I managed to find a PUC station at a petrol pump. I elongated my break to almost half an hour. Though he asked me double the cost of what a PUC certificate cost; I didn’t want to take any risk. I got the document made and moved on. Soon I also crossed another landmark. My bike odometer read a 5 digit number (10,000 kms) for the first time. So far there were no glitches during the journey. Except that I was a bit slow. I had done a little over a 100 kms only in two hours.

It was time for me to race a little. I started racing my pony to 70kmph. After a non-stop ride for almost another 50 minutes, it was time for a break. I was close to Valsad. The NH8 so far was smooth. Roads were in good shape and thankfully I didn’t face much heavy traffic as yet. I filled up my fuel tank for another Rs100. and moved on. I was 100 kms from Surat and that was going to by my next stop for lunch.

When I was 30 kms from Surat, it was already 11:30am. To go to Surat one has to go 30kms off the NH8. I had to decide whether to ahead on an almost empty wallet or waste another one hour traveling 60kms to Surat. I decided the latter.

I filled up my wallet by half a grand and my stomach with some delicious food. Next couple of hours was going to be testing times when I had to fight sleep and head toward my destination for the day. I had to reach my aunt’s place at Vadodara before Sunset as I didn’t want to undertake night journey. I put on my music and put in a couple of chewing gums in my mouth and set on for the next 200kms.

The rest of the journey was quite eventless. I took two halts during this journey, once to fill up fuel tank for another 100 rupees and next time to take some pictures of the Narmada. It was beautiful scenery from the bridge across the river. With Sun ready to set in another couple of hours. I reached my aunt’s place at 6:15. The odometer read 10323 kilometers. I had traveled around 425 kilometers that day.

I set out to collect information for next part of the trip at a hotel close to highway. As per my original plan I was to continue to Ahmadabad and turn West on NH8. Now I was to reach Bagodara (almost 60kms from Ahmadabad), from where I was to turn due West towards the route to Gandhidham. This improvised information cut short my journey by 50kms already. Bagodara via Ahmadabad is close to 200kms, but the new shorter route to Bagodara was only 140 kms. The close-to-950kms was now cut down to a close-to-900kms journey. I went to bed early as I had to start early next morning.

22nd November 2007: This leg of journey was expected to be a little difficult as this part of the state is scarcely populated and the towns are distant. I prayed for a smooth ride and hit the road by 6:30 am.

I got to see another excellent example of the Murphy’s Law as I went onto an expressway between Vadodara and Anand where two wheelers are not allowed. My ride got extended by 12 kms as I had to travel back from the toll naka on that road and I wasted 15 minutes. But I faced no problem during the rest of the day. Instead I found another road which cut short my journey by another 50 kms. :)

Though the road to Bagodara was not as good as a highway, but it was a good smooth road. The road to Bagodara bypassed Vasad, Anand and Tarapur towns. It was almost 9.15am when I reached Bagodara. It was time for snacks. During this leg of 140 kms of road I had stopped only once to fill up the fuel and once to get directions. The roads were quite empty and I was speeding at close to 70kmph.

From Bagodara I turned West and as if I had entered biker’s paradise; I found the smoothest roads of the whole journey. There was fresh tar on that part of NH8. Also the roads were straight for kilometers together. A biker on a powerful machine would have raced closed to 100-120kmph on that road. And one could see only vast plains, filled with some 10 feet tall shrubs as far as one could see. I lazily moved on that 40kms of stretch to reach Limbdi. It was time to fill up a little fuel again. But before starting off, I asked the gas station manager about the direction to nearest ATM. I was again running out of cash. And I still thank God for that moment. When I discussed out my plan of reaching Gandhidham with the owner, he suggested me to give up the highway, instead move on to state highway. Initially I was to continue on NH8 for another 100 kms and turn left. He suggested me to take a left immediately and take route through Surendranagar, Dhangadra, and Maliya. That was where I was to resume the original route. This new route cut down another 50 kms of my journey.

I had lunch break at Dhangadra, that was a little over 140kms from Gandhidham. I found my destination coming close in my sight. I was over-joyed. It was around 2:30pm. I had resumed my journey on NH8A from Maliya towards Samkhiyali. Fresh roads were being laid there. The small Rann of Kutchh came into my sight and I decided to halt to take a few pictures. Also there was set of electricity generating windmills; never before I had got to see a windmill from so close.

And the inevitable happened. My phone buzzed; it was a message from office. I was in middle of two towns and nearest was 20kms away. I was about to move on towards Samkhiyali from where I would call up office from a STD booth. Suddenly my sight caught a young man who was standing next to his car on the shoulder of a road. On the other side of the 4 lane road, fresh tar was being laid. I asked him if I could receive a call on his number and I got my office work done over the phone.

I talked with Jignesh Patel for a while. He was a young Civil Engineer from Morbi. He used to daily came down 90 kms to supervise the laying of roads. It was quite much a hot chamber. Well! Not exactly a chamber, but Mercury almost 150 degrees C from floor (the fresh laid tar as informed by Jignesh) and another 50 odd from the ceiling (with grace of Sun God). I was happy to see the future of India in able, young and safe hands. Well, I shared a few more moments and some biscuits with Jignesh and moved on towards Samkhiyali.

After almost an hour when I was close to Gandhidham, I took a right towards Anjar, instead of going to Gandhidham. That road took me towards Mundra through town of Anjar. My village, my destination was 5 kms off the NH8A extension, some 12 kilometers from Mundra in total. When I left the highway, the Sun was about to set. And I had reached home in a few more minutes.

Of course I received lots of preaching in the two days that followed. But I loved to spend those two days, completely cut off from the rest of the world; not even bothered about how the Indian cricket team was faring at Kotla.

25th November 2007: I left my hesitant parents back at my village and started my journey back. I managed to convince my parents that the journey was going to be fine; and as faced no danger whatsoever while coming from Bombay, I promised to drive safely and reach home safely.

So I was all ready to set out at 6:30 am in the morning. But the Murphy’s Law had to once again come into action. I had not used my bike for two days and it lay open in the compound of the Guest House where I was staying. So I am not sure whether some mischievous person was culprit or was it because of bad tire, the pillion tire was having low pressure. I dragged my bike a few feet to check if it was fine for ride to nearest pump. The news was bad. Thankfully, there was a 350cc motor driven cart close to the Guest House. I mounted my machine and had it taken to the doctor. So the first 8 kilometers of my return journey were on a cart instead of my bike. But once I was all set at 0745 hours, there was no other obstacle to the journey.

The return journey was as smooth as the forward journey. This time I was aware of the directions. Yet, I took precautions to keep checking for directions whenever I took break. Also I was aware of the distances and the time I had at hand so I decided to ride at a smooth speed of 50kmph only to check the mileage of my 3 year old pony. I was glad to find that the machine still yielded more than 60kmpl. I was to spend the night at my aunt’s place in Vadodara again.

The achievement in this leg of journey was completion of overall 11000kms on my bike. This happened when I had crossed Bagodara. Vadodara was just around 150 kms from there now.

26th November 2007: I set out at 7am. This was the last leg of the journey. I continued at 50kmph for first half of the day. But I could cover distance at only 40kms per hour. The roads between Vadodara and Surat were all jammed because of the construction work. I had to ride at the shoulder of the road in order to cover the distance quickly.

Once I crossed Surat, things got better. I had lunch at Food Island, some 180kms from Borivli. When I left that place, it was still 1.45pm. I decided to speed up and cover the rest of the distance in remaining three hours.

I was around at the border of Gujarat and Maharashtra (between the Octroi posts of either states) when my machine completed 11500 kms.

My journey ended at 1715 hours as I reached my uncle’s place. I had covered almost 1700 kms during those 6 days; spending almost 40 hours on road in all.

Epilogue: I handed over the bike to that garage owner for the post journey maintenance to complete the unfinished paint work. I took one more day off and returned to Pune on the evening of 27th November 2007.

The positive outcomes of this journey:

• I learnt I could take long journeys on my bike on a bike of caliber of Splendor.
  The whole journey went smooth without a scratch to me or my bike; I emerged as more experienced biker.
• Learnt to be patient and got better control of my eagerness. The empty flat smooth roads were tempting me again and again to shoot up the speed.
• I achieved a dream, however insane it might be termed. It was something I dared to dream and did it.
• I learnt that the national highways have good cell phone network coverage, at least in Gujarat.
• I learnt that it’s advantageous to wear camouflaged pants (kind of ones that military men wear) on such a journey. People think you are from military and dare not come in your way. There were three distinct instances related to this misunderstanding. Once when I was on my way from Vadodara headed to Bagodara; I was seeking directions and the person asked me if I was a military man. Then couple of times in last 200kms stretch, a couple of bikers slowed down and put on helmet after they thought I was following them and may stop and question them.

All those who heard of this feat were awestruck. And I was pleased. It was a great risk... but it was a great adventure too... riding alone was insane… But I badly wanted to take this journey. I badly wanted to do it, just for the sake of it. And I did it.