For the record, the ride to Spiti Valley began on Saturday July 23. It began in a car in Pune as Ashish and I headed to the airport to catch a flight to Delhi. We had heard rumors to the effect that our bikes had been unloaded at Gurgaon and were eagerly awaiting us.
So, the last time I was heading for a ride my riding buddy forgot his jacket and swore loudly mid-flight. This time, I had version 2.0 of a riding buddy and while he brought his jacket with him, he forgot the padding that goes into a riding jacket. Thankfully there was no public swearing. The flight to Delhi was uneventful and so was the cab ride to Ashish’s brother’s place in Gurgaon. We reached home and after some tea and refreshments, headed for the moment of truth as we went down to the basement to check on the bikes.
The bikes were transported through Gati and they were generally ok. They broke a mirror on each of our bikes. And while checking the mirror out, I broke the remaining one on my bike. Two bikes, one mirror between them. Rest of the stuff was ok. So all we had to do was get some fuel into the bike, buy a couple of mirrors and off we’d go. So we thought.
Petrol pumps in Gurgaon won’t dispense fuel into bottles/containers. That concept makes sense most of the time — except for when you have a bone dry fuel tank and the fuel pump is almost a kilometer away and it’s a hot, humid day. The sub-plot for the fueling exercise began with trying to locate a friendly bike owner who’d give us a half-liter of fuel to fill up a bike. Then we figured we’d take that bike to the pump and fill ‘er up. Then come back home, dispense fuel out of the filled bike and fill up the other bike, and then both head back to the fuel pump to top up again . Seemed like a plan. Was mostly well executed. Found out during that exercise that one of the ways that Gurgaon has implemented the mandatory helmet rule is to dispense fuel only when the rider is wearing a helmet. Sounds weird out of context but apparently that works. Whatever.
We also tried looking for mirrors but the few stores that were open in Gurgaon didn’t have mirrors for the Thunderbird. Gurgaon kinda sucks in these kind of stuff. You want to buy designer dresses, electronics, weird antiques, no problem — shops will be open at your convenience. You want to get a bike repaired and you’d have to drive to Old Gurgaon/Sector 14 and hunt for hours. Yuck!
So finally we were ready to leave around 3pm… having landed at 9:30am. And in our infinite wisdom, aided by the collective intelligence of Google, we decided to take the traffic-free and less travelled route out of Gurgaon towards Panipat. We decided to head via Jhajjar and Rohtak and meet NH-1 near Panipat. And we found out why that route was traffic-free and less travelled. A minor detour, according to Google maps… turned out to be almost 100% over budget on the distance. Fortunately, us being used to software projects, we did not mind the overhead. The ride was nice and gentle. Kinda hot and boring. But no issues. Rohtak has to be seen to believed. I was last in Rohtak in 1990 when studying at BITS, Pilani and it was a dreary dusty town right out of a Western movie set. And now it has flyovers, 6-lane roads, sports stadiums, wow!
Finally as we hit Panipat and merged with NH-1 around 7:30pm we decided to call it a day. Hotel Nirulas came by on the highway and we turned in for the night there.
Pictures from the first day…
