Build-up to the Himalayan Odyssey

BIKE ride in the mountains of Himalayas had been a long cherished dream. I had heard about passionate riders making this trip to Himalayas from different parts of the the country. I had also seen awe inspiring pictures of riding in Ladakh in NDTV's 'The Himalayan Odyssey', organized by the Royal Enfield. For bikers, riding in the Himalayas is nothing short of a world cup or a holy grail of Biking, where their riding skills, patience, courage and endurance of the bike are tested. I was very fascinated by the thought of riding in Himalayas, but being in southern India I never seriously considered doing it; Himalayas seemed way too far to travel on bike!

One fine day my friend Praveen, who organizes most of  our weekend trips around Manipal, told me about the trip plan to Ladakh on bike. First thing that came in my mind was that I may not get this opportunity again. This had to be a trip for a life-time. Without second thought I gave my 'Yes'. And I was not alone, Prashant, Uday and Vidyanand also joined at the same time. Vishwas and Manjunath, who planned this trip, had already started working on the itineraries. Aditya was also on board. Soon I had my first trip meeting :) It took some time for me to digest the fact that I was indeed going to Himalayas. I was very excited and couldn't hold my joy during the first few days we met to discuss the plan and itineraries. Days passed by and we tentatively fixed our trip date as July 15th, 2010, where we were to be joined by a group from Bangalore, which included my cousin. However, we later postponed it by a week to July 22nd, 2010. Back then, this date was more than 2 months ahead. We were so excited about the trip that the 60 odd days seemed too far to wait. We were afraid that longer the time, greater the chances of Murphy's law playing a spoil-sport. But we had no option but to have patience and wait and keep our fingers crossed. Contrary to our expectation, a few more guys joined us over next few days- Jeevan, Reddy and lastly Chetankumar. Final number- 9 bikers and 2 guys in car, as back-up riders.

Next few weeks we continued to collect data about stay, places of interest, food and fuel availability, best time for biking and other different aspects of the trip through various channels- blogs, websites, friends etc. We had collected tons of data that aided us in our planning. Flight return tickets from Goa to Delhi were booked 2 months in advance as it was economical this way. We planned to reach Goa by train in the evening of July 22, 2010, spend the night in Goa and catch the early morning flight to Delhi the next day. Soon after reaching Delhi, we would collect our bikes from GATI transport, get them repaired in case the bikes got damaged during transport and try to reach at-least till Chandigarh. We had also prepared an exhaustive list of items we needed to purchase- from warm clothes to travel bags, medicines, biking gears and many more! I had spent nearly Rs. 8000-10000 rupees on shopping for the trip.

Priest performing bike-puja at Prassanna Ganapati Temple, Manipal

On the morning of July 11th, 2010, (Sunday), our trip formally began at 'Prassanna Ganapati Temple', were all the bikers ( except Adi ) had gathered to seek Lord Ganesha's blessing. We got the bike-puja performed by the priest on all 8 bikes. After this ritual, we had breakfast and we headed to Mangalore to ship our bikes to Delhi through GATI transport. The manager was kind to accept our request to collect the bikes and finish the paper work on Sunday. However, he could send the bikes only on Monday. We were able to strike a good bargain with the manager (at-least we thought so) who finally settled to Rs. 10 per kg transport charge. My Pulsar 220 shipping cost me Rs. 2966. Without our bikes, next 10 days were a bit painful when it came to commuting within Manipal. It was quite strange how luxury can spoil you. Yes, having bikes is a luxury, realized it now that I was bike-less! I remembered the days when I didn't have a bike in Manipal; how we used to walk 2.5 km  to Tiger circle; or wait at bus-stop to catch a bus to go to Udupi. Those days seemed like a previous life.

I gave a visit to my parents in Hubli on the last weekend before the trip. The decision to go home on that weekend was a result of lots of things that go into your mind when you are about to set out on an adventurous trip- nervousness, fear and and things difficult to explain. The 2 days I spent in home were also the most difficult ones. I had only told the half-truth to my parents, that I was going on a North-India trip to Leh, but didn't mention taking my bike. I felt guilty whenever I talked about the trip to my Mom and Dad. At times the 'emotional me' urged me to tell the whole truth to them, but my logical self warned me against it. Sometime ago, I had to bear my Dad's and uncle's wrath when I took my bike to my friend's marriage 200 km from Manipal. There was no way they were letting me go to Himalayas on my bike. It was impossible for me to explain to them my passion for biking. I thought keeping quite about it was a win-win condition for me and my parents.Before heading back to Manipal, I sought their blessing (and forgiveness). I was sad throughout the journey to Manipal. Once in Manipal, I was able to put all that behind and focus on the upcoming trip.After some last moment shopping on July 21st and with our bags packed-up, we were all set to go!