When : 15th August – 18th August 2008
Why : I had to check out the present state of NH34 as this is the road that connects Silligudi with Kolkata. My ride next month will actually commence from Guwahati, but somehow I need to reach there and the only way is via Silligudi, so......
How : I was yet to receive my P200 but I wanted to go on a ride very badly, so asked for help and my friend Nirmallaya Chatterjee aka Lattu generously lend me his classic P150. A change of Engine Oil and I was all set, no tools, no spares, who cares.........
Who : Sandeep on his P220, Indranil on his P200 and Abhi on the P150
Altough after a day I was more or less alone
The Route : Kolkata to Panagarh More via NH2—Ilambazaar—Siuri—Moregram—Jangipur—Farakka—Mal dah—Raniganj—Dalkhola—Kishenganj(Bihar)—Islampur—S illigudi—Sevok—Teesta Bridge—Kalimpong.
While returning after Moregram I stick to NH34 so it was Kalimpong—Moregram—Berhampur—KrishnaNagar—Ranaghat —Barasat—Kolkata.
Conclusion : NH34 is not at all suitable for bikes at it's present state thanks to the millions of trucks those ply on it everyday and the last repair it seen in the previous CENTURY, infact the only motorable transport suitable on it is a Roadroller
so I guess I will have to think of another way to reach Guwahati
Having said all these, this is NOT a triplog as all I did was ride, ride and ride. Time was short, road was long, weather was bad, bike was old and aged (done nearly 60K Kms) so to sum up, did not get much time to stop and click pics or rather may have not stopped at the appropriate spots to click, still trying to post with some words and occasional pics thrown in
Day 1 (15th August) : Kolkata to Dalkhola
The plan was to reach Silligudi by evening but alas we had no idea what lies ahead. We should have started at 4 in the morning but had to start because one of the riders, Indranil, could not start from his house before 6 a.m. so the plan was to meet at 6.30 in the morning and proceed. But even at 7 there was no sign of him and hence me and Sandeep decided to start leisurely as Indranil informed over phone that he will catch up with us soon. It was decided that we will take NH2 and reach Panagarh More (Strangely itz called Darjeeling More as well) and from there we will take the Ilambazaar-Siuri route and connect to NH34 at Moregram and then proceed through the traditional route. The idea behind it was to ride on good roads as much as possible and finally succumbing to the inevitable fate. But later I discovered that it was not useful and only added further 60-70 kms to our ride and we only lost valuable time on top of a very late start.
Anyway, as it was, me and Sandeep were riding on the NH2 leisurely hoping for Indranil to catch up with us from behind any moment! But, as fate was at one point we had to look for a local mechanic to tighten my RVM as it was not keeping steady for a minute and I’m not used to ride without RVM. And exactly during those couple of minutes Indranil must have ovetaked us as when we finally reached Shaktigarh (Famous for Langcha, a bengali sweet) and were waiting, we got a call from him telling us that he has already reached Panagarh which was further 30 minutes ahead!! We started again, reached Panagarh More around 10 a.m. and finally the group ride begun, so begun the potholes! Well potholes can be managed and hence we were cruising at 75-85 comfortably.
Here’s a pic of what I rode
Reached Ilambazaar around 12.30 and had a few biscuits and cakes as we decided to skip lunch to make up for the time. After this my sense of timing got jumbled up as I was not wearing a watch (I don’t wear any, can’t afford one
) and so for the rest of the day I don’t have much idea when we reached where. Around sometime reached Moregram and start riding on NH34. I don’t wanna repeat the pathetic condition of the road again and again, to sum up, NH34 will give you all kinds of nightmare as possible, at stretches for 20-25 Kms there are only big, bigger and biggest holes with occasional bits of road thrown in, the other sections are full of potholes, in short a rider’s graveyard. The good part is, we rode and we survived. Anyway, back to storytelling. A short while after Moregram mother nature thought that we must be bored by now riding all by ourselves and she decided to send some company, the rains came. Here we stopped at the roadside for a fag break and also to keep mobiles, moneybag, etc to keep inside the bag. I took out the camera and clicked a few pics.
The clouds gathering over the paddy fields of Bengal
It's getting darker
The road ahead
Time to roll on in the rains
After a while we started riding in the rains (None of us carried raingear) as we could not afford to lose any more time. Some 10-12 kms and the rain stopped, sky cleared only that we were left fully drenched, everything was wet including you know what!! Well that did not dampen our spirits and we continued riding.
Here’s a picture of the potholes at a reasonably good stretch of the road
We kept on riding and crossed Farakka, reached Maldah and rode on and as was inevitable, dusk fell. Here I first started to face some problems. There’s no light along NH34 and I was having difficulty seeing the potholes with the highbeams of the oncoming Trucks (They won’t lower their beam no matter how much you flash your headlight) and at the same time maintaining a speed of 80. So I asked Indranil and Sandeep for help. So, one of them started riding just behind me with their Highbeam (Sandeep’s a P220 and Indranil’s a P200 fitted with Avenger 180’s coil and Osram Nightbreaker and is better than a P220’s projector lamp) and with their light’s some of the trucker’s obliged and lowered the beam!!
Finally at about 9 in the evening we managed to reach Dalkhola. Here the nightmare of NH34 ends and butter smooth road lies ahead as we discovered next morning. My odo reading was somewhere around 550 Kms and we have survived 400 Kms of NH34 without a single fall. Basically I don’t like to fall and hence try not to and in this 1500 Kms grueling ride I never fell. But at Dalkhola we were not aware of the good roads ahead and also we were dead tired so we decided to stop for our dinner and to discuss what to do next. There was this wonderful BPCL feeling station with a Food Court and we took our break there. I took out my camera and clicked some pics.
The Food Court
Even tough the Food Court looked good there was not much choice of food available at that hour and we opted for Veg Pakora and Egg Chow. While waiting for food we discussed the situation. Being unaware of the good road ahead we assumed that it may take another 3-4 hours to reach Silligudi which is another 150 Kms aheads. Then we will be reaching at 1-2 in the morning which is not a good time and we may have difficulty finding a hotel. Also the P220 and P200 have developed some problems (My P150 was fine) and they needed to be serviced at Probiking which is sure to open at 10 or later in the morning and hence we will have to wait till then. So we decided to spend the night in that pump itself (It had BPCL promoted GHAR with it which offers dormitory beds for tourers and truckers and have all other facilities like Restrooms, Cleaning, etc) and just dragged our bodies to the beds and passed out.
To be Continued……..
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