NHT Himalayan Odyssey : Mum-Leh-Mum Journey of a Lifetime!

SushilAyarottil · Apr 7, 2017

Day 1 - Mumbai-Chittorgarh July 6th 2k16

We had decided not to take an early morning start as unlike me both Rohan and Neeteesh and office the day before.

As we were taking NH3-NH79 route to Chittorgarh we decided to meetup at Kalyan phata at 7. Left home at 6:30 tanked up and left for Kalyan phata.

Fully Loaded Bikes

My D390

Rohan's D390

I reached the meeting point and was joined by Rohan and Neeteesh shortly. It was raining so we had to take out our rain gears.

First pic of the day/ride

First halt was before Kasara ghat for some breakfast. Did not take much pics on day 1 as we did not want to reach Chittorgarh too late in the night.

Roads are good throughout except for some bad patches in between. However there are a lot of rumbler strips till you exit Maharashtra and enter MP.

After Munching around first 350kms of the ride

We continued our journey further and stopped for lunch at some place before Ratlam.

Unlike south there is always some sense of insecurity while in northern part of the country. This might be personal opinion; however this perception changed to some extent in coming days.

Continued further.

Just after crossing Ratlam, I was leading with Rohan behind me. After some time got a call from Neeteesh saying his bike had stopped and it refused to start up. He had missed out on fueling up at the last bunk and he had run out of fuel.

Petrol cans used for the first time in the trip

Continued further without taking much halts and managed to reach Chittorgarh by 9:30. Checked into a hotel booked by CHD and retired for the day after dinner.

Final Pic for the day

Even though it was a long tiring day covering close to 950 plus kms, it was not as eventful as the coming days turned out to be.

Even longer and event full Day 2 will be served next!! Do watch out for the same! Adios for now!

Cheers,
Sushil Ayarottil

Karandeep · Apr 9, 2017

Awesome Clicks ..
obviously awesome events.....
pour more...... waiting..............................

JourneyGuy · Apr 10, 2017

Wonderful Travelogue on the making..... Bring it on guys.

Sent from my Lenovo Z90a40 using Tapatalk

SushilAyarottil · Apr 10, 2017

Day 2 : Chittorgarh - Amritsar (The Longest Day)

We were tired after riding for more than 900 kms the earlier day. After all it’s quite rare you do numbers like thses in a day. It was my first time, Rohan had did it a couple of times during his solo Mum-Bangalore-Mum ride while Neeteesh had also done similar numbers during his solo south ride. But that was more than 3 years ago in 2013.

So it had become obvious that inspite of our plans to leave early for the day and cover maximum distance we could only manage to leave hotel by 10 in morning.

Tanked up and left for Kishangarh. Chittorgarh to Kishangarh being internal roads were not in that great condition. Afternoon heat coupled with the Truck traffic was killing us. Somehow managed to cover the stretch and joined the beautiful 6 lane NH8 after Kishangarh. We were about to accelerate that’s when Neeteesh complained about slackness in his chain. And voila!!! Just about 200mts ahead the chain came off. We somehow put the chain back and managed to reach a local mechanic on the highway. After completing the work moved further and reached Jaipur by 3 in afternoon. We were searching for McDonalds on the highway as we wanted to quickly have our lunch and move ahead. Managed to find one just inside Jaipur.

This McD joint was inside a mall, so here we were fully geared up in the drive thru ordering burgers and fries.

The attendant was amused to see us and her 1st question was ‘Sir aap kahase aa rahe ho?’ and I was like ‘Mumbai!!’ Shocked after hearing my reply she took the order and wished us luck

We got the burgers packed and sat near a roadside Sugarcane juice center. Mc Spicy Chicken burger and Sugarcane juice surely makes an awesome combination.

We carried ahead after the short lunch break keeping Rohtak/Panipat as target for night halt. Intense heat and dehydration was making life difficult for us and we were forced to take water breaks almost every 30 mins (Big time missed having hydration pack along with us). Crossed Behror-Neemrana stretch and we reached a junction from where we had to take a left which would take us to Rohtak via Rewari-Jhajjar.

Time was around 5:30 pm and we were drenched with sweat and dehydration was killing us. We decided to take a short nap at the toll plaza to ride after sunset to beat the daytime heat which turned out to be a pretty good decision. Carried ahead after loads of water and a cup of tea.

Bad quality Riding Pants. Gave away on day two itself.

Same old questions... Kahase aaye ho... Kaha jaa rahe ho... Kitna Mileage deti hai

Roads from Rewari to Rohtak were a breeze and we could maintain steady pace. It was close to 10 pm when we reached Rohtak. We had two options; One was to head inside Rohtak and find a place to stay (which would take around an hour to find room and settle) and the second one was to carry on and try to reach Panipat and if body permits carry on ahead till Amritsar. A quick decision was made to carry on and decide once we reach Panipat.

It was close to around 12 midnight. I was leading and was going at quite a good pace when all of a sudden I misjudged a speed breaker. Fortunately nothing untoward happened but just after like 10-15 mins my bike gave the first symptoms of Radiator Fan issue with a ‘High Coolant Temperature’ Warning and the bike just stalled. It was out of nowhere in the middle of the road with no soul in sight. That was quite a scary moment as we had to stop there for around 10-15 mins to let the engine cool down. Once it cooled down I started the bike and carried ahead post which it did not show any warnings (only to creep up out of nowhere during Sach Climb! Story later).

We reached Panipat at around 1 and hit NH1. We were pretty hungry and hunt for a dhaba started. As it was close to 1 am we had little hopes of finding a one at that time but to our surprise we found many open on NH1. Here we were in a completely new territory at mid night with only fear of getting robbed or stabbed or what not. I know this might offend some people but that was the feeling among the three of us. And fortunately we were proved wrong as the dhaba owner served smoking hot Aaloo and Paneer parathas which we relished to the core. Post the late dinner we carried ahead with an aim of reaching Amritsar by morning.

NH1 was amazing to ride on and SENA intercom devices proved to be a blessing keeping us all awake with the non-stop bakar. Crossed Karnal-Kurukshetra and we entred the 5th state on our trip.
PUNJAB!

Amritsar was still 250 kms away but we were determined to reach by hook or crook. I must say it was an altogether different rather scary experience to ride at this point of time at a completely unknown place. Numerous halts were taken in between to beat the sleep.

Halts in between!

Crossed Ludhiyana-Jalandhar and reached outskirts of Amrisar by around 7 am.

Completed the next agonizing 45 kms and reached Amritsar by around 8:30 am. The next big challenge was to find a place to crash down. Found a decent enough hotel in the by-lanes of Amritsar and crashed for the day.

Another grueling day comes to an end. After spending 1100kms and 21 hrs on road...

Up Next!
An evening spent at Darbar Harmandir Sahib!

Cheers,
Sushil Ayarottil