Travelogue Part 2

July 29 :: Delhi to Ambala ~200KMs.
Got ready to leave the hotel by around 7:30AM. We picked up the Royal Enfield service booklet and started calling the authorised service centers in Delhi one by one. Inspite of being a sunday, we got lucky on the first call itself. We arranged with the owner of Balaji Motors to meet him with our bikes for a "quick" and "thorough" check-up at a petrol pump a few kilometers from our hotel. From there we followed him to his workshop, all the way to Naraina Industrial area. Soon our five bikes got all the attention. Things were getting done fast. We even thought we would be out of there by 1:00 in the afternoon. But lady luck threw us her nasty smile. Soon we found that the sporkets on two of our bikes is good for just another 200KMs. There was no way we could complete the 2500 KM journey on these sporkets. The team of bikers got into a discussion on whether to buy new sporkets on our own or to call Rajesh and ask him to pay us for these new ones. Atlast, we called Rajesh with the news. TO my surprise, Rajesh was decent enough to send his mechanic with two new sporkets and a chain to put in the bikes. Oil checks, brake shoe replacements, speedometer cables, chain tightening (or loosening), clutch wire tightening .... It took us till 4:00PM to get it all done. Muthu, the chief mechanic at the workshop had relocated from a southern Tamil Nadu district about 10 years ago to work in Delhi. He was called to the workshop specially to take care of our needs for the day. Once he found out where we are going and that we knew nothing about bike repair, he was good enough to give us useful tips about adjusting clutch wires, accelerator cables, brake tightening etc. He also made his mechanics to show us how to remove the wheels and put them back .. we would need it in case of a puncture.

All bikes checked and done, last minute shopping for batteries, scarfs and memory cards done, we were ready to leave Delhi. But first we need to fill up our tanks. Even before we could reach a petrol pump, one bike ran dry and just refused to start. Some delay and back-and-forth to the petrol pump later, we thought we were all set to go, only to realise that finding our way out of Delhi onto NH 1 is quite difficult task. Luckily for us, a guy who introduced himself as a member of local Eagle group ( I think that's what he said), helped us out by leading us out of Delhi's madenning traffic signals onto the highway. Soon we were all cruising at 70 - 80Kmph on NH 1. Our jouney has begun.

After about an hour on the road, I found 3 of the 5 bikes missing from my rear view mirror. We had to stop and a cell phone call later found out that one of the bikes had a puncture. Mr. Murphy is working overtime for us today.

While waiting for the other bikes, a couple of local guys on bajaj bikes stopped by us and informed us that "some similar big bikes" like the ones that I was riding on has stopped due to puncture some 10 KMs back. After chatting with us in Hindi for some time, to find out where we are going, the next question they asked us was "Which country ?". Had a good mind to tell them "Pakistan!!!".

Anyway, back at the puncture site, there was mixed news. The good news was that there was a petrol pump, a Dhabha and two puncture shops all at walkable distances from where the flat tyre occured. The bad news was that, the two puncture fellows just refused to walk to our bikes with their tools to remove the tyre and attend to the puncture, inspite of more money being offered. So, right there, on the highway, under fading light, we started to remove the tyre from the bike and took it to the puncture fellow to fix it. It took us another hour and a half to get it all done.

The day so far was so grueiling that we started appreciating simple good things in life, like the hot glass of milk tea from the Dhabha. We were amazed by how the puncture fellows, flatly refused to get out of their shops to come attend to us inspite of more money being offered. Is it that they do not want to spoil their sunday evening, or is it that they see so many punctures that ours is just one more ... I would never be able to understand .... but this was a first for me ... to see somebody who obviously could do with more money, flatly refusing the work and the money.

Well, by the time we were ready to kick our bikes to life, it had become dark and we decided to drive through the night. We set Ambala as our target for the day. Now that we were on a highway, I decided to try driving the bike. As the needle crossed 50, 60,70 & 80 KMPH marks, so did my sense of elation at this major accomplishment. I had managed to tame the beast and ride it, atlast. Where I grew up, Bullets have a reputation of being a tough man's ride. Now, I could claim to have ridden one and that too at quiet high speeds. But the elation was short lived as the reality of having to drive on highway in the night hit hard on my face, literally. I had to keep my eyes open inspite of loads of dust and insects that were getting into it.

Not being experienced bikers, we clearly lacked the discipline to drive in a group. So invariably we had to stop every half hour or so to sync up with the rest of the bikes and this made our progress slow. But without much incident we reached Ambala at 12:00 in the night. After roaming around the city a little bit and waking up attendents at two hotels we choose Amar Palace to crash in for the night. I took a nice bath to clean the grime of the highway off my body and dug out the load of mud and insects that had gotten into my eyes. After a very late dinner, we all slept, deciding to start at 8:00AM in the morning.

The hot sultry weather in Delhi, the grease from the workshop and grime of the highway meant that I did not take out my camera the whole day. So I do not have any pictures on the events of the day.