The Touring Diary

20 July 2008: So the D-Day had come when we actually start our riding towards the Himalayas. We were so excited. We got up late as we slept very late in the night (around 4 or may be late) at about 9 or 10 o clock. We had heavy breakfast and decided to push off as we had to cover a lot of distance on that day. Actually the distance wasn't too much (115kms) but the terrain was pretty bad. So we booked a Bolero camper so that our luggage and our friend can come on hat and we'll start with bikes. We checked out from the hotel and filled petrol in the three cans that we bought enroute to Manali from Chandigarh. So by 12.30 we were good to go and started our journey. Picture outside the hotel: Photographer: Prabhu We filled 60 liters of petrol for all four bikes. Sunil sir's bike's side stand had broken during transportation and he suggested we go ahead while he will get that fixed and catch up later so I and Prabhu went ahead and caught up with the bolero which started earl

Chandigarh, 19th May: We woke up and started calling again and asking for the bikes. The Aakash guy (forgot his name) told that the bikes are in the Chandigarh somewhere and he gave the address. We hired a taxi and went to the place for collecting the bikes. The reached the place and saw the bikes were in a small truck whose number didn't match with the one given to us earlier. We unloaded the bikes from the truck using a ramp which we all forced them to use otherwise they would have unloaded the truck in their usual way (brute force method: throwing things out of the truck just like that) :( We found there were damages in almost all of the bikes. But nothing major that would hinder our trip. We blasted the transport guy, called up his boss and told him the scenario. The boss asked us to note down the damages and hand it over to the local guy and assured us that the company will pay up for the damages. We unpacked our bikes and trying starting it and thankfully every bike was up an

18 July 2008: We reached Delhi at around 8.45 AM and immediately started to look around for a taxi for going to Chandigarh. We asked in the airport itself and all of the counters were asking too much of money starting from 7500 and more. So we decided to get out of the airport and look for private taxis which go to Chandigarh. We talked to a couple of people and finally decided to go in one of taxis, it was a tavera, who asked the lowest at that time i.e. 4700/- (we came to know that it was little expensive afterwards). Anyways as soon as we got on to the taxi we started calling the Akash packers guys for getting the address in Chandigarh from where we had to collect our bikes. We called a couple of times to our Bangalore guy but was not reachable. Then we tried numbers of Chandigarh and Delhi. To our horror the Delhi guy said he hasn't received any bikes from Bangalore in last ten days :eek:. And Chandigarh guys also denied of receiving any bikes from Gurgaon (bikes were to be sen

Bangalore to Bangalore Airport and then to Delhi. It was Thursday evening and finally the day was there when my dream trip was about to start :). I was pretty excited about it and called up Prabhu, Sunil sir and Chetan if anything extra we needed to carry apart from whatever planned. I had loads of work in the office as I had to complete everything from my side before going for the long vacation. I worked till 8.45PM finished off everything handed over the work to my manager, took the printouts of maps and plan that Sunil sir had put on this thread and started for home. Chetan had already spoken to a person for the taxi to the airport which will pick us all up and go to airport. He told that he has got the full Tempo Traveler for us for some 1000 bucks:eek:. I and Chetan decided that Chetan will come to my house with his luggage and at my house only the Taxi will come and then we'll pick up Prabhu, Mohan finally to Sunil sir's house from there to airport. Chetan told that John

Right from time when started touring on bike I wanted to go for a trip to Himalayas. Himalayas is considered to be the ultimate frontier for bikers from all over the world. When the plan was put in front of me by my friends (Prabhu, Sunil, Akhil), I was very reluctant. Why reluctant when this was my dream trip?? The reason is I thought I am not ready for it for a couple of issues. First: The financial problem as this trip demanded a considerable amount of money. Second: I thought I needed to prepare for this trip physically as well as mentally. Yes this trip was demanding in every sense. Third: Getting leaves from the office for two weeks. Despite all these issues I decided to go ahead with the trip. I told to myself: heck! this is my only chance it is now or never and I won't get the fantastic company of my friends. I arranged the money, tried to prepare myself physically and mentally by exercising daily, control my breathing etc. I managed to get leaves from my office. Big thanks