Saturday 25 May 2013

Day - 1 (Kolkata - Malda)


It was 17th May 2013 and the time has come for the great achievement, probably the best memorable motorcycle / bike journey of our lifetime, The Great Motorcycle Ride to Gurudongmar, the 2nd highest lake of India and world’s 15th highest at 17100 ft.

We at Rolling Wheels Biker’s Club were planning for a 7-8 days trip to somewhere in North India / North Bengal. But as we already have a grand trip to Arunachal Pradesh for 28 days, many of our members are focused on the same and banking to make the trip. Obviously the turn around for this small trip is very less. Initially we planned to make the trip to Old Silk Route, Sikkim. Later we found one more person (Bijit Laha) will join us if we make it to Gurudongmar and we finalized the same J. Now the team became of 4 members Bhaskar Da, Bijit Da, Shiladitya and myself (Arup). Bhaskar da will be joining the RWBC team from Silliguri.


Glimpse of Gurudongmar:

The lake is named after Padmasambhava, the Indian tantric Buddhist who conducted rituals here. It is said that this is why, even at the height of winter, one portion of the lake never freezes.

Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism religion, visited many of the places where Padmasambhava prayed at, including this lake in North Sikkim. At the local people's request for water, Guru Nanak, with his 'dang' (a long stick) broke upper layer of ice & said, "Water of this lake will never freeze". Thus people named this lake 'guru dang mar' meaning created with the dang of Guru Nanak.


As per our plan we gathered in front of our club premises before 5:30 pm and waiting for our friends to come and bid us. It was cloudy and soon it started raining heavily and continues till 8:15 pm. By that time our very well known friend and best rider I have seen so far, Bobo (Somjeet) came. He was totally wet and we are amazed to find that, though he is not going for the trip, he purchased one big plastic sheet so that we can cover our luggage’s. It is really a blessing to have this kind of mentality in any organization I believe J. This not only helps to build a team rather it helps much more building the forum / organization.

Around 8:30 pm it started sprinkling and we planned to leave at earliest. We checked the packing of our luggage once again. Now its time to bid our well wisher’s and starts for the great achievement. We bid Krishnendu Da, Bapi Da, Tirthendu, Biswa, Atreyi (my better half) and her brother (Rajdeep) and headed towards NH34. Bobo was leading our team till Airport where 2 of our friends from same forum waiting to bid us.

Soon, we reached Airport and found Sammy (Soumendra) and Tanumoy (Official Photographer of RWBC) waiting for us. We had a chat for sometime and started for Fulia, few kms before Krishnanagar, where Swarnadip and Ankan were waiting for us to have the dinner.

We drove pretty well on the rainy weather and reached Fulia at 10:30 pm. Swarnadip took us to a hotel, belongs to Ankan’s brother and he went with my buddy to call Ankan. Soon, he came and we enjoyed the Tandoori Roti, Special Tarka, Egg Bhurji etc. along with the lovely chat and gossips among ourselves. We completed our dinner around 11:30 pm and now its time for a serious night ride on NH34 (as condition of the road is not at all good). We bid Ankan and started for our destination at 11:45 pm. On the way we stopped for 5 minutes at Swarna’s home and he gave his raincoat to me, because mine’s zip got broken somehow. I collect the same and we 3 (Bijit Da, Shiladitya & myself) started for our long journey bidding Swarnadip & his family J.

Formation of the ride was finalized by Krishnendu Da (one of the founder and President of Rolling Wheels Biker’s club) as Arup (Head) – Shiladitya – Bijit (Tail) and we started following the same. Ride was going on smooth but not that much comfortable as it was drizzling all the time. We took some break whenever we thought necessary and I continued to SMS our family, RW member’s and well wishers. Suddenly got an unexpected call from Bapi Da. It seems he was missing the ride more than us L.

We drove well all the night and have our early morning tea somewhere near Ragunathganj. Once we are done, started for next stop at Farakka. But this time the ride did not gone smooth. There was huge traffic (don’t know why) and we crossed next 100 kms approximately in 5 hrs. We were feeling too much drowsy and to overcome the same we planned for a small photo session on the very early morning.










Once photo session is over, we started driving once again. Crossing the Farakka Dam in the early morning is a fabulous experience. The barrage was built to divert water from the Ganges River into the Hooghly River during the dry season, from January to June, in order to flush out the accumulating slit which in the 1950s and 1960s was a problem at the Port of Kolkata (Calcutta) on the Hooghly River. 

As the whole night ride was through bad road condition along with monsoon, we started feeling sleepy near Farakka and decided to stop immediately for a tea break. After having the tea we found that due to riding whole night in monsoon we got tired too much and thought of taking a break at Malda. On our way we found a hotel with lovely parking area and immediately opted for enquiry and took shelter there for that day. We were enjoying sleeping and suddenly got a call from Tirthendu, GS of RWBC. He confirmed me about a new joinee from the same place and soon he came to our hotel room to welcome us. We had chat with him for sometime and he mentioned his willingness for coming with us. This is Rolling Wheels, the first Govt. Registered Motorcycle Touring Club of India and we are too much formal. So, once the team was confirmed, we could not accommodate or allow any other member on our team. So, we have to say sorry to him. But Bijit Da and Shiladitya went with him to a local mechanic shop to fix Bijit Da’s Discover’s issue and I decided to stay and enjoy sleeping to get charged up for next day J. Once they came back we had beautiful dinner with Roti – Chicken Curry and went to sleep.

Please click on Day – 2 Travelogue to know our next day’s journey …

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