Thursday, October 12, 2006

12th October: Leg 2 Day 9 : Udaipur-Ahmedabad

As I checked into the Ritz Inn in Ahmedabad, the guy at the counter asked me, “don’t you get tired sir?” well, I just smiled back, not bothering to answer the same question, which close to a hundred people had asked me on the nine days that I have been on the Leg 2 of the GIR. Between, if you wish to ask the same, lemme explain that yeah, we do get tired. Our legs ache, our backs ache, our bodies beg for a Kerala massage. The eyes pain due to the constant flow of wind even with the visor down, and the riding gear makes our bodies sweat to the bone! But all this gets paid off when we see miles and miles of smooth empty roads where our Kinetic Blazes and Jupiter do 120km/h, the Blade does 250km/h (still 50 short of what it can do…) The fatigue goes away when village children line up next to the highway and wave at us, the fatigue goes away when a car stops to check if everything is ok with the gang and even offers biscuits and chocolates. The fatigue ends when you keep getting smses from members all over the country, wishing you the best for the journey ahead. And did I mention the episode where youngsters came forward and took our autographs!! At times like these, it all seems worth it.
I got up today with a plan to see and explore Udaipur, known as a romantic city. But even before we had ordered our breakfast, the lights went off and the hotel staff very politely said that electricity would come back not before evening and that they didn’t have any back-up! Whats worse, our laptops, cameras and mobiles weren’t even charged! Sunny got so furious, he decided to head to Ahmedabad for the night, but not before we saw atleast a couple of places around. I have a liking for places that are tourist and hawker free and had read about the Sajjangarh fort situated on a hill, very near to the place we were staying. Off we went, Sunny on the Blade and me on the Jupiter. The area where we were staying (Lake palace road) had narrow lanes, which, along with the visible lake and the city palace, gave the whole area a charming feel. The ride to the fort seemed very interesting (entry fee was ten bucks per person and ten per two-wheeler) and had numerous tight loops that finally got us to the top. It was impossible to believe that we were in Rajasthan. On one side, we could see the whole city and the lakes and the other side greeted us with views of the green hills till the distant background! We spent hardly ten minutes up there, mainly because the fort turned out to be a disappointment and had it not been for the ride up, I would have considered going there a waste of time. Next up, on the way back to the hotel, we went to the City Palace, which to me was a total waste of time and money (entry – 50 bucks per person) as the place was full of people, there was an extra fee for going to other parts of the palace and the place seemed too small, commercialized and over-hyped for what it actually turned out to be. Udaipur for me wasn’t turning out to be a great experience!
We were back at the hotel by one when we met three foreigners from USA, who were living in China and one of them was leaving for a great ride on a side-car bike back in China. Sunny showed the coffee table book of the Leg 1 and they did seemed quite impressed with the whole thing about the GIR. Sunny did teach them a thing and two about getting sponsorships and promised to come to China very soon! Our back-up truck’s driver Gurjan, in the meantime was back from the hospital. His tests showed that there was nothing serious but the doctor did prescribe him some medicines and we all hoped the better for him as without him (and hence the back up vehicle) things would turn out to be very difficult for us.
We left Udaipur by three and once again joined back the Golden Quadrilateral route to Ahmedabad. The last time I was here was back in November last year, when I had ridden to Delhi from Pune. But that was in the dark and this time I was astonished to see the beauty and greenery around! The highway was full of twisties and amazing back-drops. Roads like these really bring out the real India and with the song from ‘Swades’ (Yeh to desh hai mera..) playing in my Ipod, I could not resist but think continuously why we Indians need to go abroad when we got the best of roads, mountains, beaches, plains, monuments, forts, lakes and everything right here in our country! This being just the ninth day of the Leg 2, I wondered how much more was to come our way and what fraction of it would we be able to capture in our Canon cameras and what fraction of that would we be able to show to the world! But then, through the GIR, if we are able to make people ride and feel and see our country first hand, I will consider the GIR a definite success.
After a heavy lunch at a good dhaba just before the Gujrat border, we carried onto Ahmedabad, but it was clear that we would be once again riding in the dark. While filling up the Blade once again with the 97octane fuel (being carried in the back-up vehicle), a Santro came and stopped next to us and its driver surprisingly stepped out and said that he wanted to see the bike which could overtake his Santro! Sunny and I somehow just managed to control our laughter!
I somehow like riding in the dark and with the company of good songs, I was actually doing much higher speeds than in the daytime but with no rear brakes whatsoever, I did have a couple of close calls! For those who don’t know, I have been riding this Jupiter, capable of touching 120 on the clock, without a working rear disc brake, which the company (Kinetic) hasn’t been able to fix for the past two months! Using only the front brake can be very dangerous on hills, in the wet and on roads with dirt and rocks! I hope the company does fix the rear brake so that I can enjoy some engine scraping entics once the ghats start in a week’s time.
It took us five hours to cover 255kms from Udaipur due to numerous stops for pictures, fuel and lunch and once again memories of Agra’s traffic sense came back to my mind. I don’t feel like wasting words to describe the situation but we were lucky enough to find a good hotel with an underground parking, but at Rs 1500 bucks for three people seemed a little pricey by GIR standards! Nevertheless I had a well-deserved bath-tub bath while Sunny and Ashish (who joined us from Jaipur) went to NID to meet some seniors and returned only to tease me by telling me about the great machines that they spent some time with. My eyes are half closed as I finish today’s blogs and really wish to do Little Rann today if time permits.

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