This was the big day. Raid De Ladakh once more. 😉
Left Delhi at the royal hour of 10 am. Fought the traffic through Moolchand, ITO and Azadpur. Worst part about leaving Delhi towards any side is that for miles on end the traffic just doesn’t seem to abate. Going north, there is no respite from heavy car and truck traffic till almost Sonepat. Very frustrating.
From there on, I was on familiar territory. Last year, just ahead of Sonepat, the pistons on my Bullet 350 seized. From there I had limped on to Chandigarh till late in the evening and spent another day there to get stuff done. And then … well, its another story. WIll be told another day.
So, the places come and go. Sonepat, Panipat, Ambala, Chandigarh. I was on the junction that led me to either Chandigarh or Shimla at 4 pm. I had a sore ass screaming Chandigarh and lusty eyes (pointed at the peaks of the mountains which were now faintly visible in the distance) screaming Shimla. The eyes won. And by a HUGE majority. Barely half an hour later, I was climbing. All the pain in the butt was gone. My hands were outstretched. Both of them. In the middle of traffic. People were looking at me like I was a madman. But after days and days of riding, I was in the mountains. It was elation like never before. It was beautiful.
Soon I was in Kalka and the dream sort of had a dampener. Roads were pathetic. Primarily because of the extraordinarily high truck traffic carrying heavy equipments to the new centres of industrial development across Himachal Pradesh. Progress was frustratingly slow. I had to make a decision.
I stopped at a place called Parwanoo and discussed the issue with locals. I had about 45 minutes of daylight left and heading any further would be a big pain. Plus I wanted to celebrate my arrival into the mountains. So I settled for Solan.
Solan is a small town on NH22 like any other hill town. Checked into a nice hotel and got coke for my rum and some nice chicken. Drank and ate till the end of time. It felt good. I was getting there.
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