Into The wild

Day 1 : Trip 126 km

Delhi to Panipat ; 06.09.08

Yes, its a short ride, but our first pit stop was at Panipat, more precisely at Gyan's place.I was the first to zip to Gyan's place, since I was carrying a precious load of an ice pack of pork, and I had no intention of letting the ice melt!!! I clocked an average of 93 km/hr to Panipat after leaving the guys at Murthal for their lunch. The plan was to pick up Gyan from Panipat, take rest over there , start off early next morning and clock Panipat-Manali in one day. Looked good on paper atleast.

The guys reached Gyan's place in the evening and they took off towards the nearest theka to ration ourselves with Old Monk for the entire trip and the evening that ensued was a leisurely one of whisky and pork and chicken tandoori. We started quite early, even before sunset, so as to be done with dinner by 2200 hrs. Needless to say the evening hours extended by quite a margin and people found themselves on the bed not before midnight. That was followed by a short nap to wake up at 0300 Hrs and get ready with our bags and bikes.

It was probabably the only time we woke up early during the entire trip, and all of us were set to rip at 0500 Hrs. Anshu, with his huge backpack and Jill, with his slippery rucksack, needed help with their bungee cords , but we all managed to get our stuff onto our bikes in about 90 minutes. I was planning on buying a North Face backpack from Manali, so I had to cram all my stuff into an airbag and my saddle bags, but somehow I managed to do it.