The Bhutanchal Buccaneers

The wait was long was patient

There was a forlorn lament

For not being on the roads for a while

But there was a reason now to smile

The destination was decided

And after mails debated

It was set over beer and yeast

To head for the east

Into the land of the rising sun

And the land of endless fun....

**From the Bhutanchal Buccaneers**

April 10 - April 22, 2011

It has been quite some time since I posted about my rides; And for good reason too. I had been missing out on many rides for reasons that can be simply put unfortunate or untimely. I don’t usually write about the weekend trips or the short getaways in my car. I try to keep this blog dedicated to only the annual long sojourns out of this mundane life. The moment I was out of projects and posted to the north eastern city of Guwahati, my mind went on an overdrive trying to plan a trip and get down on the roads as soon as possible, make up for lost tarmac or lost trips!

After debates over mails on the destination for our annual getaway, Kenny and I zeroed in on the North-East. The North- East presented another dilemma - places to explore. You see, the North East presents to you a plethora of places that you can just lose yourself into. Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal, Meghalaya, Assam – all these places have their own USP, their own enigma, their own charisma that is left only upon travelers to unravel to whatever extent possible. We were particularly keen on Sikkim, Bhutan and Arunachal since we keep hearing about these fabled places so often. We also knew that this trip would require a different squad of riders, people with very very similar riding dynamics and temperament and of course a sense of extreme comradeship. Keeping this in mind we kept the mail chain limited to a few recipients: Nishant Jha, Kenny, Gyan, Mrinal, Mrinaljeet, Vihans and later added Payeng Da.

So started the discussions over email on the probable destinations in a span of two weeks, the draft itineraries, the plan B’s and Plan C’s. After a few takes and retakes it was evident that clubbing Bhutan, Sikkim and Arunachal together would be nigh impossible in a span of 15 days. And after a lot of iterations we settled on Bhutan plus Arunachal. We would be starting from Guwahati, head towards Phuentsholing-the western most entry point of Bhutan, traverse from down below to Thimpu, then ride on to central Bhutan and finally exit from the point nearest to Assam – Samdhrup Jhonkar. After the exit from Bhutan, we were to proceed directly to Tezpur in Assam and head to Bhalukpong, the entry point of Arunachal from near Tezpur and then take it from there to Tawang. It was a well laid out plan, although we were a bit apprehensive about the terrain in Bhutan. I had feedback on the roads of Arunachal, so it was easy on us to estimate the travel time on bikes from point A to point B, but none of us had any first hand feedback on Bhutan. So we kept the daily distance to be traversed quite modest for the Bhutan leg of the trip, not exceeding more than 200 kms a day.

A trip without any hiccups is a trip truly blessed they say. Very true! The first issue we faced was with the railway ticket bookings. The Rajdhani bookings were showing no signs of getting confirmed even after a 15 day wait and it didn’t seem to fare any better after a month since it was Bihu time in Assam. So we decided to book flight tickets to Guwahati and not to rely on the train tickets alone. Well, it was done and it presented another dilemma – how to get the bikes to Guwahati. The reliable surface transporter GATI declined to ship the bikes to Guwahati. A problem faced by Payeng Da in Pune too. Oh, by the way, Payeng Da is based out of Pune and he was getting his bike from Pune all the way down to Guwahati. I suggested booking sleeper class tickets in the North East Express and have the bikes shipped in the luggage. This is what I had done when I got my bike to Guwahati last December and it had worked fine for me. So it was decided to take this route and proceed with the bikes to the railway station to get the bikes loaded. Payeng Da, in the meantime had taken the help of GATI to ship his bike till Kolkata and then load the bike onto a train for the remainder of the distance. The second shock came when the guy arrived at the railway station and found out that unconfirmed tickets did not warrant luggage to be booked! The guys, Mrinal Doley, Mrinajit Dutta and Kenny came back dejected from the railway station at near midnight. With no options left to explore and with little time to spare, it was time the bikes were dispatched through surface transport. The third hurdle was when almost all transporters refused to ship to Guwahati and even if they did, the charges were exorbitant. Even Jha’s acquaintances in Delhi were of no help.

Finally, Kenny stumbled upon one India Packers and Movers. Almost on the verge of desperation now, the bikes were hastily ferried off with the mover. Even that wasn’t all hunky dory. Many comic incidences happened even while the bikes were being loaded onto the truck! Some very alert neighbor of Doley thought the bikes were being stolen and shipped off to someplace!! Never knew Delhi people cared about what’s going on around them!! Well, this was an eye-opener for the guys in Delhi!

After what seemed to be a never ending ordeal, the four bikes (Gyan had also come down to Delhifrom Panipat to ship his bike together with the others from Delhi) were finally handed over to the Movers and Packers on the 31^st of March. The spokesperson for India Packers and Movers gave us continued reassurances that we’d have the bikes in Guwahati well before we were to venture out. I still curse that guy. Payeng Da had , in the meantime, shipped his bike to Kolkata through GATI and had one relative arranged to take delivery of the bike and parcel it on the train from Kolkata to Guwahati. All we had to do was wait. And we did, very very patiently. Till it was the 7^th of April, just 3 days shy of the start of our trip and with no signs or news of the bikes as yet, we were getting impatient. Turned out that India Packers and Movers, the bastards they are, had offloaded our bikes with Om Logistics and Om Logistics on their part took their own sweet time and had dispatched the bikes only on the 3^rd of April! Their online tracking showed that the expected date of arrival at Guwahati was 11^th of April, which sent us scurrying back to our excel sheets and online maps to try to readjust the itinerary to account for this shift in the timeline. Starting on the 12^th would mean having to cut short part of Central Bhutan and make an exit earlier than Samdhrup Jhonkar or giving a major city a miss. I had kept passes and hotel bookings made for the Arunachal leg of the trip, which meant we could only try permutations on the Bhutan leg of the trip. Alternate itineraries were kept ready till we called on Om Logistics and found out that the bikes would be here only around 13^th. This lent us a severe blow as our well laid out plans were in shambles and we were reckoning on how to go about it.

Before we knew it, it was 8^th and the guys had to fly out on the 9^th. The early morning spicejet flight flew the guys to Guwahati on the wee hours of the 9^th and I was fashionably late in picking them up from the airport. Well, I am to blame partially. I had thought the flight would land only around 8:30 AM and it would take another 15 minutes for the guys to collect the baggage and come out of the arrivals. The only hitch – I woke up late. It was Gyan who woke me up at 8 AM and reminded I had to go pick up the guys. Well, I rushed, and I would have made it in time had it not been for the flight landing a bit early and had it not been for a diversion on the highway to the Airport.

Anyway, I got the guys back home and while they went about getting fresh, Gyan dropped in at my place and before I knew it, they had taken out beers I had stocked the fridge with for their arrival. I had to go to office and so I left them to rest telling them I would come for lunch and we would have lunch together with Payeng Da.

Lunch was a start-off party at Café Hendrix where the beer was flowing freely and pork dishes going on the fly. It was going to be dry days for the next two days owing to the elections on the 11^th and we took good measures to ensure we were well-stocked up.

Post lunch we went about discussing what we were going to do about the bikes. With the bikes still in transit it meant we were to just sit and wait and waste precious trip days. All of a sudden, almost all of us decided we go to Bhutan by car and not waste any of our hard-earned, hard-to-get leaves and leave off, as planned originally, the next morning i.e. on the 10^th. We took votes and except for Payeng Da and Gyan’s Uncle, all of us were game. I already had my car tanked up and was raring to go. So it was decided we would drive all the way to Madarihat where we have an Indian Oil Guest House and then hire a cab to Thimpu. I went to make calls to arrange for the guest house and it was done in a jiffy.

It might be a good time now to introduce the trippers that were part of the line-up and their steel horses. The Bhutanchal Buccaneers are:

1. Gyan Moshahari, aka Fukku, on his red Karizma

2. Mrinal Doley, aka The Monk, on his awesome RE Classic 500

3. Mrinaljit Dutta, aka John Abraham, on his “plastic/pseudo metal” Avenger 200

4. Satadal Payeng aka “the biker next door” on his P220 dts-fi and later the 150 pulsar classic

5. Diptinder Chhabra ,aka Kenny on his Bullet Electra 4 speed

6. Gyan’s Uncle, not aka but AKB (Ajit Kumar Brahma) on his fiery R15

7. And I, the “tour operator” on my P200 dtsi

But the trip to Bhutan included only five people on board, Payeng Da and Gyan’s Uncle preferring not to take the car. And so it was decided, the rest of us would start off the very next morning and head towards the border town of Madarihat and flag off the trip! To mark this, we opened up a bottle of single malt – The Famous Grouse and had the evening dedicated to it!!

Here we go then....