Day 5. Thursday. 22nd Jan. Beawar
Today was the day we would get to use the stuff we had spent hours poring over back in Decathlon. I don't think we did full justice to all the warm clothing we carried, but it never hurts to be over prepared. Out came the thermals, or rather in they went. Out came the rain gear and out it stayed. The whole bloody day. It rained and rained all the way to Ajmer. And it rained some more.
We stopped just outside Ajmer and decided that truck traffic and rain did not seem like a great combination to deal with, and we instead we would take a detour and get to Punjab through Hisar. We had to backtrack a couple of km though and find this road. The good news was that it looked like we were leaving the rain behind, but the bad news was that we were now running into fog. We pass by a ton of marble stone shops and run into a delicious looking 2 lane highway. Short lived though. Power-on power-off was the going next several km's thanks to the speed breakers. We decided to stop for breakfast and take stock of the route. A truck stop is what we find. This one is the real deal. Proper Punjabi truck drivers and the dhaba has the sparse furnished look as well. We take out our maps and phones to check the shortest route, over the world's worst aloo parathas. Only our hunger helped manage to get us through one each and to our horror we realised that we have ordered one more for each of us. Politeness was asked to take a hike and we gave up halfway through the second aloo paratha. I think we got overcharged too.
After breakfast we motored on to find that the power-on power-off mode was going to stick with us for a long way. We decided that our pace was going to take a beating with this road and made amends to get back to the Golden Quadrilateral. Luckily at a village we met a very old gentleman who gave us the most precise directions to get back to NH8 just after it crosses Jaipur. Turned out to be good fortune because we would avoid going through Jaipur.
Some back roads and villages later we were back on the highway. The back roads though had so many opportunities for wonderful photographs and us being us only talked about it in hindsight and did not stop to click the masterpieces.
Halfway to Delhi the sun came out and we made full use of it. Burn gas when the sun shines was the motto. We stopped at a dhaba with a large signboard announcing the name of the place and a photo of a guy smiling at us. Lo and behold when it turns out to be the same guy who took our order. Even better, he runs into the kitchen and makes the stuff we ordered. A true one man show. Efficient fellow. Given the lousy food we had in the morning, we decided to get some lunch as well.
Here is where we met a couple of guys from Gujarat who had set out on a 200 day tour of India. They were in the very early stages of their trip and remided us a couple of times that they would be on the road for 200 days. We wished them luck in their adventures and we set out to get the pace on while the sun shone on us.
Motoring on we get to the outskirts of Delhi by around 4:30 in the evening and look out for the bypass that should take us straight to Panipat and Chandigarh. At a pee stop where we we were deciding strategy(on route, not the right bush/tree to pick!) we found abandoned bunker type buildings. Again surprising what you find in the middle of nowhere.
When we look at our maps, it looks like Chandigarh is not on the cards tonight given that the sun has gone into hiding again. Our estimates have been suffering badly since our first day. I tell you getting to Kolhapur for lunch has messed with our planning!
The fog decides to get thicker as well. We have a bonus level of truck jam to deal with in a bit. Which means bikes go over divider and we get across the truck jam. Easy peasy.
I must bring up stereotypes here at this point. Just as we enter Haryana I see 2 bikes with 3 guys and 1 rifle on each. Carrying arms in broad daylight did not seem like much of a problem here. This was very close to a toll gate where there were at least a 100 vehicles if not more. Says welcome to the north like nothing else.
The roads though were 4-laned and fantastic. Traffic free and pothole free straights, with fields on both sides. Visibility was down to about 500metres or so, but the road conditions helped us maintain speeds of at least a 100. I am sure the views must have been great if we had no fog. At times the fog thickened and we had to drop speeds but overall a very fun experience riding through the fog. We were pretty toasty thanks to us being overtly wary of the weather conditions and going overboard with our shopping for warm clothing.
By just before dusk we were at Rohtak and decided to get to Panipat for the night, which was about 76km away. I thoroughly enjoyed riding in the fog, at twilight and beyond. You get the feeling of being in a cocoon and in your own cloud, literally. There is something about riding in the night that is joyful. Keeping speed in check is a necessity and of course there lurks the danger of crazies(not just the zombie kind) coming onto the road all of a sudden. It is a joy though in which I tend not to indulge in much thanks to the risks. I have noticed though that a little bit of riding in the cool wind and you feel like you could ride all night. I wouldn't, but given half a chance and conducive conditions I might just go for it.
Panipat was a typical north Indian town with the one main road, next to the highway bustling with activity. Here is where for the second time this trip, someone took a look at me and refused a room. The first was on day 2 in Gujarat. I must have looked a sight with a 3 week old beard, and covered in dust and grime. Walking into a squeaky clean lobby and asking for a room, must have seemed preposterous the way I was dressed in heavy biking gear. So now the responsibility of getting a roof on our heads rested on Sam.
Sam decided to clean up a bit before entering the next hotel, which in lay mean terms meant getting rid of the dirty rain gear and off with the helmet. His smile and charm(and don't forget the lack of beard) scored us a room and a good deal on it as well.
So far on this trip we had treated food as a necessary evil. The "highway on a plate" book that I was carrying had made it out of the bag only once, and that too to re-arrange the weight distribution! Today we wanted to have a go at North Indian Tandoori stuff. I think we went a little overboard, but we ate what felt like the best Tandoori Chicken and Chicken Tikka masala in the world. I am attributing a big part of that review to us not eating good food in a while, and our especially bad experience at breakfast. A hot shower and I was off to bed and out like a light. Actually we both were in dreamland and when I woke up a little later, disoriented, I realised we had slept without bothering to even turn off the light. Slept like a log that night!
The Punjab Aaloo Paratha will have to wait for one more day!
Again, this turns out to be a day when we have not taken a single photograph.
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