Bengaluru: Motorcycle diaries from the mountains of Northeast

Bengaluru: The scenic beauty of Northeastern states is of late attracting many from South India. With an aim to explore the uniqueness of the Northeast, six Bengalureans travelled in three Enfield 500 CC motorbikes and covered 9 states to reach Arunachal Pradesh, starting from Assam (6,500 km).

Manjunath V, Preetham P.S., Pradeep J.S., all lawyers by profession and Kunal Bhatacharya, Krishna Bharadwaj and Srinivas Joshi (all engineers) have been friends for last 10 years. They decided to touch every corner of the country when they first travelled to Dhanushkodi, Tamil Nadu in 2012. The following year, they went to Khardungla Pass and this year they headed for Arunachal Pradesh, one of their epic rides, in the words of Preetham.

He said, “We have been planning to ride to Arunachal Pradesh for about a year. It was our trip to the mighty Himalayas. I do not hesitate to say that it was indeed our most memorable and adventurous ride. We started our ride on May 4 and the entire trip took us 25 days.”

They started from Bengaluru and headed towards Hyderabad. They then left for Vishakhapatnam and Puri, where they visited the Jaganath temple. From there they headed to Kolkata and visited the Kalighat temple and the famous Howrah Bridge. Making their way towards Arunachal Pradesh, they travelled through Darjeeling and reached the India-Nepal border. They then came back to Darjeeling and headed for Sikkim. Manjunath said, “The most challenging ride was from the India-Nepal border to Darjeeling. It took us 5 hours to ride back to Darjeeling. I must say that we were riding not just through mist but actually through the clouds. All we could see was the headlight of our fellow-riders in the mirror. Any slip and we might have ended up deep into the valley. We had to stop every now and then and check for stones on either side to make sure we were on the road!” From there, they made their final way to Assam, Dibrugardh where they unloaded their luggage and took only the necessities and started their dream ride to Arunachal Pradesh. They visited places like Namsai monastery, Walong, Kibithoo and the like. Pritham adds, “I would like to clear the misconception among people that the tribes in AP are not nice people. In fact, they were very helpful and friendly. They made us feel at home.”

Pradeep said, “Our handshakes with the Chinese soldiers across the border fence in the Nathula pass was something we never thought we would ever do in our lifetime. The best thing was our rainy ride from Dibrugarh to Kibithoo through forests, much thicker than our Western Ghats, across rivers, streams and among the tribal people. And how could I forget to mention the earthquake in Siliguri which injured the ligament of our co-rider Manjunath. This December we are looking forward to complete our journey by reaching the great Rann of Kutch,” he concludes.