Jungle Mein Mangal

Rode on the previous weekend (8-10 Feb) to the jungles of Kumaon with the Royal Beasts (RBs). 7 riders in all. 2 AVL 500s, 2 TBs, 1 Machismo 350, 1 1979 STD 350 and 1 Suzuki Intruder :)

I had been planning to ride to Manali on that particular weekend to attend one of the wedding functions of a dear friend, but unfortunately due to super heavy snowfall in Himachal over the preceeding two weeks kinda cancelled the "mid winter afternoon wedding" in Manali. Meanwhile, the RBs had this ride planned, and since the leaves were approved decided to head out with them to the kumaon jungles. Destination was Binsar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binsar_Wildlife_Sanctuary), about 90 kms from Nainital in Almora region of Kumaon. All in all a super lazy ride and an amazing experience in the wild. Unfortunately I don't have a camera :( hence i've put borrowed link from another riders' gallery.

The ride began at 6'ish in the morning on Friday, 8 Feb out of Delhi when 6 of us were flagged off by a couple of other RBs members'. NH24 has been redone magnificiently over the last couple of years and is a butter smooth ride till Moradabad in UP. But still the cane farmers with their overloaded tractor trollies rule these road. early morning dew, a light drizzle and juices squeezed out of fallen-over sugarcane from the trollies made is like a roller skating ring out there. Took it as easy and stopped for breakfast at Gajraula, the Giana Dhaba here has been a favorite of travellers on this route, located at the most convinient distance to stop for breakfast for early starters from Delhi. A few parantha and tea made the morning :) The intruder with a miniscule fuel tank of 17 litres (compared to its size) was gulping those litres by the minute. Utter confusion on the quanitity of octane boosters to add. 87 octane....91 octane...93 octane.... how many ml's of booster required to make it 97 octance?? was the koshun. ;)

Lazily rode till the Moradabad Toll booths. We'd planned to avoid the Rampur-Rudrapur-Haldwani route and get off NH24 after the moradabad toll booths to reach Nainital thru Kaladungi. It proved to be a super wise decision, extremely smooth roads thru the jungle besides the Jim Corbett National Park. Amazing twisties on this routes with dense forests on either side, was a delight to ride thru this stretch. I remember I had taken the portions of this route during my visit to JC Nat. Park last year to visit the Jim Corbett Memorial located at Kaladungi (also called Chotti Haldwani). Finally after a relaxed 9 hour ride we reached Nainital ~ 3 PM. A tankup for all, more importantly the intruder which was returning 8-10 kmpl and kept running low on fuel soon after tanking up :P. We'd decided to halt at SaatTal (SevenLake), 22kms from Nainital and 80kms from Binsar. These guys had been here earlier and were of a strong opinion that this should be the night halt. Lovely place it is, would rate it amongst the best most serene and peaceful places I have seen. A beautiful lake, clean smoky water, very fade mobile network (only BSNL with a strong enough signal) few guest houses and a chain of 6 restaurants by the lake side. Took up a couple of rooms at the Uttaranchal Tourisms' Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigal Tourist Rest House. While some of slept thru the afternoon, I and others went out to make arrangements for the night, I'd forgotten the OMR :D. A long night with total Bakar and some ice breaking for me, I was riding with these guys for the first time. Rode with another batch of RBs to Pushkar a couple of months back, but all new faces this time.

Woke up the next morning to see the 7th rider sleeping in the other room. Abhishek on his 1979 std 350 started from delhi at 6 pm the previous night arrived at SaatTal at 5 f*ckin AM. Its really scary and spooky out there, dense forest and no lighting watsoever in the vicinity. Once its dark, the restaurants shut and the whole place is pitch dark. it was scary walking from one room to the other. Crazy guy, riding thru moradabad-rampur-rudrapur in the middle of the night, on a 30 yr old bullet, which lost its tail lights to the bumps. (Tau...thats Bulleteer spirit for you, wanna attempt that on your plastic :P)

Morning we rode to Binsar through another set of fantastic roads in the wilds of Almora. Nice long sweeping twisties and butter smooth roads made the day. The wildlife santuary was another delight for the eyes and the lungs, you expect that everytime you visit Uttaranchal/ Uttarakhand. Spend some time at Binsar, in the solace of greens. A couple of hours at the Sanctuary and we turned back, again to SaatTal where'd we'd spend the second night as well. On the return leg Rohan (on a TB) discovered that his new rear sprocket was almost cleaned out...suprise, shock, relief...almost everytime one breaks down, more often than not, you find a workshop/ mechanic nearby. Thats what happened, Rohan had stopped to check his sprockets right outside a mechanic;s shop who had the required sprocket (though partially used, it was much better than the one on which he'd been running. By the time we reached SaatTaal, it was pitch dark and the guy up front (a good 200m ahead of the pack) stops abruptly to avoid running into a deer galloping across the road. Another deer by the road and pair of brightly lit fox eyes showed us the way to the Rest House. :) Another night of Bakar, Old ride stories and ofc OMR :)

Scariest part of this ride. Had to wish Amrita happy birthday at midnight, for which I was required to walk 30m away from the rooms hunting for netwok. And the HE MAN did it :P At midnight, apni jaan hatheli pe rakh ke, apni dharam patni ko phone ghumaya aur happy birthday bol daala :) Kya pata koi junglee jaanvar mujhe khaa jaata. ok 30 is exhajjerated, it must've been 20m :)

The next day pretty inconsequential. All we did was rode back through the same route we'd taken 2 days back. Only Rohan got some action, as he cleaned out the replacement sprocket as well. but then right in front of a spare shop in Gajraula :)

A nice and relaxing ride. I'm in love with those jungles. Pics from Rohit's Camera

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/rohit.royalbeast/BinsarFeb2007