North Sikkim Ride: Day 2 - The Ride to Gurudongmar Lake I

I hear a knock on my door. But it appears to come from quite a distance.

I ignore it and go back to sleep.

I am awake, yet I feel immobile. I am in that state of sleep, where I can only feel, but cannot react.

I hear another knock. The second knock pushes me out of the light slumber.

I roll over and check my watch. Its 3.40.

They must be knocking on the door for quite some time now.

I blabber out something like “Yup….coming” to stop those persistent knocks. And try to sleep a little

longer.

It takes some time for me to fully comprehend where I really am, and what is the task for the day. And when the urgency hits me, I feel that I am running against the clock! I sit bolt upright.

I open the door first.

Tashi is standing and beside him is the waiter who holds a cup of tea.

“Good morning sir.”

“Yes, good morning.”, I reply as I take the tea cup.

The Motorcycle, somewhere between Thangu and Giagong. The only time I paused for a photo break. A few kilometers ahead, and we couldnt proceed further

As I reach the ill lit courtyard, the motorcycle looks dead!

I kick it. It does not start.

I kick it again. It remains silent.

A kicks later, it purrs for a moment and goes back to sleep again.

Then I pump in more power and finally it springs back to life. I hold the throttle to the maximum limit and keep it on for a good 3-4 minutes. Subsequently I let it idle for 5 minutes.

I put the long beams on.

And the road ahead opens up before me.

The cold doesn’t threaten me anymore.

As I ride my way into the under the cover of the darkness

Occasionally you can see streaks of lights rising swiftly up the mountains, far away. These are actually the jeeps and tourist vehicles that are ahead of us. There are a couple of times when I ride over concrete bridges. It brings hope of black top on the other end of the bridge. But it’s a fruitless hope. The boulders are relentless. They are everywhere. And the road gets bumpier with time.

The beams of head lights appear to be a natural extension of the motorcycle. They stretch far and wide and end in the darkness – a darkness that spreads into the bottomless valleys. Nothing is visible except the patches of the road which are lit up when the headlights point towards them. Whereas at other times, it is only the shrubs and bushes on the mountain sides that get illuminated.

The motorcycle resembles a workhorse now. Stubborn. It stays faithful and answers the call of its rider.