Bikomaniacs Bhutan Memories - Part 1

The hardest part of going for a long bike trip is – to return back!

The easiest way to overcome that is to re-live those moments by penning them down!

The wanderlust attitude is natural, probably due to genetic remnants of our nomadic forefathers.  After all, we are not trees to be rooted to one place forever.

Following Leh, Ladakh bike trip, we had fixed our next “region to be explored” as North East of India. Winter would be the ideal time to go there, since some parts of those areas would be flooded in summer due to melting of Himalayan glaciers. When we thought about other options nearby the “Bhutan idea” cropped up in our minds. Slowly everyone got excited to visit the “happiest nation” on the planet.

Bhutan is a Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom. It is the only country in the world which measures happiness. (GNH – Gross National Happiness) and gives more importance to pleasure than growth and development.

Bhutan has a forestry protection policy to have at least 60% of forest cover. Now 71% of Bhutan is covered with forest .Bhutan is one of the very few countries with negative carbon emission. Tourism and hydroelectricity are the two main sources of income. Usually tourists limit their visit only to Paro and Thimphu (capital). We wanted to explore other regions as well.

As usual many of our WhatsApp group members were interested initially. Many bought new bikes too. Kathir and Siva bought Avenger. Jayendran bought RE classic. Karthi bought RE Himalayan. Shankar got Yamaha FZ 200cc. I bought RE thunder bird 500cc a year back.

We started the Bhutan plans with a big hope. Many families were hesitant to send their loved ones to trips like this. They felt going to these bike trips were adventurous and risk taking- which is not true. Compared to dangerous concrete jungle rides, going to remote places like Himalaya and dealing with extremes of nature, are relatively safer.But, not surprisingly again we were left with only three – (Shankar, Karthi and I) in the end (at the beginning!)


                                

Bhutan Bike Trip WhatsApp group – appeared in the month of Jan 2107. 

Our preparation started with growing beards. Beards and tattoos go well with “Bikers look”.  Karthi escaped early by telling some excuses. That is the reason he became kedi( rowdy) among dhadis( beardwalas)!

This time around we decided to plan things differently. We wanted to do everything on our own without relying on any tour operators. The main reason was our previous experience – during Leh, Ladakh trip.Even though going through tour operators has some advantages, it ties you down with lot of restrictions and rules. And many times they compromise safety over business.

We knew planning things on our own posed certain challenges. The visible ones were…( hidden surprises were many!)

1. Difficulty in getting permits

2. Finalising Itinerary

3. No help for (on the way) Bike issues

We researched quite a bit.

Bhutan entry permit at Phunstsholing immigration office is a simple procedure- should not take more than 2 hours including bike pollution check and permit (for Indians).

Traffic rules are very strict in Bhutan. No honking. No overtaking from left side.

Cigarettes sales and smoking are banned in Bhutan.

And we need to get one more permit from Thimphu immigration office to visit other protected areas of Bhutan (other than Paro and Thimphu)

First we finalised Dates from May 27^th to June 6.

Then Itinerary was finalised. We wanted to enter Bhutan through Phuntsholing and exit through Gelephu covering Trongsa, Phobjhika, Zhemgang ( less explored parts of Bhutan).

Siliguri is a border town in west Bengal . We decided to parcel our bikes by Gati to Siliguri.

From Gelephu plan was to reach Guwahati(Assam) , parcel bikes again by Gati and return by flight to Chennai.

                                       

This was the plan:

                                         

27^th May 2017-  5:30 am Chennai to Bagdogra (Siliguri)

                           Reach around noon and bike check, trial run in the evening

28^th  May            Siliguri to Phuntsholing ( border town in Bhutan), Stay at Phuntsholing

29^th Monday       Immigration and Bike permit

                            Travel to Paro and stay

30th May                Paro local sight seeing

31st May              Tigers Nest trek

                             Travel to Thimphu and Stay

1 st June               Thimphu local and Immigration and travel to Phobjikha

2^nd                        Explore Phobjikha valley travel to Trongsa

3^rd                        Trongsa to  Zhemzgang

4^th                        Zhemzgang to Gelephu

5^th                        Gelephu to Guwahati and Stay

6^th June                Return Bike parcel

                             Return flight to Chennai.

When our preparation was cruising along on a smooth highway road, without any warning signal the path became bumpy (as usual). Being adventure riders we were ready for the challenges.

The first surprise came from Bhutan. Got a mail from Norbuling hotel informing that three days national holidays had been declared between May 30, 31 and June 1 as National Census days. That means no government office would be functioning including Thimphu immigration office. We would be stranded in Thimphu one more extra day – needed to alter the plan- hotel bookings.We had to alter our itinerary accordingly. We had to stay one extra day in thimphu at the cost of Phobjikha valley exploration. 

One more anxiety was we had only one day at Phuntsholing to get the immigration and bike permit. No extra safety margin if something goes wrong.

The second surprise came from karthi. He wanted to join us on 28^th instead of 27^th. We thought still we would be able to reach Phuntsholing by evening on 28^th.

The third and the biggest shock came from the “Bike parcelling Gati”

Even though we booked our bikes on 15^th of May – well in advance as per our calculations – when we tracked online the progress of the shipping – we were shocked.

All our bikes were stranded on the way. We hurriedly launched online complaints and started tracking. In spite of our persistent efforts the bikes were moving at a snail pace – we had serious doubts whether the bikes would reach in time.  We had contingency plans to visit Darjeeling( we had little idea about Darjeeling crisis that time) by cab for three days if something had gone wrong. But that would have resulted in complete change of plan and some monetary loss.

On 27^th early morning with so many uncertainties we started our journey from Chennai.

I and Shankar reached Siliguri as we planned. We were on tender hooks , but relieved a bit since two of our bikes arrived on 27^th evening. By the time we took delivery it was already night. We noticed some damages on the tank of karthi’s bike. Shankars bike’s side stand was missing. Fortunately both the bike engines ignited without any problem. The next day we fixed those minor bike issues.
 

Next day: My bike was still on the way. We hoped/prayed that my bike would reach at least by noon on 28^th so that we would be able to reach Phuntsholing the same night as planned.  Karthi joined us on 28^th morning^. We spent almost the whole day tracking the truck carrying my bike. One of the managers investigated and found the reason for the delay – driver slept off overnight saying traffic jam as an excuse. Truck driver’s sleep collapsing bikers tour plans- “butterfly effect”, chaos theory!

Unless we would get my bike on or before 28th night – our whole plan had to be changed.

The whole Sunday had gone by chasing my bikes status. Uncertainty played a spoilsport in our energy and enthusiasm.   

.....to be continued

Buddhan Rajarathinam

09-08-2017