Himalayan Odyssey Day 1 - Delhi to Chandigarh

The Himalayan Odyssey September 2012 was jointly organised by the Royal Enfield Malaysia and Royal Enfield of India. Royal Enfield organises various trips for Royal Enfield owners through the year. These are mostly off-road adventure filled; fun and leisure motorcycle rides through spectacularly scenic, off the beaten path places and on challenging terrains. Himalayan Odyssey is not a competitive event. With the high altitudes and weather conditions, physical fitness is paramount. One of the important aspects of enjoying and completing the Himalayan Odyssey is the participant's fitness level. For this purpose, everyone need to undergo a physical fitness test and doctor's certification after a medical check up. To pass this test, participants will need to cover 5kms and do 50 push-ups in 1 hour.  For this event, our trip cover a distance of almost 2,000 km with 90% of the time on dirt roads.

We arrived in our hotel in Delhi almost midnight last night after a 6 hour flight from Kuala Lumpur.  The first leg of our journey will be to Chandigarh by train 250km to the north of Delhi. By the time we checked in the hotel and briefing for the next day plans, it was already after 1.00 am.  We are supposed to be up early by 5.00 am, breakfast by 5.30 am and leave the hotel by 6.30 to the Delhi train station. Our train departs at 7.45 am and expected to arrive Chandigarh by noon.

It was raining and when we left the hotel the traffic jam was beginning to build up. We got down and some of us hire porters to carry our luggage. Lucky thing I did, as I later realised that the station was huge and the platform was really long.

We were at the station early and had to hang around for more than 30 minutes before our train arrives at the platform. Waiting for train at the platform is not for the faint hearted - the stench of urine and feces will greet you especially every time a train passes by the station. Travelling by trains in India is strictly for hard core travellers only not for tourist-types.

 The yellow trains does not only carry passengers but loads of cargo as well.

The blue trains were the air-conditioned ones.  But the tickets were all sold out weeks in advance.

We were fortunate as Royal Enfield India made sure we got on board of the blue train.  For the duration of the trip they served us tea and bicuits, bread, omelettes four times. Photo of Pak Riza from Jakarta and me.

I wondered why this notice was necessary.. then when I went in I know why.  When they can't or didn't read the notice on the toilet door, they just poop on the floor.. they cant seem to figure out what's the weird looking round chair with a hole in it doing in there.

This must be non-western style. It was just at that time of the morning when we left the Delhi station that we saw men, women and children populating the railway reserve lands, were doing their business by the rail tracks.. oblivious to the amazements of foreign passengers on the train.

 

After a while I realised that not all trains comes with seats. The toilet facilty? I imagined it has to be non-western style.

We checked in the Garden View Hotel in Chandigarh at about 12.30pm. By 4.00pm our motorcycles was delivered to the hotel. This had everyone busy inspecting and choosing their Royal Enfield Bikes.  The terms of use - any parts replaced due to wear and tear of broken due to falls or accidents will borne by participants.

  

Posing with our new helmets in Chandigarh. Most of us brought our own open-face helmets but these were unceremoniously rejected by the Indian organisers due to safety concerns.  No full-faced helmets no ride they said..  So all of us went to the local motorcycle shop and got ourselves an approved Indian helmets.  Thank you Bro. Jamil for his generosity for settlingr all the helmets expenses.