Hassan-Bangalore

Sunday, November 20
There was a lot of excitement as i woke up and got ready this morning by 6 am. Pretty much everyone was up and were almost ready as well. Finally! We got down and promptly by 6:30 am Navroze rolled off. We were only a few minutes behind but we had to stop at the gas station to tank up.
The air was quite cold and i wasn’t prepared for it. I figured the sun would warm me up soon enough. Dinesh and Dinesh took off like bats out of hell and i was cruising comfortably at around 100 kmph.
Soon, I pulled over to wait for the jeeps to catch up as i wanted to put on another jacket to keep out the cold air. Joe pulled up in a couple of minutes and frantically said that we needed to get going right away, because Navroze had an accident ahead. I didn’t know the severity of the damage but it sure didn’t feel good. Not on this final leg of the journey.
Just 25 kms from Hassan , we saw Navroze off to the right side of the road witha crowd of locals gathered around him. There was initial relief to see him walking around, even though he seemed to be limping. We all pulled up and got to find out what had happened. There was a auto (3 wheeler) cargo which made an unexpected right turn and Navroze was hit on his left side and he lost control and crashed. joe got the bike started and Naveen took care of the situation verbally with the auto driver. We decided to get out of that area and then would assess the damage. The bike was dented and damaged only superficially. Navroze had suffered road rash on his left leg, but no major injuries. He’s one tough Parsi!!! We got some medicine on his wound and got going again.
60 km from there we stopped off for coffee at Cafe Cancoffee. There we were met with a bunch of Dinesh’s biker buddies. Had a quick coffee and we all set out towards Bangalore which was just over 100 kms. The super bikes took off fast and we three cruised along behind at a moderate speed. We reached the cafe Road Trip in to Bangalore by
11 am. We were greeted by family and friends with open arms and garlands. Very touching moment for us all.
We had finally completed our journey. 16,000+ kms and 22 states later we were where we started, back in one piece. We had been so fortunate with the weather that favored us for the 8 weeks on the road. The falls we all had were miraculously safe and for that we are very thankful.
We had breakfast there sharing our experiences with everyone. From there we all went different ways. Navroze, Dinesh, Naveen, Joe to their respective families. Ameet to his friends, Rakesh came with me to my brother’s house. He was taking a bus later that night to Kerala to attend his brother’s wedding.
We all called on each other later that day missing each other and feeling slightly strange being in the comforts of our homes. I had made plans to go to Hyderabad the next day to visit my parents.
We are meeting up again in Bangalore on Thursday, 24th for a press meet and a party with our friends and family.
My personal gratitude to Dinesh and Navroze for including me in this journey of a life time. I have learnt so much from them both and hopefully i am a better rider at the end of the day. Thanks Joe for all your technical expertise, without which i would felt helpless. Thanks Naveen for your company and assistance in making us all be comfortable.Your humor will always put a smile on my face. Thanks Ameet for photographing us through the beauty and the dirt. You went through the 8 weeks with utter patience and worked very hard to share our adventure with everyone on the web site. Thanks to Rakesh for taking such a beating getting the shots. Even though you stayed invisible behind the camera, you were always in our sight. Thanks to Sanjiv for joining us for as long as he could. Your expertise in film and help in navigating the course everyday was a generous bonus to the ride. Good luck in editing this 50+hours of footage. I can’t wait to see it finished. Thanks Ramesh for assisting us with so many chores, which otherwise would have burdened us that much more.
Without the unconditional support of our families and dear friends all over the world, we could not have ventured on this journey.
I am extremely proud and humbled by the sheer beauty of this country and its people.
I shall post more in the coming few days of the follow up to this ride.
CHEERS!!!!!

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