Shillong-Coochbehar
Monday, november 7
The plan was to be out by 6:30 am. Don’t ask how or why, but by the time we were off it was 8 am. The road out of Shillong was very good, though there were a lot of lorries on it. The diesel fumes were back in our lungs. Ahh… the smell of urbanization.
The ride was real fun all the way down to Gawhati. Back in Gawhati, the traffic was heavy again and we ended up spending another 45 minutes there waiting for somebody or something. At this point, e knew it was going to be dark when we reached Coochbehar anyway, Just wanted to minimise riding that way.
After about 230 km, we stopped off at the same dhaba on the way where we had chai a week before. Tanked up the bikes and off for another 230 km or so. The road was quite good mostly and then the last 100 km, as it got dark, the road was a mess. For sme reason, i did not remember it being as bad as that the first time around. I guess, i put it out of my mind because the road had gotten better towards the latter part of the ride going to Gawhati. To face this road with the sun setting in our faces and the dust being kicked up, was not a pleasant run. We reached Coochbehar by 8 pm and checked into the same hotel Ellora.
Finally i had internet connection again. So i managed to upload the couple of blogs that i had written.
Tomorrow we get back to Siliguri (in the chicken’s neck of Indian geography) and hope to carry on further South.
Technorati Tags: India Bike Trip, Joe’s photos
March 11th, 2006 11:24
Read the blogs on the Northeast and they were pretty interesting. I belong to Assam and i’m working as a researcher on conflict studies in the Northeast. Although the Northeastern region is highlighted as an unfriendly, insurgency -prone terrain, it is perhaps the only region in India that is so diverse in terms of its culture, people and the landscape.