Monday, July 28, 2008

You will like some & don’t like some (5)…

From Imphal to Silchar
Imphal is the Capital of Manipur & Silchar is situated in the south of Assam; Silchar is also strategically located & is easy to connect to Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura. (Look at a India Map to know more)

I am not sure if I have written anything about this route before; but can never forget the kind of experience I had in this stretch. It’s the only connecting road between these two cities. NH 53 runs between them & a little over 200kms is the distance.

If you think “Oh, that’s not much of a distance to cover, 4 hours of riding & it would be done”. You are so wrong my friend! The starting few kms from Imphal, leading into the ‘black mountain’ (If I recollect correctly, it was called Kala Pathar) is beautiful; It was a blessing, but only for a few kms & after which your worst nightmare comes to reality. It had rained the previous day & was raining the day I rode. So, the roads were filled with water; difficult to negotiate a pothole; bcos you wouldn’t know the depth of it & where there are mud patches bcos of landslide, that portion of road would be slushy & slippery.

This is a difficult write up for me bcos I am not able to write my emotions; if could sum it up, at one point I was so frustrated that I wanted to take the money & identification from my baggage & push the bike off the mountain, end the misery, get a lift to the nearest town/village, go to the nearest airport & come home! This thought crossed my mind a couple of times during this stretch.

I am going to be cutting this short; I couldn’t complete this ride in a day; took refuge in an Army Camp. Got up next day morning & rode on to Silchar! Got myself into a hotel; ate, took a bath & slept like hell. These 2 days have been one of the most difficult days in my ride.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

My God! Going through this stretch in the pouring rain is something I am glad I didnt have to do, it is bad enough as it is when its dry! You forgot to write about how dangerous this area is, and that the probability of getting mugged by underground people is very high. K2K 4ever! :)