Day 2 - 22nd Dec 2008

Drained after a day spent assembling men, machine and their parts for 60kph's juggernaut I am sitting staring into the Brahmaputra wondering how the river got its name, trying to make sense of the theatre of boorish lights on its waters – shapes which would disintegrate as quickly as they formed.. Alone in this corner.. lonesome to the accompanying bikers.. I jumped seeing a thick floating tree branch mistaking it for a floating dead body. I'd be lying if I said I am happy sitting here with nature et al! but ideal to describe this strange day at the best place to start …the beginning …
Day 2 had dawned amidst frantic noises…honks of rickshaws that made my ears curl up inside and the sight out the window that made me want to transport back home like in Star trek The dingy hotel corridors was depressing, something which I truly came to hate when we returned after the Arunachal trip but more on that later. The familiar Kerala Bhavan was chosen for breakfast and the day's programme was bike health and maintainence. Sanjay bike tyre was missing treads (simply put was as bald as Sanjay), Pravo's horn was missing and other bikes had minor/major problems. Gaurabh had networked before we arrive and a local bullet Mechanic was already lined up. I picked up Vinods 500 and rest of the bikes having problems was driven by those whose bikes needed no immediate attention.
A roadside Sharma's Garage with an adjoining New Sharma Garage was the destination with mechanic/owner Raju in attendance. While SatRao accompanied Raju to fetch the required spares, rest of us except Kareine headed back to pick up other ailing bikes. On our way back we passed few bulleeteers who seemed to be on a recce of some kind. We returned to find Kareine, SatRao and even Raju missing. After sometime Kareine popped up with few locals following her. She had been off exploring and had made friends with locals and this fan clubs mushroomed where she went. Kariene, to her credit is a one of a kind smiling chatter box – a chatter box who has lived in India for a decade and knows to speak hindi and has even studied Hindi at some university! That's more than what I have done with Hindi. She rode from Delhi to France on a bullet! That's more than what I have done since I haven't even been to France if you don't count stop over's at Charles de Gaulle'.

Meanwhile the bulleeteers whom we crossed on our way to the garage came back and parked their bikes near the Sharma garage and looked like conspiring against us. In my mind I had begun mapping their course into membership of 60kph as guwahati's local bullet club. The leader of the group was a small guy with side burns matching the nepali Kukri and a small goatee. This one started moving slowly and apprehensively towards us, introducing himself as Imu. Since we dint bite him rest of his gang too joined him. They were in fact from a local bullet club called Royal Rhinos and turned out to be bunch of sweet people who were of great help in the coming days. They invited us to their meeting in the evening which we declined because the steeds, receiving other members arriving in would take much of the day and the evening was planned on the river but we promised to meet them the next day evening at around 7PM. Now to find out how these Rhinos found us – the leak was Raju, the mechanic, who was part of the group and had passed on our info to them.
Now I must say we are very organized thanks to Gaurabh. His 2 walkie talkies were used for many trips between hotel and garage. During one of the trips, we met the Mumbai gang who had just landed. It was good to see Nikki, Doniv and the Ugalae's. With them we proceeded for our nth visit to the garage. At the garage Kareine received an early new years greeting from a local school going girl which I thought was a very sweet gesture. We came to know about Pravin missing his flight at Delhi.. grrr... Sanjay and Bhabi along with Jay had reached the hotel. At about 7.30 PM we headed back to the hotel and everybody was looking forward to the cruise on River Brahamaputra.
It was back to Kerala Bhavan for dinner though this time we ordered in. With our sleeping bags and mats, we got into many autos and just when the caravan was about to start Sobba Singh along with Ian were spotted parking their bikes in front of the hotel. Couple of them stayed back to give them company and then to bring them to where the rest of us headed - banks of river Brahmaputra for the much awaited ferry via the booze pit stop. The girls had a surprise in the form of Santa caps with our names written on them! What an idea…everybody parked themselves in the ferry and I found a corner to myself …the lonesome corner I started off this day 2 with
In the background though Sobba Singh had changed the environment with his loud guffaws . Its always good to see this sweet big guy. All the riding had turned Ian into a charred local. Warm hugs later, everybody settled with their daru and plastic glasses. The different colors of liquor called for a round of photography and as the ferry started sailing. The entire heavy load of 60 kph was too much for the worried owner who was guiding the navigator so he wanted few of us to shift to the rear. That was tough because everybody wanted to do a Kate and Leo on the front but the owner did not want a Titanic at his or any cost. It took quite an effort to divide us.

It was an amazing experience sailing on the mighty Brahmaputra and the darkness added to the overall experience. Soon we shifted to the roof top to continue the booze session and Sobby began relaying his experiences of riding wth Ian and Ian in turn was sharing his experience of riding with Sobba. The Ferry reached the bank on the other side and anchored for the night. A quick inspection to check for wild animals we continued with the booze session and quick dinner from the Food packets later many of us settled down under the roof ensconced in sleeping bags. It looked like everybody would call it a day but none of us realized that Sobba would start Bhickheying and one Vicky in Delhi started hicking (Read Hiccup). Sobba would interject with his "aree beta Bhickheyyy" and an ocean of hysterical laughter would follow like an ocean wave more stronger than Brahmaputra. The milieu was similar to the first night at Gauravs Pad during our Kutch ride. What followed after that night is history and everybody was excited about creating history again in Aurnachal.

Sobba was still bhickeyingg and I was shleepy but could not find a roof to sleep under so settled at the front side of the boat in the open. The laughter and Sobbas bhickeying was the last thing I heard ….