Tour of Nagaland 2022 | Day 22 | Simaluguri – Guwahati | 367 kms

Today was the last day of the tour. I was to fly back tomorrow to my hometown Pune. Today would be the last day of riding on Assam roads. It had been an epic trip for me touring North East and like they say, all the good things must end. I was emotional and excited at the same time.

I woke up around 6 am, got myself ready quickly, and went down to ready the bike. I gave one last care to the bike cleaning its chain and sprocket and properly lubricating it. Once that was done, I loaded up the luggage and by 6: 45 am left the place. The sunrise was happening and the sun had an egg yolk hue to it. I knew I would reach the destination comfortably as the Assam roads were in perfect condition having experienced them yesterday.

It was still early morning as I cruised along the single-carriage roads. The traffic was almost nill and the shops lined on both sides were still not open. The sky color was changing with the rising sun. I had marked a particular checkpoint on Google Maps and was riding towards it. This was still the state highway and I had to join the national highway. The road was perfect with not a single pothole over it nor it was broken.

Some distance ahead as the landscape opened up and the town got left behind, I was greeted with the morning mist which lay low on the harvested paddy fields. The visibility was still there but I could sense a drop in the temperature. It was just the morning I wanted. The scenery was so beautiful with the soft glow of the rising sun in the atmosphere that I decided to stop and take a photo. The first photo of the day and it was perfect. A person on his morning walk stopped beside me and took a photograph of me. I must have looked an odd-looking guy in this part of town for him and as a result, he wanted to capture it.

The roads were just perfect. I didn’t have any complaints. The roads alternated between the single carriage and dual carriage. I was enjoying the continuous change in the scenery. The sun was playing hide and seek because, after some distance, I got enveloped in fog again.

At around 9 am, I reached the town of Jorhat where I decided to stop for breakfast. I was looking for a decent place to have breakfast but couldn’t locate one. I was searching for a standalone stall where I could see a crowd of people having breakfast but, my eyes didn’t fall on such a sight. I had reduced my speed so that I could spot one. I did manage to find a shop where I could see a lady managing the breakfast for some customers. I immediately stopped the bike.

The shop was located amongst a series of other shops in line. I asked the lady to suggest me a menu for breakfast. She instantly told me that I could have Parantha and Subji. Others were also having the same, so, went with the flow. She asked to take a seat and served hot parathas with the subji on a pre-formed paper plate. The taste was good so I ordered one more. Finally, I finished everything with a hot cup of tea.

By now, there was considerable traffic on the road as I made my way towards the NH37. My next waypoint on Google Maps was Kaziranga. Sometime later, I rejoined the national highway which was a dual carriageway and as a result, I could increase my speed. I rode non-stop till the time I reached Kaziranga around 11 am.

The scenery had changed instantly from open lands to thick forests. Finally, I could see the billboard saying ” Welcome to Kaziranga National Park”. At some locations along the way, I could even spot largely spread Tea estates. Kaziranga National Park is known worldwide for housing the famous One Horned Rhinos. They are already an endangered entity but I had heard that slowly and steadily, their population was growing and there had been a widespread crackdown on their hunters. The speciality of this highway was that it passed straight through the national park and so I got excited about the possibility of seeing one. The last thing I wanted was the Rhino to cross the road in front of me.

The traffic was properly controlled at the sections of the Animal crossing corridor. There were speed cameras installed and the max drivable limit was set to 40 kmph. There were strict penalties for not adhering to this limit. My head was turning left and right in the hope that I could spot one. I took another short break and munched on my stock of oranges before moving ahead.

As I moved ahead slowly, I saw some cars parked at the side of the road on the other side and some people pointing to some figure in the distance in the vast open land. I stopped to see and got myself confirmed that I too was seeing a Rhino at the distance. I immediately turned to the other side and parked my bike. Alas, the wish of seeing Rhino had been fulfilled on the last day of the tour. It seemed to be a perfect ending to the tour. Luckily, one ranger was also there and he had this binocular with him. He lent it to me so that I could see the Rhino clearly for which I thanked him. I wanted to capture the Rhino on my phone but it was just too far for the picture to come properly so I played a technique of keeping the camera lens on the eyepiece of the binocular through which I could automatically shoot a zoomed-in picture of the Rhino. This technique required many retries but in the end, I got the perfect crisp sharp image. I left almost immediately. The time was 12:20 pm.

Leaving Kaziranga National Park, I drove for another 70 km straight up and just before Nagaon, I stopped for a refreshment break. The time was 2 pm. I hydrated myself, ate a light snack, and drank a strong cup of hot tea before embarking on my final push towards Guwahati. Guwahati was 123 km more to go.

For this stretch too, I kept a considerable speed and almost rode non-stop and did stop only once at a roadside bamboo handicraft stall. I liked the products that were on sale but since they were too delicate to take along with me, I got their contact details instead so that I could order from them through a courier from my hometown. They had agreed to support me on this. Also, there was no space on my bike to make some place for keeping them.

By 5:15 pm, I had touched Guwahati and marked the end of my trip but got stuck in a bad traffic jam. Just not the way I wanted it to end. The traffic chaos made me sweat like hell. All I wanted was to check in at the hotel ASAP and have a cold shower. My friend Kunal Gurung had suggested Hotel Brahmaputra to stay in as it had catered to many motorcycle riders in the past and as well as the staff was cooperative and friendly. I had to route my maps to this hotel when I reached the city. Battling the city traffic, I somehow could locate the hotel and got myself checked in around 5:45 pm.

Kunal had made some other plans for me. He knew that I was to come to Guwahati today and so he had booked us an evening cruise by the Brahmaputra River with the cruise company called Alfresco Grand. It was a Dinner cruise and Kunal made me rush to the pier before 7 pm as it was the reporting time. I had to quickly get ready as I drove 10 km to the riverside tackling the heavy traffic. I’d reached earlier than Kunal so utilized the time to have some refreshing Assamese tea at a roadside stall just opposite the cruise company entrance. By the time I managed to finish the tea, Kunal arrived and we greeted each other face-to-face for the first time. We were friends from social media and our motorcycling community is very small.

We showed our tickets at the counter which Kunal had already bought online for 1600rs each which included Dinner too. The package was great. It was supposed to be a 2-hour cruise over the river and also had some cultural performances onboard which we liked.

By 9:30 pm we had docked again. I thanked Kunal for taking me on the boat cruise over the mighty river which was on my wishlist. I bid him good night also also gave him an open invitation to visit my state or hometown shortly. We parted ways as I made my way back to the hotel for a comfortable night’s sleep.

I was supposed to visit the iconic and highly revered ‘Maa Kamakhya’ Temple tomorrow early morning. With that intention, I forced myself to sleep.