Tour of Nagaland 2022 | Day 3 | Ambikapur to Ranchi | 297 kms

Woke around 6:30 am after a good night’s sleep. My tired body was restored to normal. I eased up a little bit as the riding distance for today was not much. Ranchi was today’s destination which was around 300 km. I got myself ready and after packing all my stuff on the bike left the hotel close to around 8 am when the sun had come up nicely and there was some warmth in the air. Last night the temperatures had dropped low and the same could be felt when I woke up. After having a quick cup of hot tea from the vendor just outside the hotel, I left Ambikapur.

I was totally new to the roads here and decided to follow Google Maps itself. I’d entered directly Ranchi as the end destination in the maps. The route seemed to pass through towns that were not on the national highway. It was the state highway on which I was riding. The highway was a single-carriageway with very little traffic. The warmth in the surroundings intensified as the sun started to come up with the morning mist slowly fading. I tried to absorb the morning coolness of whatever was remaining as I pushed further. The villages were scattered and I could see large open farmlands, probably, the harvest had already been taken out of the fields. I was heading towards Jashpur.

I entered a village called Bagicha around 9 am. Since It was almost my breakfast time, I decided to halt and have some of it before proceeding ahead. I could see there was a small sweet shop just at the roundabout which was serving breakfast. I stopped immediately. In this part of the country, I could see some new varieties of breakfast. Curiosity overtook me as I ordered the same and it tasted really crunchy and was a little bit spicy due to green chilies being put in it. The whole activity was a grand affair and I washed it all down with 2 cups of Tea. I left the place around 9:30 am.

The road after breakfast was pretty good and only some portions of the road were broken due to road widening work being carried out. The highway was virtually empty as I cruised happily around 80 kmph and not a single deformity could be seen on it. It looked like that highway was laid out yesterday. There were white markings on both sides which generally indicated the road width while the centre broken partition line was also present. The country roads were really at par with the National highways.

On the way, I could see a large standalone rock structure towards my left. I stopped to gaze. It seemed like a big rock with flat surroundings nearby. It gave a similar impression to the famous ‘Ayers’ rock of Australia, which is the largest monolith rock in the world. I confirmed that what I was seeing was a single piece of rock and not just any hill.

At around 10: 30 am, just before Ghumadand village, the road connected to an even larger than the current one, and it was all laid out in cement. The white road stood out in contrast to the brown and green surroundings as the road before the dual carriageway. The distance to Ranchi on the board displayed 187 km. The excellent condition of the road helped me cruise effortlessly without using my brakes as I crossed the major town of Jashpur and eventually arrived at the Chattisgarh-Jharkhand border over the Sankh river around 11:30 am. I stopped for a few minutes to relieve and hydrate myself and after posing at the border, decided to move ahead. Ranchi was 120 km to go.

Gumla was the first town I encountered after entering Jharkhand. It seemed a weekly market day as both sides of the road were packed with sellers and customers shopping for daily necessities and essentials. The speed was slowly reduced to a crawl as I battered the morning rush of cars, buses, school school-going children crisscrossing each other. At the city exit, I took the NH43 heading towards Ranchi.

From Gumla, the highway was pretty straightforward as I regained my speed. I drove for another close to 100 km before stopping for a quick lunch break at around 2 p.m. in the town of Bero. The town center was jampacked when I entered and in that mad rush, I couldn’t think of eating a proper lunch and instead decided to make with Bananas which would restore my energy levels. At the side of the busy road, with me watching as the world passed me by, I stood there munching on the Bananas.

Just outside the town, I stopped once again to fuel up which would ensure that I reach Ranchi comfortably. The roads became once again single carriage and traffic increased mildly. The speed was kept checked with incoming traffic from the other side but with just 25 km left to go for Ranchi, the roads got spread out into dual carriageway.

At around 3 pm I was finally there. Ranchi is the capital of Jharkhand and the home city of Indian Cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Upon reaching the city entrance, I dropped a message to my friend Mr. Deepak Gupta informing him about my location to which he replied with another location where we planned to me. It was close to 6 km.

It was not long before Deepak located me in Ranchi traffic on his Activa. I told him to take to to places where ‘I LOVE RANCHI’ would be written and so I followed him behind. We located one building aside from the lake which had written ‘JOHAR’ on it. JOHAR means welcome in the local language. That being done, we went in search of the ‘I LOVE RANCHI’ sign but would not locate it. He insisted that his younger brother knew where the sign was as he told me that he would take me to the place in the evening once I got settled.

I followed to his Sweet Shop where he took me and gave me a walk around of it. Also made me sample some of his shop’s favorites. He told me that his shop is quite famous being very old and over the years he has established many loyal customers who only purchase sweets from his shop. He is the 3rd generation to run this shop.

His brother joined after some time and helped me escort him to the hotel where my stay was planned. Deepak and I agreed to meet at his shop in the evening after I got comfortably checked into the hotel. On the way, we located the ” I LOVE RANCHI ” sign at the entrance of one of the malls and so we stopped there to take a photo amidst the crowd trying to photobomb us. After many retries, we were finally successful.

The hotel was not far away from the Sweet Shop and was within walking distance. The hotel owner and Deepak, it seemed knew very well each other. The hotel was up to the standards and I got checked in comfortably. Within no time, I was walking up to Deepak’s shop carrying Pune’s local famous snack item called ‘Bharkarwadi’ in my hand. I handed it over to him when I reached the shop and he felt happy.

Evening time, Deepak showed me around the market where we tasted some local delicacies like Litti Chokka and the Bengali version of Jhalmuri, and in the late evening, we chatted over a cup of chai when we got joined by his other fellow riding members.

I didn’t have any appetite to eat after our evening stroll tasting various snacks. Deepak ji dropped me off at the hotel where I thanked him wholeheartedly for hosting me in Ranchi and also giving me a small assortment of sweets from this shop. It was around 10 p.m. when I went to bed relaxed as yet another good day of riding had come to an end. I had planned on seeing Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s house in Ranchi but was told by Deepak ji that he had shifted to the outskirts of the city and that the whole house had a 20ft high compound. I’d felt bad knowing that it would be at some other time only that I could fulfill this wish.

As I opened the window of my room, there was dead silence around even though the hotel was located in the old market area of the city. The air was heavy and cold. As I lay in my bed thinking of tomorrow’s crossing into West Bengal from Jharkhand and thinking over tomorrow’s route, I don’t even know when I drifted off into a long sleep.