Tour of Nagaland 2022 | Day 5 | Islampur to Guwahati | 554 kms

Today, I was making my push towards Guwahati. Again, the distance was 500+ km. I got ready around 7:30 am and started to load my luggage on the bike. I met Rohit Kumar, one of my friends from Social Media who hails from West Bengal itself. He had checked late into the lodge and I bumped into him while moving out.

My plan for today was to meet my Dad’s Navy time friend who was staying in ‘Chalsa’ town. This town was close to my planned route towards Guwahati and so my first target was to reach the town, and meet him in person before pushing further. I had tea with Rohit before hitting the road. It was a beautiful morning, the weather was warm with almost no sign of clouds.

I was excited to ride today after knowing that I would be entering the North East for the first time in my life and that too on my bike. It was on my wishlist to ride one day to North East and this was the moment.

Riding for around 30km, I was close to Siliguri town. I would be bypassing Siliguri and passing through Fulbari as per the route indicated by Google Maps. I could see the snow-capped mountains far away to my left and I stopped there for a minute or so to admire them. Many of my social media friends hail from Siliguri town.

I continued forward and arrived on this giant bridge over a massive river. I checked on the maps and found out it was the Teesta River, one of the prominent and the biggest rivers in West Bengal. The time was 9:44 am and I stopped on the bridge for some time to admire the views and to click some photographs.

Soon, after the bridge, I entered into a dense vegetation of trees all around me. I could see now tea plantations towards my left and right as I moved forward. It was a welcoming change to the scenery and you had these tall trees in between the tea plantations jutting out towards the sky. I was in the land of Tea gardens. The most famous place where the tea is cultivated the most and distributed all over India and abroad. It has earned the unique name of “Assam Tea” and “Darjeeling Tea”.

I was nearing Chalsa town where I was going to meet my Dad’s friend. I had shared my live location with him and he too had shared his address. We met at the crossroads near his house I saw him standing right on the road, waving at me. He escorted me to his home which was a 2 mins ride through narrow alleys with a lot of trees all around. The weather was cool even though the sun was at its full power.

We reached his home, I gifted him my local town’s delicacy snack which I had brought all the way. We talked for a while as he showed me his house. I connected him to my dad over a call and they spoke to each other after ages. They still hadn’t seen each other’s faces in person from the time they got separated after getting discharged from the Indian Navy. We had tea together along with ‘Rasgulla’ which he made me eat as it was the town’s best ‘Rasgulla’. I took his leave and thanked him for hosting me. My Dad and he lived together when they were posted in Russia for 2 years. I felt sorry that I could not spend more time as I had a very long journey to cover ahead of me. He is a school principal at the local town’s school.

Exiting the town of Chalsa, I soon passed through a forest before emerging out again into the flat lands. I was so hoping for an encounter with a wild animal but luck was not on my side. The roads were good and I was able to keep a steady pace. During one of the rest stops, a kid stopped by looking at the bike. He was fascinated by the huge luggage the bike was carrying and also by my attire. He was a school-going kid and we both posed together for a quick photo before saying goodbye to each other.

After crossing Alipurduar, I rejoined the main highway towards Guwahati which was still 300 km far away. The time was 1:30 pm and I knew that I was seriously way behind knowing that it got dark here around 5 pm. On top of that the road condition worsened a little bit thereby further reducing my speed. Crossing Gossaigaon, I started to feel a little hungry so I stopped to have some snacks instead of having a proper lunch meal. Earlier, I had stopped at Dhaba just right beside the snack shop but after coming to know that they served Beef on their menu, I backed off from there. It was run by some Muslim person.

A few km ahead, I bumped into a fellow rider from my state named Joshua. We both knew each other from earlier times and had known each other’s travel plans to Nagaland. Joshua had started his trip way earlier than me as he was doing the extreme West to extreme East part of India ride. It was a pure coincidence that we happened to meet that day as both were heading towards Guwahati. We stopped to take a photograph before Joshua raced down the tarmac towards Guwahati. I was limiting my speed to below 80 kmph. It was close to 3:45 pm and I still had 210 km to go.

This last leg was the toughest part as I almost drove non-stop before I reached close to the city. The night had fallen and it was way late in the evening. The constant riding with all the electrical peripherals ON had somehow taken a toll on my bike. It looked like the electricals of the bike had gone haywire. The indicators were not working properly and this made me worried. The bike was stalling and refusing to start through the electric button. On top of that, the aux lights worked as an indicator whenever I turned the indicator switch to either left or right. I knew something was not right with the bike and since I was running on a double battery setup, I had become more fearful of the bike’s condition. I reached very late in the capital city of Guwahati, close to 9 pm but the stay had already been arranged by a bunch of my social media friends. I had just posted a query regarding my stay in one of our common WhatsApp groups and help was available immediately. There was some initial fumble regarding the direction leading to the hotel but it so happened that my friends came on the spot to escort me to the hotel.

When I reached the parking lot, I came to know that it was run by a biker friend of mine who belonged to Assam Club, which I knew personally. The hotel belonged to the member of the ‘Black Hurricanes Assam MC’. When I checked in, I saw many other people already in the hotel who were heading towards Nagaland for the Rider Mania. Some of them, I knew personally by name but was face to face with them for the first time. It looked like the entire hotel was full of crazy biker people like us. The room was decided at 1200rs per day and I was going to stay here for 2 nights. Tomorrow was a rest day for me here in Guwahati and my first thing was to get the bike shown at the closest RE service center. It was my first rest day after 5 days of continuous riding from Pune.

After getting myself freshened, I joined the others in the common room where everyone had gathered and was having a fun time. It was like a round table conference and we were like 8-10 people discussing no other topic than motorcycling adventure. People were mixed from northeast states and it was good talking to each other for the first time. People were from Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur, Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, and Sikkim. Some were chit-chatting while some were helping themselves in the kitchen and since I hadn’t had my dinner yet, they pulled me in. There was pork and rice in abundance and it was served with the full length of “Naga Chili’, the world’s hottest pepper also known as the ‘Bhut Jholokia’ worldwide. Tasting a small portion of it made my ears explode.

Even after dinner, we chatted for a long time till everyone became tired and retired to their respective room. It was a tiring day for me too, so I crashed onto the bed immediately and went into a deep sleep. There was no alarm put up for the next day.