A White Bullet. 2 Guys. 60 Days & 8300km in South India

Hey people. I am a 25 years old guy writing from Bombay and this is a short log of my 2 month long journey.
About 3 months back I quit my job to travel South India. The question was how. I am a big cycle enthusiast, but cycling 3-4 states was a little too crazy for me. Backpacking doesn't excite me much. Bike seemed to be the only good option available. There were caveats though. I didn't own one. I had never ridden one.

I had bought a bike for Dad sometime before this at home. I asked Dad if he would lend it to me for this crazy venture, and he happily transported it to Bombay. That solved the bike thing. But I still needed to learn how to ride. So I asked my good friend from college if he would be willing to join. (I wanted to learn to ride the bike on the route itself, just for adrenaline's sake). He too complied.

Friend arrived. Bike arrived. Meanwhile I tried to do some planning and draft rough estimates. The initial figures were around 4000km in about 1 month and a shoestring budget of 40k per head.
Then we got to the preparations. We got a tent, sleeping bags, ladakh carrier, 1 gopro, 2 pairs of ropes, 1 helmet. Since we were absolute rookies (we still are), we completely overlooked the safety gear looking at their price tags. (We have that arrogant young blood and miserly spending capabilities).

And on 28th Dec I, along with my friend, left Mumbai for Goa. It had begun. That feeling of having leaving the burdensome bonds behind and handling a bullet for the first time, on a highway, however stupid it sounds, is a thing to die for, literally. What once seemed like a quirky dream and stuff of legends, was actually realizing.

(Please note, that I, by no means, am promoting this craziness on road. I started riding in round neck cotton t-shirts, shorts and flip flops. By the time this journey ended, I was wearing jacket, jeans and shoes. On our second last day, from Udupi to Dharwad, we had a minor slip and we realized how lucky we were to be still alive. I say minor because we got away with minor bruises. It could have been well fatal because we actually slipped at 80kmph)

But coming back to the journey. We started with a typical bike ride to Goa, but after 2-3 days realized this was more than that. This wasn't about riding or reaching. This was about living and searching. So while on our way to Gokarna, we found a completely isolated beach somewhere in Goa and camped there for 5 days. Then, we ditched our plan for Gokarna, and headed west towards Badami and Hampi.

We camped at crazy locations, ate at langars, sat in silence for hours at beautiful locations, played to thousands of Gods and what not.

We continued our journey till we reached Bombay yesterday (its impossible for me to summarize 2 months experience in a short log). Here are some of the snippets.

Number of Days - 73 days (out of these 13 days were a leisure stay at Bangalore).
Distance covered - 8300km
Running budget - 70,000 (this includes everything for 2 people, for 60 days. i told you, we were miserly)
Places covered - So many. Did not count. Couldn't figure out how to make a route with so many locations on google maps. :P



This journey, as they say, has been a life changing event for us both and we are now planning to continue this journey in the North, that is, Gujarat - Rajasthan - Uttarakhand - Himachal Pradesh - Kashmir - Ladakh - and if possible Nepal.
This is a daunting task, and we are looking for support to get this done. Any kind of help is highly appreciated. From safety tips, route suggestions to words of wisdom on getting sponsors. Even used stuff (believe me, I spent a week without slippers, riding bullet barefoot).

Also, if you liked the post, please check out our blog lonelyindia here. It will mean a lot to us.

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