NH-8 The Road to Ajmer

November 4, 2005: Ajmer Bypass Over-bridge: Praveen (Bumpy) and I had just finalised the plan in the night. Sheldon and Evelyn had headed out to Pushkar a day before. Annoying as it was I had to follow him there. Dhanaulti Rocks was on and the original plan was to head up there in the hills. But a late night call shed water on my plan to head there as it was poring cats and dogs and I wasn’t being that adventurous to head out into the hills in a downpour. So it was finalised that I’d pick up Bumpy at 0600 hrs and we’d head out on the NH-8 to Pushkar.

Of course 0600 hrs turned into 0700 hrs and we finally were on our way. The ride out of Delhi through Gurgaon did take a while, more like an hour. It was a nice sunny day, yet I could feel the winter chill in my fingers. Our jackets were zipped up to our chins. The last thing you want to be is, shivering on a long ride.

So finally an hour outside Delhi, I was able to start letting in some more fuel into the engine by unleashing on the throttle. The bike was suddenly chewing the kms between us as Jaipur at a constant 110-115 kmph with an occasionally jump to 125 kmph. We were just flying past all the vehicles on the DELHI-JAIPUR EXPRESSWAY like a “red hot bat out of hell being tamed by its masters”.

Before we knew it, we were at Midway – Behror and a slight turn back to Bumpy inquiring if he was interested in a snack. A nodding affirmation that the bike chewing tarmac as it was so far, was enough to keep his hunger at bay, made me manoeuvre through the barriers and make our way out of Midway before one could say “jack Robbins”.

The next hundred odd kilometres seemed like a dream. Of course we had two cars overtake – an Optra and an Octavia, but then wouldn’t expect anything less from cars like those. The fun part was when we were riding close to this Qualis. The Qualis was doing a nifty 120 kmph and I was constantly riding next to it, sometimes trailing behind a bit and sometimes nudging ahead of it. Most of the passengers in the back seat were just awestruck – one by the bright red machine and two lunatics riding on it in the middle of the highway and second by our sheer speed, because every time we overtook the vehicle they would lean over the driver and verify the speed they were travelling at.

We finally came upon the Ajmer Over Pass just short of Jaipur City and made our first stop atop the bridge to stretch our legs and soak in the beautiful surroundings.