Arunachal Cycling

'The land of the rising sun', Japan may be described by this phrase but for India Arunachal Pradesh gives us the experience of sun which no where else will. Typically, early morning, the valleys are filled with fog. We can hardly make out depth of the land. As the sun rises it casts a magic on this fog for us to witness a beautiful combination of a valley surrounded by mountains all over, the fog sort of trapped inside this bowl with sun teasing it and partly allowing it to escape and partly locking it over the land. It's an indescribable moment to behold.

This is the reason why I want to cycle in the North Eastern States of India every year. Nature appears to retain God's creation in these Mountains and valleys and rivers and skies and trees and birds and believe it or not the humans too. The honesty, sincerity, the soft attitude of people all around makes us forget our own brashness of city life and yearn to gel into this gods own place.

Our journey started from Balukpong to proceed to Jamiri, Bomdila, Dirang, Senge, Jang and finally to Tawang. 300 km stretch with an elevation gain of 17000 m satisfied all the hunger of Mountain Cycling. Each place was different, each route was unique. The Indian Military have a strong presence all along but the beautiful thing to experience for us was the warm attitude of the army offering tea, hot drinking water, place to stay and in an incidence even saving us from life threatening cold. Salutes to these noble souls. 
All the places had 'Bukhari' which used to keep the room warm and us alive. 'Dam Dum' a poisonous variety of fly left their marks in two of us who unknowingly wore cycling shorts with the legs exposed to these dangerous insects.

Tukaram Naik, Amit Varde, Mitraji Naik, Nilesh Jakhotia, Abhay Dhumal, Ramakant Zanwar and Amit Mulay along with your truly were the lucky voyagers who could experience this heavenly journey. 

My Vipasana for 2018 was complete in Arunachal. The mind refreshed and raring to go on the return journey. 

The Shining ball

The stories of the beauty of India’s North Eastern States were long heard. This pull resulted in planning a cycling expedition to any one of the States. This year, Sikkim turned out to be our destination between Oct 22 to Nov 2. 

Mitra bhau Naik, an expert in Cycling and trekking tours was our guide. We landed at Baghdora and after two days of acclimatisation, the Cycling started from the beautiful Darjeeling. 

In the next few days we hopped from one destination to another and were blessed to experience West and South Sikkim. We moved from Darjeeling to Jorethang to Pelling to Yuksom to Ravangla to Gangtok to Namchi to Kalimpong to Siliguri and 

back to Baghdora for our return flight. 

‘Incredible India’ is the only word which can describe the places we visited. Huge Mountains laden with thick vegetation, deep Valleys converging into crystal clear rivers flowing with childlike enthusiasm, clean places being a culture, loud noise an impossibility, kindness of the villagers a permanent virtue and vibrations of happiness all over. The most attractive part of this dream journey was the cuteness of the kids. The combination of chubby cheeks and small innocent eyes was irresistible! 

As we moved along paddling on our bicycles, sometimes on upward slopes and on others, downward, but seldom plain horizontal ones, a crucial lesson was learnt. Four of us, Tukaram Naik, Nilesh Jakotia, Pratik Bafna and myself, used to cycle for hours together. Sometimes for 4 hours, at others 5 and once even for 6 and a half hours, to be totally exhausted. 

We used to push ourselves through the upward slopes for hours and feel like quitting. At times even downward journey used to be a test of our endurance with practically only stones to ride on instead of roads. Sweat running down the forehead, legs aching, eyes fixed on the never ending upward slope, the top of the mountain still high enough to scale, the cycle moving along in inches, lungs thumping in exhaustion, heart ready to give up, the only hope of reaching the destination used to be the mind. Clinging tightly to will power as we used to reach the top a complete sense of satisfaction used to grip in. 

A break for a sip of water, something to munch from our bag, a moment of solitude listening to the birds around and hours of struggle used to just vanish! It was pure magic! 

Till minutes ago, the thought used to be never again will we put ourselves to such physical impossibility and all of a sudden within minutes of achieving our goal it was felt that another peak is definitely scalable. 

In Cricket, the opening batsman have to face the swinging new ball. If they successfully pass the test, in few overs the ball looses its shine and stops swinging. Life becomes easy and now the batsman can enjoy their strokes. 

In life too, sometimes we face tough situations. It seems the end of the world for us. But with a mind of steel, patience as our virtue, confidence of getting over the crisis, if we hold long enough, the tide soon gets over and everything becomes nice and rosy!

Let’s believe, it’s not the end but only a bend! 

Next turn might be the top of the mountain, next ball might loose its shine and stop swinging, the chirping of the birds will again be heard to relish!