From Bengaluru to Bangkok in 110cc

    • Malika Halder
    • Publish Date: Apr 17 2016 2:16PM
    • |
    • Updated Date: Apr 17 2016 2:20PM
From Bengaluru to Bangkok in 110cc

What can dad’s old scooter motivate you to do? Ask 28-year-old Arunabh Majumdar who took his father’s 110 cc bike for a 5,354 km journey.

Why did you undertake such a trip?

I was 15 when I took my dad’s scooter for a spin. It was my first tryst with anything other than a cycle. Fast forward a couple of years and I had graduated to bikes, lent by friends who were probably too polite to refuse. End of 2008, I finally got a bike of my own. And like my mom says, that’s when all hell broke loose. The look on my dad’s face when I rode from Mumbai to Bengaluru along the Konkan coast line over 12 days in January 2015 said it all. The biggest takeaway from the trip was the realisation that you don’t really need a great bike with glitzy accessories to ride into the sunset. I haven’t looked back since. It was sometime in August when the internet went berserk with the new Indo-Myanmar-Thai Highway which would enable a road trip across three nations. That caught my attention. A couple of people had done it earlier on high-fashion bikes that are meant for such excruciating cross-country rides. Doing it on a commuter 110cc bike, which is supposed to drop you to your workplace every day, was a different ball game. It felt like I took my workplace just a little bit further, say about 7,000 km!

Which part of your trip was the most difficult?

The ride from Bengaluru to Kolkata was eventless and a tad boring. Riding on eight-lane highways at blazing speed does get a bit monotonous after a while. The ride post Kolkata deserves an entire book. The infamous Kolkata-Malda Highway was bad. With trucks coming too close to me and people having scant regard for rules, I thought the worst was over when I touched Siliguri. But, then the Guwahati-Silchar Highway happened. The worst road on this trip! To say the roads were bad would be an understatement. There were no potholes because there were no roads. I will remember the look on the hotel manager’s face in Silchar forever when I told him I rode from Bengaluru to Silchar. He insisted on a selfie with the bike!

Share a few memorable experiences

Myanmar! The information on the internet about this country is exceptionally minuscule.  After conquering Silchar and Manipur, I awaited the worst in Myanmar.  To my complete surprise, smooth, pothole-free roads greeted me. Myanmar is exotic and thankfully, not crowded. The ancient city of Bagan, a UNESCO world heritage site, takes the cake. Some 2,200 pagodas of every shape and size, riding through the  ancient city and catching the first rays of the sun on a hot-air balloon – these are some of my memories.

Any plans of similar trips in the future?

Few things in life come close to feeling the wind in your hair on an open road. Though I haven’t planned my next ride yet, I will be doing another big one before the year ends.

Advice for youngsters

Two words: Leave now. Contrary to public opinion, cross-country road trips are easier now than ever. Take chances, make mistakes. Years later, when you are asked what you want to do in life, you wouldn’t be left guessing!

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Comments

Harini MS NAGARJUNA VIDYANIKETAN

The last few lines made me go "ahhhhh". It is so nice to see people breaking common perceptions and inspiring others to go on such memorable trips.

Hemalatha.G Sethu Bhaskara Matriculation Higher Secondary Scho

The last lines are great. I want to take as many trips as posible!

gopi Sree Narayana Vidya Bhavan

Though I haven’t planned my next ride yet, I will be doing another big one before the year ends.

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