​Well, here we are again!  At Jammu railway station - waiting for my bike to come in from Mumbai!


WOOHOO!  SOLO RIDE, BABY!
I was at this exact place 4 years earlier, when the Amigos did their fourth ride  (check out my book’ - Three Men Ride the Cliffhanger’)  - at the same place, in the same hotel …the only thing different was that this time I was alone!
The Amigos had already transported their bikes to Jammu earlier ( check out ‘Three Men Ride the Cliffhanger’ for that story) and so I knew the ropes pretty well. Put the bike in the train to Jammu, and fly down from Mumbai to Jammu and go to the Jammu railway station to collect the bike.
had to get my riding mojo back after such along gap… get my bike serviced…find my riding gear…does it still fit? Barely!
It was so nice to get out of the city areas and enter the beautiful winding mountain roads. It started drizzling as soon as I entered the hills, and I stopped to put on rain gear. What a pleasure to ride in a gentle rain!


The hills were green and refreshing, the wind was whooshing around my helmet and the drops were pitter-pattering on my raincoat. So long as you are not going too fast, you can have a great ride! You don’t worry about skids and falls when you are at a comfortable speeds, you have enough time to look at the scenery and the roads are broad enough to enable a safe distance from trucks and heavy vehicles.
It had started raining heavily by the time I got to Rajouri, and this sent me running to find a hotel to bed down for the night.  I found a nice place - and wouldn’t you know it - it stopped raining immediately as I checked in!
Oh well - that meant that I could enjoy a glorious sunset! The hotel had a lovely terrace with an awesome river and valley view.
And an excellent meal too! That hotel guy served me an awesome Kashmiri dinner with chicken and mutton curries and piping hot rotis and rice!

He looked at me approvingly as I looked at the food approvingly and said ‘You are in Kashmir now. You will get good food everywhere!’

Cheers to that!