Roadtrip Day 44: Solan to Chandigarh & flight back to Bangalore [April 21, 2021]

My ride is halted & not yet over. I will be back :).

I was staying at Dashmesh Guest House in Solan & left the place by 8:30 AM. I was a bit late so I decided to catch breakfast on the way.

I crossed a tunnel & took its picture. It was pretty scenic around it as well.

Soon I spotted a dhaba that has put rate list outside the shop. I rarely comes across instances like this, stopped & decided to have my breakfast there.

I got into conversation with the owner of the place who had high regards for folks in Bangalore. He had driven trucks all over India & loved driving in South. He was retired & had opened the dhaba/restaurant with his lifelong savings.

While I said goodbye to him, he insisted on putting a review on Facebook. I promised that I would mention his restaurant’s name Raju ka Dhaba on my blog :).

Soon I reached the diversion that said Kasauli on the right. It was around 9:30 & my gut feel said I should explore the place. So I took the right turn towards Kasauli. It was a nice leisurely ride. I bypassed a few hotels & guest house while I climbed towards the main town.

I reached the main Kasauli town by 10 & felt it is a bit late to explore the town as such. I decided to just head back. While going up, I passed by Woodcreek Terrace Cafe & had felt like having a tea to absorb the views while on my way back, but then I felt I am running short of time & just took this pic, so that I can fulfill this wish of mine, maybe in future :).

Closer to merging back to the main road, I saw this nice winding road view & took its pic as well.

Once back on the main road, I got the taste of highway riding after a long time. The roads were nice & wide. I was curving at around 70-80 kmph with ease. It felt like a racing arena & it was one real awesome experience.

Something unexpected happend while I was enjoying my ride. My phone ‘flew off’ my phone holder & fell on my lap. Apparently, I had been riding fairly slow till then & had not tightened the holder enough for a fast ride. It could have been lot worse with the phone flying off & I just thought of the probablity of it landing perfectly on my lap from where I picked it up & placed it back again on the phone holder. Well, destiny is what I thought to myself :).

I was heading towards AWHO colony in Panchkula where my friend Nilesh stays (I had stayed at his place during my onward journey as well). I reached his place at around 11:30 AM. On the way, I saw this large fleet of vehicles which seemed like police dept Innovas.

I was a little worried for his family that I might end up bringing Corona germs to his place but Nilesh seemed fairly chilled about it. Just to ensure sanitization, I decided to sanitize all my bags & took bath as the first thing once I entered his place. CP & his wife Sonali, who stayed next door, visited me & after having a short chat with them, my cab to airport arrived. I handed over my bike keys to Nilesh as my plan is to come back & resume ride once the pandemic has subsided. I was thinking of coming back in/around June but at the time of writing this blog post, I had decided to push it by a good one year. Till then, Nilesh is going to ride my bike in/around Panchkula :).

Here is pic of my ride to airport.

I took afternoon flight to Delhi & then evening flight to Bangalore. I reached my home at around 12:00 AM & my wife Lakshmi was fairly happy to see me after 44 days on the road.

I would also like to thank you, the readers of this journal, who kept me motivated to keep publishing the posts on a fairly regular cadence. I will be writing a post compiling all the stay related leads (places where I stayed, ate & visited for sight seeing) to help folks who end up doing an unplanned India ride in future & also a way to pay it forward for all the help I received from folks during my trip. Suggestions regarding this are welcome through comments on this post. Please do chime in :).