Travel
Places visited for work, conferences, and exploration.
2022
kedarnath, my first ride up
My first long bike ride: 400-odd km from Delhi to the Kedar valley and back, riding pillion on a Splendor my online friend bought with his own money just for this. Two days on the road, a night in a 50-person dormitory, a 22 km climb that broke and rebuilt me, an ice-crystal bath in the Mandakini, my first snowfall, and a long dark walk down under more stars than I'd ever seen.
Met a friend online during covid playing pokemon, and in october 2022 we finally did the thing he'd planned: ride a brand-new Splendor from Sonipat to Kedarnath. We sneaked out around 5:30AM and rode one long day straight, crossing Haridwar by mid-morning and pushing into the night through mud and traffic to Sonprayag. Then the 22 km climb from Gaurikund, a freezing night in a tent on the edge of the valley, a 9-hour darshan line, a bath that woke every nerve, snow at Bhairavnath, and a non-stop ride home with my legs already dead.
banaras to mangarh, the long way round
Two days with my school friend Sachin: a train into Banaras at dawn, the old lanes and Kashi Vishwanath, five aartis watched from the water because the river was too high, a sunrise at the Sangam in Prayagraj on sharad purnima, and a temple at Mangarh that turned out to be closed. The road back was the real story.
Reached Kashi at 5:30 in the morning with my school friend Sachin and no plan, ate our way through Godowlia, and saw Kashi Vishwanath. Then Prayagraj at sunrise on the Sangam during sharad purnima, and on to Mangarh, which was shut for a festival. Getting home through a closed road on Eid Milad-un-Nabi was the part I remember most.