The Proposal Ride

The Proposal Ride.

MY LIFE’S ASPIRATION can be summed up by the quotation given above. It has been about 5 years since I have been travelling the length and breadth of our magnificent country and the Gurudongmar Lake in North Sikkim is without doubt my favourite destination. Every time I reached anywhere close to it, the person I missed the most was my significant other, Miss Mallick. Therefore, I had decided a long time ago that if there was one place where I would pop the question of taking our relationship to the next level, it would be at G-Top.

The condition of the road from Kolkata to Siliguri is what the Dakar rally tracks are made of and I decided not to let Miss Mallick suffer the pain. While I rode to Siliguri and reached there in record time, she would reach there by train. Late at night I went and fetched her from the railway station. I was excited by the prospect of ‘The Proposal Ride’ finally getting kick-started the next day.

About 10 kilometres out of Siliguri we were surrounded by dark clouds and the drizzle soon turned into a downpour. After an hour-long delay owing to a landslide we reached Rangpo to be greeted by a sun shining brightly. We had secured the necessary permits for this ride in advance and headed straight towards Lachen.

The most difficult stretch of the road to Gurudongmar is from Lachen to Thangu. We gained altitude at an incredibly fast pace after Thangu and I knew that nausea, headache and sleepiness would catch up soon and hard. The moment we took the turn after the last check-post at Geighoon, our headache and sleepiness disappeared.

We took in the incredible surroundings as we continued towards the pious Lake. The last 100 meters to the Lake is where most bikes give up but my 200 Duke managed it with relative ease. We finally reached my favourite place in the world; which was now Miss Mallick’s favourite place as well.