Breaking Stereotypes

An enterprising young couple from Bengal ride to Ladakh and back on two commuters!

- Shubhendu Singh

WE are two solo riders with one soul, also known as Shubhendu Singh and my lovely girlfriend Riya Roy. 

It was an impossible thought when Riya said she wanted to ride solo on the Yamaha Ray Z 113cc along me with my broken Honda Dream Yuga 110cc to Ladakh and conquer the roads till Khardung La. I said “have you gone crazy to take those small babies to some of the world’s toughest roads”. But the shine in her eyes warmed my cold heart and filled it with courage to do it. It was a dream since I saw the first post of xBhp to Ladakh six years ago. Riya ignited my dream once again. Yes now it’s time to ride. 7 states and 7000 km. We started our ride early morning from Durgapur heading to Varanasi. Riya got lost on the way, ‘correction’ I was riding fast and left her behind and she was out of fuel as well. The hotel we booked was drowned till the first floor, we would have to park our vehicles elsewhere and take a boat to the hotel. The next morning it was time to leave on the same water bed in the hotel. The water level was rising as we were leaving but somehow we managed to cross and it was fun. The roads towards Agra was fun, where we reached by 9 PM. Riya and I were eager to see the Taj Mahal there. We packed our bags and headed to the Taj, it was an incredible experience. We headed to Delhi for the day because the motorcycles needed servicing after the 1300 km journey. Since we had time and it was the festival Janmastami we went to Vrindavan and Mathura.

We stayed in Delhi for the day, serviced our vehicles, visited Qutab Minar, India Gate and the rest. We met my sister Jagriti in Delhi and she tried dissuading me from continuing the ride. But we wanted to stick to the plan.

The next day we hoped to reach Jammu. At Ludhiyana a new problem arose. The front tyre of my motorcycle gave up. Repairing took time and it was risky after Jalandhar. So we stopped to rest.