Pre Journey Introduction..

Life is a long journey by itself, a journey full of dreams..
In the humble words of Saint Augustine,
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

I'm a firm believer of the above line & although I've been one of the laziest person ever to read any kind of books, this book is the one which I would not leave unread.. Of course the world is a book which is beyond anyone's actual capacity to read it page by page from start to end but that doesn't mean one shouldn't read at all. So everyone does start to read this book at some or the other point in their life,

Some stop, Some just don't... I intend to be grouped under the second category.

I'm Mitesh Laxmidas Bhadricha, born on 18th October 1987 in the most amazing city of India, Mumbai.. I'v been a mumbaikar (mumbai-resident) since birth.. Completed my Graduation in 2008 & still pursuing the final year of my Chartered Accountancy career. I've traveled extensively in & around mumbai & few places beyond mumbai & always loved traveling & seeing new places, meeting local fellow Indians from other states & undestanding their part of culture. I'v been in love with the very basic idea of traveling since long.. Enjoyed every aspect of traveling, right from the planning stage, to the stage when everything almost goes wrong & still in the end everything works out for the best.

However it was not until December 2009 that I found out that I was missing a very important aspect in my traveling regime so far.. & that was my mode of transport which has always been public transport or private cars ( 'cages' as called by my fellow friends)

So there I was sitting in my office, one fine day of december & surfing across internet to stumble upon a very finely compiled blog of a fellow mumbaikar who had traveled along with 3 other friends from Mumbai to Ladakh & back on their two wheeled soulmates.. their motorcycles.. their best friends.. their bikes.

I went through the extensively well written & compiled blog of their trip & I was just out of words when I saw the collection of beautiful pictures attached in the log.. I was so damn inspired that I wanted to contact the blogger ASAP, but I knew there are very thin chances of any sort of feedback from him. Nevertheless I searched for the contact details of the blogger & I mailed him across at once appreciating his blog. To my surprise, I got a reply from him within a matter of minutes & hence followed a long sequence of e-mail exchanges between myself & the blogger.. He answered all my stupid queries regarding touring on bikes very patiently.

His name is Rachit Kohli & here's a link to his blog:
http://mumbai2leh.blogspot.com/ (highly recommended)

So that is how it occurred to me all of a sudden & I said to myself, "Yes, this is how its done correctly.. This is how a tourer travels.. This is gonna be my mode of travel henceforth"

I was already a possessive owner on a brand new 2 months old & just a few hundred kms run motorcycle, Yamaha FZ16 LE..

A picture taken of myself & my baby on the 1st day before I brought her home..

It's a very different & exciting story of how I planned the finances for purchasing my 1st bike myself & how actually I learned to ride it in traffic conditions of mumbai. However I had never even thought in my dreams that I would use my bike apart from local conveyance within the borders of mumbai city & I was relatively a new rider with no experience at all on two wheeled beauties but Rachit helped me a lot to understand how important it is to ride within my potential, learn slowly & steadily, check my endurance level before I even dare to attempt such mammoth rides & most important of all, the safety gears should be used always. Although I was too desperate to start off my journey now on my newly found mode of travel, I equally understood from words of Rachit that how important it is to be safe out there on roads & take the things slowly without jumping into action all of a sudden. So I couldn't start my journey on my set of lovely two wheels because I lacked the basic safety gears as advised by him, however those were the things on top priority in my shopping list by then.

So Life seemed to take a new turn all of a sudden & hence a very Sane, office going, 9-6 types guy from mumbai having limited demands as far as traveling was concerned had already started dreaming of breaching the borders of mumbai soon on his two wheeled beauty & promised myself the very same day when I read Rachit's blog that

"This is the one thing I'm definitely gonna do, before I die.. No matter when, No matter how, but I'm definitely going to LEH/Ladakh - the Valley of Dreams, on my bike some fine day"

Now most of you may think this is outrageously Insane.... Then, Yes it is..
From Sanity-to-Insanity...