The third day ride was to be tougher than the last 2 days due to the numerous sand trails to Jamba.
We wroomed from Marudyaan at 8.15 in the morning and rode through the highway roads of Bikaner towards Nokah and took the first stop at Karni Mata temple - the one which famous for a lot of rats freely living inside the temple. Then we rode back to the highway and took a very narrow tarmac road which leads to Jangla. 10 kms into that road, and we were told to leave the tarmac in favor of the sand. We started riding on the trail of sand twisting and bending trying to balance ourselves. Some 2 kms into the trail and the sand got dense and soft and we struggled to get the bike moving. It seemed manageable till we had to get off the bike and push it on 1st gear. Some 5 kms into the sand trails I started getting the hang of riding on sand and the feeling was undescribable. I just stood on my footrest and kept throttling the bike which gave a lot of fishtail effect to the rear tyre but I was racing through the trails at 70kmph. Full marks to The Himalayan here for being this beautifully balanced machine.
We did have our share of goofups too. A particular gentleman - the eldest of the pack took his age in consideration and decided the terrain was way too much for him to ride. His bike was loaded on the pickup truck. Another bike had his bike's clutch plate burnt/overheated. Then another whose bike stalled and had to be put in the truck too. So the entire stretch of 15 oddkms took us around 4 hours of struggle.
The boys were exhausted to the core Finally, around 4 in the evening we finally got back on the tarmac and it was like coming back to life. This was the longest ride which continued beyond sunset. The sunset though made up for it looking all dramatically picturesque like a hot red ball closing down to the horizon.
We rode on the hard narrow tarmac roads for another 70 odd kms to the spot we were going to put up for the night. A glorious sight of small igloo tents awaited us.
Getting thrown out of civilization did have it's perks - bonfires, skyfull of stars, open lands. Maybe man had better go back to nature.
No route guide today becoz I am myself not aware of the villages and didn care to note down considering the terrain we were riding through.
