The idea of topping up each tank first thing upon reaching a destination was to prevent the possibility of any hera-pheri (=hanky-panky in British language) in the petrol figures because it is impossible to fill any more petrol into an already full tank. After filling up, I would stick black tape in myriad designs on the tank-cap-flap and, thanks to digital technology, take a picture of the black tape design with my Nikon Coolpix 5700 digital camera (see photo). I did this everyday, morning (before starting journey) and evening (after topping up the tank at destination), and transferred the pictures to my laptop, which I was carrying, and under each picture wrote the registration number of the scooter as the caption of the picture. Thus I knew everyday every time which scooter had which design of black tape on its tank-cap-flap. No mistake or mix up possible. Whenever I needed to open tank cap to fill petrol next time, I would switch on my laptop, and on its eleven inch by eight inch screen, view the design I had made of the black tape stuck on the tank-cap-flap earlier. Any difference in the design in the picture, and the layout of the black tape on the tank-cap-flap would be a dead giveaway that the flap had been tampered with. I was quite vocal about this to all crewmembers so that they would be aware that any tampering with the tapes would be immediately apparent. In the event, no hera-pheri happened and the tapes were never tampered with.

On Friday 5th Dec, 2003, we started out from Patnitop in Kashmir. After a cool down-slope journey of @ 115 km from Patnitop, we reached Kranti Hotel, Jammu late in the evening. Like I've said before, the first thing I did was the tank filling (as described above), took photographs of the black tapes that I stuck on the tank-cap-flaps of all three scooters after filling, and noted the odo readings of all three. It is worth mentioning here that on the Patnitop-Jammu stretch we got fuel average of between 112 to 117 km per litre on all three scooters. Not surprising. We were going down-slope from the mountains of Kashmir to the plains of Jammu remember?

In Jammu I was very happy to be back in temperatures more conducive to humanexistence. The staple food in Jammu seems to be "Rajma" (kidney beans) andchawal/roti. Not surprising, but what was surprising was the number of shops selling guns. Almost every third shop in the marsket near the hotel was a gun shop (see photo). I have not seen so many gun shops anywhere else in the world. There must be more gun shops in Jammu than bars and booze shops in Goa + Pondy + Mahe put together!

On 6th Dec. from Jammu we headed for Ludhiana. On the way we stopped for breakfast on the banks of a canal . I am mentioning this because I had the best North Indian food on this trip. The place is named, "INDO-GERMAN VAISHNO DHABA". (see photo). Enquiries revealed that the youngster who was managing the dhaba was the younger brother of the guy who financed it by working in Germany! Great name. Great place. Great Dhaba. Great food. Affordable food. We spent kwite some time there.

Rode on to Ludhiana. Stayed at Hotel Amalatas, which is also a sarkari Tourist Bungalow. Facilities=zilch. Quality=zilch. Service=non-existent. Third class, as all govt. run places are. Can't help. Law of Nature. Moved on. Passed thru Chandigadh. Spent some time at lake (see foto-707). Moved on. Reached Karnal. Dandy town. Stay in hotel Jewel. Good hotel which has "TUNN BAR". Became tunn. Expensive, due to Delhi influence. Fact of Geography.

From Karnal, it was one long haul all the way to Agra. The traffic is terrible. I am glad there was no night halt in Delhi. Spent some time at Kinetic's Agra dealer. Next door was Enfield dealer. He had an 1926 model Harley Davidson. He said HD had offered him thirty-five thousand Dollars for the bike in as-is-where-is condition PLUS a two week holiday in the US for him & his family. Lucky guy, if this is true. From Agra, headed for Gwalior, crossing the Chambal River on the way.This is ideal bandit country, where you could hide a regiment of troops without anyone knowing. It may interest you to know that Chambal River is famous for its River Dolphins, Ghariyals and Riverine Tortoises. Bharat Sarkar has established a sanctuary on its banks, where their eggs are hatched and the young ones are nurtured till they are big enough to survive on their own, and then released back onto the river. This sanctuary has done excellent work and we saw baby Ghariyals and Tortoises. These six-inch baby Ghariyals in the photo grow in 24 feet long adults! Gawd! We stopped for a few minutes in Morena and bought some of its world famous GAJAK sweets. Delicious! We stopped at Kinetic's Gwalior dealer for a while and rode off to Shivpuri for night halt. This is still Bandit country and traffic in Shivpuri was very thin. People do not usually venture outdoors after dark.