Mumbai biker, partner complete 270-day 'world trip'

Indian biker Debasshish Ghosh and his partner Dharmendra Jain of 'One World, One Ride' successfully completed a 68,000 km-long journey across 35 countries across five continents.

The two zoomed off on their BMW GS1200 from Bandra on June 10 and returned here last weekend after riding 270 days or nine months, but Ghosh was in the driving mode with Jain as the pillion rider.

"This iconic journey took us across India and its northeast, Southeast (Asia), Far East, China, Mongolia, Russia, Europe, then the US by shipping the bike, going again to Australia, and back to the Asean belt before returning to Mumbai," said a weary but cheerful Ghosh on his adventurous ordeal.

Luckily, there were no major incidents or breakdowns and they ensure driving only during daytime, but at one point, Jain lost balance and tumbled off the bike speeding at 150 kmph in Russia, but escaped with some minor fractures and bruises.

"In Russia, we were thrilled to meet the world-renowned biker Marcel Killer and he accompanied us on the entire Russia leg till we left that country's borders at Estonia... It was a very enjoyable part with him showing us around for 15 days that he spent with us," Ghosh recalled, interacting with mediapersons.

Though they sped through some of the loneliest and remotest areas in the world, they did not experience any weird encounters or attacks by wild creatures, making it a largely smooth and event-free journey.

"However, on the food front, we had to adapt as per the local availability in small restaurants or homes of villagers... We ate whatever we got en route and converted to non-vegetarians," a smiling Ghosh said.

He said the long ride provided a perspective of people of different nationalities, helped them overcome the language barriers and cultural diversities, discover and learn new things, understand customs, weather conditions, and local traditions and how people survive.

On their part, the two attempted to promote India as "a peace-loving country with multi-lingual, multi-cultural peoples, its glorious traditions and a rich heritage" in an attempt to forge close people-to-people ties during the journey.

--IANS

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