About the contest: Hero Karizma ZMR Wanderers is an ongoing monthly online contest hosted on Autocar India’s Facebook page. All participants are asked to answer some very simple questions and at the end of every month, three winners are chosen. These lucky bike enthusiasts win an all-expenses-paid 2N/3D ride on three Hero Karizma ZMRs. Rides are planned well in advance and cover several beautiful locations across the country. Those interested in participating can enter the contest on Autocar India’s Facebook page. The contest and rides are organised and conducted by Autocar India.
The rains seem to follow the Wanderers wherever they may go. For their sixth ride, they’d decided to head in to West Bengal. Up in the tea estates, they rode through low-flying clouds. The clouds suddenly turned into heavy rain and our three winners, Kaushik, Kanwar and Dipak along with Autocar’s Vir Nakai were on the side of the road, scurrying to get their rain gear on.
After picking up the Hero Karizma ZMRs from Siliguri, the Wanderers headed towards Darjeeling. Thanks to well-marked roads and people who are happy to give directions, getting out of Siliguri on to the road that leads to Darjeeling was fast and easy. What you notice when you leave the city is that you’re riding through tea estates almost the entire way to Darjeeling. Now there are two roads that lead to the Queen of the Hills from Siliguri, one is straight and boring, the other is narrow, winds up the mountain and is obviously more scenic. No prizes for guessing which route the Wanderers took. It turned out to be a good choice as the road was in pretty good shape. It cuts through thick, lush green forests and tea gardens all the way to a little hilly locality in the Darjeeling Himalayan hill region of West Bengal called Ghum. There’s not much traffic, except for local taxis or buses with people stuffed inside them that tend to come around corners flat out. The biggest problem the Wanderers faced though, was that it was extremely difficult to not stop at every corner and stare at the brilliant view. From Ghum, they were more or less riding through the outskirts of several towns and here they encountered a lot of traffic and tourists. There’s also a toy train track that runs from Ghum to Siliguri. They had to keep an eye out for its tracks as they cut across the road, are quite slippery and the perfect recipe for trouble.
