Back to India

October 18^th, 2026

Guwahati, India

Woke with the alarm at 7:00AM.

Took a nice, long, hot shower and then dressed in street clothes, no riding today.

Went down for breakfast.  Was a simple meal, but filled the stomach.

Went back up to the room to finish the few packing tasks, and then noticed that my hat was missing.

I went outside and checked in the van, perhaps leaving it last night on way back from town, but nothing was there.

I asked the hotel staff, perhaps I left it in the bar or dining room last night, but they had nothing.

Went through all my bags again to make sure I had not packed it by accident, nothing.

Only thing I can think of is that I left it at the restaurant last night.

The hat was going to be retired after this travel adventure, but really would be nice to have had it for the rest of the trip to keep my head from sun burning.

I was back outside a bit later and off had mentioned it to Kinley when he asked how things were, and he said he would send Sam down on the bikes to check.

I hated to have him do that, thought we could call, but he insisted.

Sam rode down and back in about 10 minutes, and sure enough, they had the hat. 

Oddly, I do not even recall wearing it to town, let along leaving it at the restaurant.

So, now that I have everything, I sat down and played online for a bit, then started to update apps on my phone as I had not done so in at least a month.

I was about 75% done when it was time to leave and head down.

I put the last things away, used restroom one last time, then grabbed my bags and left the room.

Dropped my bags behind one of the waiting taxi’s (The van had departed about 1 hour ago with the truck carrying the bikes.)

The driver loaded them into the car while I walked around talking with a few people, then took my key over to the office to drop it off.

Shortly after that, we all got into the cars, 4 of us in each cab, and then drove down to the border about 1 mile away.

We stopped at the Bhutan side, and some of us got out of the cabs, others stayed in the cab.

We stood along the side of the road while Himal worked with the Bhutan officials to exit us out of Bhutan.  Sam had to come over for a bit (he had come down on the bike) to finalize things as he was our official guide and had to be there when we left.

Kinley, who had also ridden down, was there to bid us farewell, and do a few last minute photos.

Once all the formalities were done, we said our goodbyes to Kinley and Sam who were staying in Bhutan.  Himal would accompany us all the way to our stop in India tonight.

We walked through the Bhutan gate and over to an office along the road for India.

We were told to sit in this small area while Himal did whatever he needed to do to start the check in process.

After this (which took about 20 minutes), we all walked over to the cabs, now through the gate as well and got in.

We drove through town a bit, then turned off onto some small alleyway road and wound down to reach another official building.

Here we had to first pay our exit tax of 800 Indian Rupees (About $8).  Most of the guys did not have rupees on them, so I ended up giving about 1500 rupees toward the total needed.  Ben said he would pay me back later, though I was not too worried. (He had borrowed 3000 from me earlier when I exchanged my Bhutan money with Himal and Sam for Rupee before we left).

We then walked over to another building, and were told to wait in a room.

After a few minutes, Himal and the one cab driver came in and handed out forms to fill out.  One of them was the same form we had just filled out online the night before, so after some back and forth, we did not have to fill that one out.

The other form was the standard health declaration form, which we could have done online as well.

We all filled it in, not really having exact answers for many of the questions, and then once done, we could go into the next room with our passports and get stamped into India.

This process took about 5-8 minutes per person, but we eventually all had our entry stamps.  Oh, then never asked to see the arrival forms we did online, and while most of us handed over the health form, then did not care, one guy even had the agent tell him to keep it??

After this we went back to the cabs and drove back over to the main road.

We went a few blocks down and stopped again to check out of the border zone.

A few of us got out of the cab, but most stayed in.

Himal and the cab driver went over to work with the local staff to photograph the passports and visa stamps, and filled out some papers.

We stood around talking with a military guard with his dog, who he had trained to do a few tricks, which he showed off, and even had Ben and Brad get a photo with the dog.

Once done, we all got into the cabs, and finally drove across the boundary and into India proper.

We now had a roughly 3 hour drive to Guwahati.

It was a narrow, traffic packed road for most of the way.  The last hour at least was on the 4 lane highway, but still lots of slow moving vehicles, wrong way drivers, pedestrians, broken down or stopped vehicles, and the odd cow or two.

We pulled over at one point to wait for the other car, but Ben said lets do this at a tea house, not on the side of the road.

We then had the other car pass us right about then anyway.

Few miles down the road we stopped, and ordered some tea at this restaurant.

We were told we could have lunch here as well, but as the hotel was only a 30 minute drive away, we figured we would wait till then.

As I was the only one with Rupees, I paid the bill, but then Ben got some rupee from someone and paid me back.

We continued onward and reached the city, where things got a bit congested.

Took us closer to 45 minutes, we reached the hotel, which was right across the road from the airport.  Would make it quite quick and easy to leave from here for most of the guys, and I thought perhaps staying the remaining 2 weeks here could be useful.

We pulled up and got out of the car, and stood around while the drivers unloaded the bags which were then run through the x-ray by hotel security staff.

We all went inside and started the check in process, and had a welcome drink. (Some green fruit that did not taste too bad, but smelled like sulfur!)

Once we all had our keys, and our bags were ready, we got the bags tagged so they could bring them up to the room later.

At this point Himal said his goodbyes.  While he was originally going to stay the night, it was later decided that he would return to Bhutan tonight with the cab driver who must live near there (though driver was from India).

Brad and Jude went in and had lunch at the buffet, Dennis tried to order some food, but it never showed up after 30 minutes.

Once we all had everything done, we went to our rooms.

Guy arrived with my bag after 1 minute, and then I spent some time on the Wi-Fi getting some stuff taken care of.

I saw a message from Mike that he and Dennis were going into town.   John said he might go, but in the end, he just walked around the local area for an hour or so.

After an hour, the rest of us took an Uber over to the local Royal Enfield dealer as some wanted to buy some shirts, and Brad was looking for a new riding jacket, his was falling apart, so he left it with one of the guides who was not worried about the cosmetic issues.

We arrived, and the dealer was hardly that.

It had a big service shop, but the show room was exactly 1 bike, and a few odd things on the wall to sell.

The person running the shop took about 3 minutes to show up, and had very little English ability, and while Jude can speak some Hindi, he was having some issues getting our needs across.

We needed to go to another dealer a few miles away to get what we wanted.

Brad tried to get an Uber, but the app never came up.

Ben tried, and Brad tried again, and finally he got a car to take the request.

We waited a few minutes, car arrived, and we spent next 30 driving to the other place.

This dealer was large.

They had several bikes on display, and lots of accessories.

After going through most of the stuff, Brad was going to buy a jacket, Ben wanted some stuff and Jude was getting a shirt.

But for some stupid reason, they could not seem to process a credit card.

The seemed to be setup to only take the various payment apps you can use on the phones, but those are not things that tourists would have access too.

In the end I gave Jude and Ben the Rupee to pay for their items, and Brad gave up on buying the jacket for other reasons, and decided he did not need the shirt either if they could not take a card. (He turned down my offer of Rupee to pay).

The store lots several hundred dollars of sales because they could not take a Visa credit card.

We ordered another Uber, which took 5 minutes to arrive, and then spent the next 40 driving back to the hotel, taking a longer route, but avoiding the busy traffic across town.

Once at the hotel, we had about 2 hours till dinner, so we all went to our rooms to do whatever.

I spent some time finishing updates on my phone, created maps for the Bhutan trip, and researched hotels in the center of town.

This hotel is nice, but its about $80 a night, and there are no restaurants or retail places in a 1 mile area, so a bit isolated.

I wanted something with plenty of food and shopping options around, so after researching the best part of town for food and nightlife, I explore that road and found a hotel on the Hotels.com app in the $50-60 a night range.

Place was listed on the recommendation list from google, had good reviews on Google and Hotels, and lots of them to boot.

My member tier on hotels dropped the price $100 over the 2 weeks, and my bonus points gave me another $13 savings, making my final cost about $55 a day.

The place is right in middle of town, close to lots of food and retail.  Also a few cultural things nearby, and even the train station is close if I wanted to day trip to a nearby city (unlikely, but option is there).

I also found a bike rental place about a mile away, so that option is open.

I will stay at this hotel tonight of course as this is part of the tour cost, and will stay tomorrow as well so I can spend the day with the few guys with later flights or leaving the next day.

On the 20^th I will Uber over to the new hotel and check in, and will stay there 2 weeks.

Will figure out other plans after I get there.

Around 7:00PM we all met up in the bar (A few of us had stopped there after the Royal Enfield dealer trip as well) and had a few drinks before dinner.

We went over to eat about 8:00PM.

Large buffet, but not much I really wanted to eat, but managed to find enough to get full, as I had not had lunch either.

After dinner, many of us had desert as well.

Then it was time for most to turn in.

We said our goodbyes to Jude who will leave at 6:00AM, so will not see him again, though will work with him to get money I loaned for his shirt later.

Ben also leaves at 6, though I will see him in a few weeks for another adventure I have coming up.

The rest of the guys are going to be at breakfast at least, and a few will be around till early afternoon.  John will be staying the night of the 19^th as well, so we will be only 2 left at that point.

I went over with Ben to figure out some money stuff.  He owed me for the funds borrowed, but he decided to put my extra room night on his bill and I would pay him the difference.

In the end, it worked out to about $40, and he was able to take the US cash, so paid him right away.

Returned to the room and got started on this blog.

Few minutes later Ben was at my door.

He had some 2XL tshirts that had been given to him by the dealer in Siliguri he had visited, and they were nothing he needed, so though I could use them as throw-away shirts, to wear and then toss when no longer needed.

I pulled them out of the bags so I can stuff them into the bag later, and then came back to the blog.

Now that it is done, I will check a few things online, but then head to bed as it has been a long day.

Tomorrow I will get my financials sorted as I have not balanced or checked them in almost 2 weeks.  Did not use the cards at all in Bhutan, so not much to pay off, but still need to verify things.

I will see if I can get over to an ATM tomorrow as well, or a money exchange place, just want to get at least $200 worth of Rupee as it sounds like using cards around here might not work very well.

Then will just chill.  No cell phone shops I could find nearby, so will probably have to wait a day to get a SIM card so my phone works here.

Will figure it out.

Catch ya down the road!