How Ahmedabad's Dream Riders runs motorcycle trips into Bhutan

A single Ladakh ride, grown into two border crossings

Hiren Patel started Dream Riders Mototouring in 2009 with one motorcycle expedition into Leh and Ladakh, according to a 2020 company press release on Travel PR News. The release describes him as the company's founder and owner, and says the business grew through "emphasis on safety and customer satisfaction" before adding Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya to its calendar that year.

Seventeen years later, the Ahmedabad based outfit runs two kinds of cross border motorcycle trips for Indian riders alongside its Himalayan routes: a road run from Siliguri into Bhutan, and a fly in tour to Nepal's Upper Mustang. On its own "Meet the Team" page, the company sums up its pitch to riders in one line credited to the founder's vision: "Every road carries a new story, every journey creates new bonds, and every ride reminds us what it truly means to feel alive."

Riding into Bhutan on a Himalayan

The Bhutan trip starts in Siliguri and crosses at Phuentsholing, the main road gateway from India, before heading on to Paro, Thimphu and Punakha, Dream Riders' own tour page for the route states. Indian citizens need a passport valid for at least six months or a voter ID card, and get their entry permit at the Bhutan immigration office at the crossing, with no visa required under the India Bhutan Friendship Treaty, the page says. The company offers two versions of this ride, run on Royal Enfield Himalayan 411s according to its Bhutan biking guide: an eight day, seven night "Ride to Happiness" covering 1,100 km, and a ten day, nine night "Kingdom Ride" covering 1,350 km that adds Phobjikha valley to the loop.

Upper Mustang, flown in rather than ridden across

Dream Riders' Nepal product does not retrace the Bhutan model of a road border crossing from India. Riders fly into Kathmandu and then ride Royal Enfield Himalayan 450s, or their own motorcycles, into Nepal's restricted Upper Mustang region on a 12 day, 11 night tour covering 1,300 km, the company's Upper Mustang tour page states. It lists the permits required as Nepal's Annapurna Conservation Area Permit, the Trekkers' Information Management System card and a separate restricted area permit for Upper Mustang and Lo Manthang, with fees folded into the tour cost and flagged as subject to change. The ride tops out at 3,840 metres, with a group size capped at 15 riders, the page says.

What it means for a rider planning either trip

For an Indian rider, the two tours show how differently the two borders work in practice. Bhutan can still be ridden to directly from North Bengal on an Indian registered or rented bike, using the voter ID and Friendship Treaty provisions that Dream Riders lists on its own site. Nepal's Upper Mustang, by contrast, is reached by flying a bike or a rider in, because of the restricted area permit regime that governs that stretch of the Annapurna region, separate from the road border crossings into the Nepal plains that other overland travellers use. Riders comparing the two should budget for that difference in logistics, not just in distance or duration.

Sources

• Dream Riders: Bhutan Quest tour page
• Dream Riders: Bhutan biking guide
• Dream Riders: Nepal Upper Mustang tour page
• Dream Riders: Meet the Team
• Travel PR News: The Dream Riders Group announces new biking tours across Arunachal Pradesh, Ladakh and Meghalaya