Travel Details:
A self driven 10056 kms from the Gods own capital “Thiruvananthapuram” crossing borders and boundaries started back on 20th Jan 2015. Though we didn’t make a deeper study but we realized that our choice of Vehicle – Bolero 2014 the 4x4 Beast was apt for all the terrains that we travelled. Our planning phase we have decided to take our world, friends relative and other acquaintance, along with us “Virtually” giving them the excitement, passion and the thrill. Sharing those moments live would seem simple in this digital world, but for us this was one of those major challenges. We setup a 24x7 wifi hotspot and ensured to carry the SIM of almost all to keep us online throughout this journey.Onwards journey we ensured to keep ourselves close to coastline from Kanyakumari touching Chennai climbing towards Vishakhapattanam to Kolkatta and cruising towards Silguri to Arunachal Pradesh.. We never felt any hardship and journey seemed cool and pretty smooth until we crossed Odisha. But from there the problems started to creep in, one after other from Police to Station Guards, from local goondas to local public they tried to make our journey miserable. Snatching our RC book to life threatening exercises these people had tried their best to loot us. Even to the extent some of the officials who are so called Protectors had tried to use their State special Laws for trapping us.
It’s all about learning new things, handling people, managing our resources oops were these incidents really pushing us to those good old theories of management? Aaah never mind it seemed a bit irritating but nothing could really stop our passion.From sharing a tea to sharing a bed or adjusting ourselves for spending nights inside our jeep when Outside Air Temperature is falling less than -4 deg. We could feel a strong bondage gradually being built with the crew. Wherever we could we managed for some neat small lodgings otherwise we prefer to stay within our royal Bolero Suite. When it came to food we always prefer some clean roadside stalls or the dhabas where we could get the real taste of local dishes.
Our destiny “The Himalayas” was really amazing and we were proud enough to make our debut to the snowy Himalayas from the lush greenery of kerala. Our return journey we ensured to keep ourselves to NH 47 travelling all way from the peaks of Himalayas back home. It would seem a bit crazy; but our return journey we were planning our next trip to Himalayas to feel the beauty which is beyond words!!!
Route at a glance:
Onwards
Kerala -> Tamilnadu -> Andhra Pradesh -> Odisha -> West Bengal -> Bhutan -> Assam -> Arunachal Pradesh -> Assam -> West Bengal -> Sikkim -> West Bengal.
Return
West Bengal -> Bihar -> Uttar Pradesh -> Madhya Pradesh -> Maharashtra -> Telangana -> Karnataka -> Tamilnadu -> Kerala.
Planning:
A life changing event can happen in a fraction of second, as we decided to make our trip to Himalayas on one fine December evening. We didn’t had much time as Krishna Kumar alias Kichan had to return by end Jan. We decided to work it backwards from the date of return we planned things and we realized we had hardly a week left with us. So we decided to do things on fly rather than wasting time on planning. But we did a research and could figure out that we need Inner Line Permit to enter some protected areas which includes Arunachal, Nagaland & Mizoram. The good thing is this you can apply online so there ends our planning phase.Financial Details:
A trip which cost hardly 1,00,000, does that sound too little, but we too felt the surprise when we were summing-up our journey. The cost which includes 40,000/- for diesel, 5,000/- for tolls and another 45,000/- towards our food, lodging and misc expense. Hey it doesn’t sum up to a lakh the other 10,000/- was on the bribes. We felt the lack of planning at this stage, had we done a better planning we could have easily got a good Sponsor for the trip.Jeep:
Mahindra Bolero LX 4X4 was our rider. It is a great vehicle and we liked this vehicle a lot. It has got the most powerful engine, ample torque, high ground clearance, conventionalmaintenance free engine, high load carrying capacity and very much suitable for Indian roads and weather conditions. It was an amazing experience to drive this vehicle on our various roads. Its body make is very safe and you can trust this vehicle in very extreme conditions. Overall it was a perfect fit for our road trip. Our vehicle was a Brand new (2014) one, odometer display was 25000 km at the beginning of the trip. Vehicle equipped with high quality entertainment system. An additional HELLA spot lights offered fascinating highlights on all off-road ways. Jeep also equipped with yellow fog lamps helped us a lot to drive safely in heavy fog conditions.
The crew:
Rathish Menchery Mony : Software Test Architect, born and brought up in Thrissur Kerala. Worked at Quest Global (Erstwhile NeST), Technopark Trivandrum, Kerala, India. Recently moved to Canada and has been working at Tata consultancy Services - Canada.
He can be contacted at:
 |
Rathish Menchery Mony |  |
rathishmm |  |
+1 647 447 7473 |
Prathapachandran V: Software Technical Architect, born and brought up in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He has been working at Quest Global (Erstwhile NeST),Technopark Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
He can be contacted at:
|
Prathapachandran | |
vprathap | |
+91 984 602 8705 |
Krishna Kumar B : Customer Relationship Manager, born and brought up in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Worked at Kulathunkal Motors, Thiruvananthapuram. Currently he is working at Kuwait.
He can be contacted at:
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Krishna Kumar | |
+9 659 730 6536 |