Go-UNESCO!

The autorickshaw ride may have been put on hold, but travel is not. I started another travel challenge till the ride plan is thawed and put into action again. It is called Go-UNESCO and the challenge is to travel to and visit all the UNESCO world heritage sites in India. And as you would agree, most things are fun with friends - this time i’ve been able to convince a few more friends to join in the challenge. Check the website out and read about our travel. Btw, there’s an interesting story to how this challenge - do read in the about page! And if you want to join in, follow the instructions in the same page.

Ajay

Sad to report that our trip is over before it began. With our sponsor backing out at the last moment, we tried every other means - looking to hire a private auto, seeing if any dealer could rent/sponsor, etc. But there aren’t many privately registered autos on the roads. And the margin on autos for dealers is too little for them to afford letting us use one and then write it off. You might think that we could have just hired one of the many autos seen on city roads - but they are registered as commercial vehicles and taking them out of the city, let alone across state borders, is a very risky business. Let’s just say that the cops won’t like it very much. We had a limited time window in which we could do this trip as work and other commitments were keeping us busy in Jan and Feb. Hence, we are having to shelve this plan as of now.

However, the plan is not off completely and I am still on the lookout to arrange an auto for the same trip in the future. But cannot assure when it will happen though.

All is not lost - there are bigger problems in this world - watch this video and try to figure out how an Autorickshaw solves it.

Although there haven’t been a lot of posts here, we have been quite busy with our prep for the trip. But, we hit a major roadblock last week. Our main sponsor pulled out after saying yes in-principle earlier.

The problem is not with money as much as it is with getting an auto and arranging one at the last minute is turning out to be hard. In addition, we cannot hire the regular autos you see plying on the roads as they are registered as commercial vehicles - crossing state borders in these means paying heavy taxes. I enquired with the Rickshaw Challenge guys and they rent autos at 1500euros for 15 days - which is prohibitively expensive.

What do you think we should do?

Hi Everyone,

Travel is excitement. The latest addition to this is that planning for travel is even more exciting ! 

The world is a book and those who do not travel read only few pages of it. You get to see new places, meet new people, learn new cultures and have many other amazing experiences along the way. That’s our way of looking at this.

Here is our collection of Inspirational travel quotes.

We have done quite a bit of traveling already and now, we are hitting the roads again, the East Coast of India ! 

The approximate route was already shared (I guess that was the first of the posts), but here is a start to a detailed story (almost final, pending your suggestions :) ).

We plan to start our journey from the historical gateway town of the East Coast, Machilipatnam, also called as Bandar (The Port) and Masulipatnam. This being my hometown, gives me inexplicable pleasure to have it as a part of the route. You all should definitely know more about this lost-glory-forgotten town. 

Magnificent Machilipatnam, A photologue : Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

First stop would be at Antarvedi, the meeting place of mighty Godavari with the Bay of Bengal, in the green patches of East and West Godavari District of Andhra Pradesh, arguably the best scenery of the state, famous as Konaseema

Konaseema Andalu  : Narsapuram | Dindi Resort | Photography

And that’s just for the first day of the travel, two very important places. Can’t wish a better start to a long trip. Let me put all the stoppages in a map for this post, and I can describe all the stops in the ‘coming soon’ series. 

View Driving directions to Kolkata, West Bengal, India in a larger map

Feel the excitement, along with us.

becoming-estel:

Rickshaw Truth by Ghostface Buddha

(Source: becomingestel)

In my auto too please!

(Translation of Hindi text - Please keep you feet on the floor)

nikhilchawla:

Public transport #India #AutoRickshaw (Taken with instagram)

For some friday laughs!

(source - link)

That’s us - Ajay and Nikhil.

We’re buddies from college - N.I.T Jaipur and we know eachother from a long time. Here’s a brief on who we are.

Ajay works at a hot startup called mojostreet currently and has been a startupper for more than 3 years. He runs the adventure travel website tripnaksha and also runs a lot with the Hyderabad Runners. He wacky travels include a hitchhiking trip in the north east of India on an extreme budget (Rs. 150 per day including everything!). When he has time to breath, he is planning the next crazy thing he wants to do.

Website, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin

Nikhil Kalyan works at Adobe in Noida currently. He is an IAS aspirant and candidate too. His interest in social sciences led him to start a website called worthview and start traveling too. For him travel is a means to understand cultures and mannerisms. His interest in adventure travel is clear from his two Himalayan expeditions - link1, link2. That he did it on a 2 wheeler is notable.

Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin

Orissa is one of only three sites in the world where the mass nesting of Olive Ridley turtles occurs. Three beaches in Orissa play host to this amazing natural phenomenon: the Nasi Islands inside Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, and the mouths of the Devi and Rushikulya rivers. In the early 1990s conservationists observed an increasing number of dead turtles being washed ashore along the Orissa coast. But conservation efforts have been stepped up in the last two decades with the Indian Coast Guard increasing regular patrolling and the local population being involved in conservation.

Alas, it won’t be turtle hatching season when we travel in Orissa.

(source - link, link)

The approximate route we will follow.

We’ll upload daily routes with the GPS logs on Tripnaksha.