Thirty Five Days On Wheels: A Story of One Man Road Trip in a VW Car!
Udupi: Life is an unending journey which includes various kinds of trials and tribulations and joys and achievements. All these will lead us to our destinations. The road may or may not be smooth always.
A youth of 39 of age, always had a yearning that he is being pulled towards the direction of Blue Hills (Himalayas) .So he “Takes The Road One Less Traveled By” and “Makes The Difference” by setting out on a road trip in his Volkswagen car ‘Journeying through North ,East, West India , Bhutan and Nepal covering 14,400 Kms in just 35 days. Jose George hails from a small village called Kalenja, near Dharmasthala in Dakshina Kannada. By profession, he is a Project Manager at a Mangaluru based construction firm. His hobbies include travelling and taking up solo adventurous journeys.
“Go Solo Go Far” is his watchwords of his adventurous journeys. “It has always been my passion to travel alone and to cover India through road trip in my own vehicle. Moreover I wanted to cover India approximately like her geographical map. ” says Jose George. He set
out his journey alone on 29 June 2019 from Kalenja and successfully completed his journey on August 2, 2019 at the same starting point. “My past experience of a decade in the field of road construction made me to aspire for experiencing the real feeling of a driver on the
road.” he adds. In addition to this, his past experience of travelling in South India and foreign countries such as Hongkong, Vietnam,Thailand, Macau, Azerbaijan,Turkey, Cambodia gave him a first hand experience and helped him to travel safely through all the
destinations on his road trip.
With the help of Google Map, he chalked out a map route and began his journey anti clock wise , en route Dharmasthala, Chitradurga (Karnataka), Kurnool (Andra Pradesh), Hyderabad (Telangana)Vijayawada, Vishakapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Puri, Konark Sun Temple (Odisha), Kolkata and arrived at Cooch Beher Palace (West Bengal) journeying through Jharkhand and Bihar. While on his road trip he traveled through the roads of villages, small towns and metropolitan cities and witnessed the real problems faced by the localities due to various natural disastrous. Then his journey proceeded to Shillong, Cherrapunji – the rainiest place on Earth (Meghalaya), Agarthala (Tripura), Dimapur (Nagaland) and Guwahati (Assam).
From North East States of India he traveled to ‘Buddhist Kingdom on the Himalayas’ the neighbouring country Bhutan. Traveling back to India he reached Siliguri (West Bengal)-foothills of Himalayas and moved on to Darjeeling then to Ranipool(Sikkim).Crossing Panitanki (India- Nepal border) he reached Katmandu the Capital city of Nepal then to Pokhara (Nepal). During his journey from North East States of India to Bhutan and Nepal, he witnessed the severe flood and huge landslides and was fortunate enough to keep himself safe. Entering India, he made his journey towards Gorakhpur ,Ayodhya, Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), Nainital, Raniketh, Badarinath, Rishikesh ,Dehradun (Uttarakhand), Shimla, Kulu and Manali(Himachal Pradesh).
Then on his way to Jammu and Kashmir, he drove to Rohtang Pass, Keylong, Tanglang La Pass(17582 ft) Leh , Khardung La Pass (world’s highest motorable pass,17600 ft) Ladakh ,Kargil, Dras, Sona Marg, Srinagar, Pulwama and Jammu(Jammu and Kashmir). After visiting the “Paradise On Earth” he made his way to Golden temple in Amrithsar and to Wagah Border-India- Pakisthan Border (Punjab).Through Hariyana he drove and arrived at Red Fort (Delhi) and moved on to Taj Mahal in Agra and thereafter to Jaipur, Ajmer ,Pokhran, Jaisalmer and to Sam Desert (Rajasthan) .While travelling he made it a point to visit all important historical and religious monuments and places. From Rajasthan he went to Ahmedabad (Gujarat) and visited Sabarmathi Ashram and moved on to Vadodara and gave a visit to Sardar Vallabhai Patel Statue of Unity on the banks of river Narmada.
In spite of heavy rain and flood in Maharashtra, he felt happy that he could continue on his road trip and also could visit many significant places such as Gate Way Of India,Nariman Point, the Taj Mahal Palace etc.Via Pune ,Ratnagiri, Goa ,Udupi , he reached Dharmasthala, the place from where he started his journey. During this journey, he tasted the authentic and special food of each state. The most amazing thing is that throughout this journey most of the nights he slept in the car itself and few times he set up the portable tent to spend the night. Out of his whole journey, he stayed only seven nights in hotels.
The expenditure of this expedition came around Rs 1,25,000 which proves to be a lowest budget in this era. Out of which Rs 53,000 was spent for fuel expenditure ; and toll and entry fee throughout the road trip was Rs 12,900. The most memorable road trip that he could recall in this journey is driving through Manali to Leh that indeed was a challenging drive as it is a high altitude region where one feels suffocated due to acute mountain sickness. Moreover, the bad part was that, in this driving zone, there were no mechanical workshop for repairing the vehicle and also no fuel filling stations.
When asked about his achievement, he said “I could achieve this dream of travelling just because of my village background because when we live in a village we become strong and tough, and get to know few survival lessons enough to face any challenges.” At the same time he doesn’t forget to mention the whole hearted support of his wife and daughter and his entire family and he remains grateful to his boss and colleagues at Work, and also to his favourite Volkswagen car company for providing excellent service in Guwahati and Ahmedabad while on road trip.
His advice to the aspiring travelers is “Courage and Presence of Mind are the Keywords to Achieve these Tough Kind of Goal. I could do this because I never plan anything in advance and would go on moving as the way takes me.”
