Driving from UK to India

farewell to our faithful car

2008-01-15T09:52:00.001Z

we thought getting our car into india was a hassle we were done with, but only when we tried to ship it back to the uk we realised that there was more to come. customs in chennai were more complicated and there was no getting around without an agent, as the site simply did not allow people without agent passes. our agent turned out to be next to useless, telling us about added expenses after he had spent the money. in any case, the car was shipped from chennai and ash flew to uk in what we thought was adequate time to recieve the car. but the car was delayed by 4 weeks, because of more messups by our agent, so ash ended up spending additional time hanging around expensive london. which was not bad in the end, as the time was well spent in catching up with friends and saying final goodbyes. the car eventually arrived in good shape and was functioning perfectly till the day of sale to its next owner. ash left the keys with the owner and was on the way home when the new owner called saying the car wont start! it was fine for the whole week when being driven around uk after the long sea journey and when he had test driven it a few days before buying. turned out that the battery was flat and needed to be replaced. we like to think that our beloved car couldnt bear to part from us and refused to be driven by anyone else. it was very hard saying goodbye to our car.... and we hope someday the import rules in india will change and we can get it back and keep it with us for good.

when our car reached india

2007-12-12T00:48:00.000Z

now that we have completed our journey, we're not sure if anyone reads our blog anymore. but we have to complete what we began...and here's the story of what happened when our car reached india.

we had shipped our car from iran, and had to pick it up from nava sheva, the new port in mumbai. the car arrived on schedule, but the local agent who had to file a manifest to unload the container, didnt do it on time, and the container (containing our car) was not offloaded from the ship! so the ship sailed back with our car in it, and took another month to come back to india. thankfully, we didnt get charged for it. when it finally reached india, arya was stuck in heyderabad waiting for paperwork from the passport office (for our onward journey to australia), and we ended up going to pick up the car a good fortnight later (and paying the port charges for the extra fortnight).

of course nothing is straightforward in the indian bureaucracy, which we had forgotten, having dealt with the more or less efficient officials of the rest of the world! first of all there were only a few agents who specialised in getting a car into india under 'carnet' and all of them asked for a large commission, which we felt was unnecessary since (we thought) we could try to get the car on our own. and so we went to nava sheva and spent the first 2 days only gathering information about which part of the port would be sorting out our paperwork and whom we would have to bribe just to get things started. when we finally got hold of the superintendent in charge of the customs, he was extremely distressed to learn that we had no agent. he didnt seem to be least inclined to tell us the various procedures required to get our car out....but we made him. we told him we knew things wont get done without 'paying the right people', and instead of paying the agents and paying the officials it was just easier to pay the officials and do the donkey work ourselves.

it would be unjust to burden you with the details of our ordeal, so we should just summarise the rest. it took us a week to complete the paperwork, and we realised that even if one had the highest connections, and paid the best agent in town, it would take just as long since the damn paperwork was such that it could not be done any sooner. we didnt even have to bribe anyone.... everyone was so shocked at seeing us doing our own paperwork that they just completed their bit and passed the papers on. some were glad to be dealing with us instead of rude and dishevelled agents, and went out of their way to help us.

the best part was, our car was in great shape and just needed a shove to get started. once we were back in it, we didnt waste a minute and set off for bangalore the next morning. the nh4 has been repaired all the way to north karnataka and it was a treat to drive on it. we left mumbai early morning and reached dharward by evening and spent the night at our friend chandru's place. thanks to the ymmuy food prepared by wife jyoti and the full time entertainment provided by son sharan, we quickly forgot our harrowing week and looked forward to taking our beloved car home.

Celebrating 60th anniversary of Indian independence

2007-08-17T15:30:00.000Z

erasing your footprints

2007-07-26T08:42:00.000Z

as promised before we set off, we have offsetted the carbon emissions resulting from our drive, by donating towards environment friendly projects around the world, through www.climatecare.org. we do not think that this should be used as an excuse to indulge ourselves, but help us to enjoy our travels with responsibility towards the environment. in the last 18 months that we have been away from india, a rapid change has engulfed the country. we wish people would slow down a little, and try to smell the cowdung along the way, rather than speed jet between cities leaving a heavy carbon footprint. its easy for us jobless doctors to say that, knowing well that we would easily succumb to the rat race like anyone else. but our road trip has taught us to atleast make a conscious effort to think of the impact our actions will have on the environment and work towards an eco-friendly lifestyle.

photo exhibition

2007-07-09T05:51:00.000Z

even before we reached india, our brother bhushan got busy organising a photography exhibition, the finer details of which are now finalised. thanks to sandeep biswas, our curator and ajay rajgharia, our producer from wonderwall, we are having a photography exhibition showing a select few of our snaps in new delhi from 13th to 17th july. we hope all of you who are in town around that time can make it. prints of the snaps will also be available for sale. if all goes well in delhi, we hope to extend the exhibition to other cities.

iran

2007-07-02T11:56:00.000Z

the last country before we reached home, gave us the most setbacks and the opportunity to meet the most friendly people yet.

tabriz was our first halt in iran, where we faced our first hurdle. no international atm's in iran. the only way to get cash is to exchange existing currency (mostly euros/dollars, neither of which we had). mr nasser khan, from the tourist office in tabris, helped us exchange jordanian currency which would be hard for them to sell, so we had running cash till we made arrangements for more.

in tehran, we spent 3 disappointing days trying to get our pakistan visa, without success. our friends in uk and uae (naveen & zakir) got busy trying to send us cash through a bank transfer. we left for esfahan, only to learn there that the thursday-friday middle east weekend would delay our cash transfer by several days....making it impossible for us to leave esfahan as we couldnt even pay the hotel bill to checkout. enter MR HAMID MOUSAVI, the most amazing person we have met till date. this bespectacled, ever smiling manager of firouzeh hotel in tehran, settled our bill in esfahan and made arrangements for cash to be available in our next halt yazd, while zakir handed over our cash to mr mousavi's contact in uae. extremely complicated we know, but this meant we could carry on and not waste any of the limited time we had left in iran.

with the money problem finally out of the way, we allowed ourselves to relax in yazd and spent time chatting with fellow travellers and exploring the mud-brick-lined streets of this desert town with amazing mosques and badgirs (wind shafts).

our last halt was bandar abbas, the port and 'sauna house' of iran, where we spent 3 harrowing, sweat drenched days trying to ship our car to india. thanks to mr panahi, the manager of the shipping company, who gave us the service of an agent houdayit, without whom we would never have got through the custom formalities.

with the car in the container, we faced yet another problem of getting back to tehran in time to board a plane to india before our visa expired. summer holidays in iran meant that all domestic flights and trains were overbooked well in advance and our only option was to take a 21 hour bus journey which would reach tehran 2 hours before our flight (the only one available for the next 4 days) was scheduled to depart. enter mr mousavi again, remember our friend from firouzeh hotel? he found out which bus company would actually leave on schedule and kept in touch by phone with all the 3 drivers, making sure they were on time. the bus was to drop us off on the motorway near the airport, where mr mousavi was waiting for us with a taxi to whizz us off to the airport. we were so dumfounded at this selfless hospitality, that it didnt matter that we had not eaten for over 24 hours and our flight turned out to be delayed by 8 hours and there were no phones to contact our families and that when we finally landed in delhi it was just as hot as it had been in iran.....

egypt to iran

2007-06-22T10:25:00.000Z

our initial plan was to stay for one night in aqaba, and head north towards turkey. but enticed by the diving school on our doorstep and highly recommended by fellow travellers, we stayed back for a day and (ash) completed padi open water qualification. the red sea is amazingly clear full of bright colourful corals and exciting marine life. the highlight was swimming with a sea turtle that had wandered towards shallow waters.
this delay allowed us to spend more time with our friends from the ferry, claire and leon. this enterprising couple from netherlands have been on the road for 6 months on their landrover miles. it was very inspiring meeting them, and learning what it really meant to be on a road trip. they had a mattress on their rooftop, on which they camped wherever possible, cooked most of their meals and were able to fix anything that went wrong with their vehicle. checkout their website http://www.milestogo.nl/. moving quickly through the rest of jordan and syria (with a night halt at hama), we reached the surprisingly modern town of diyarbaker in turkey. this was only to be a night halt but we met some really friendly kurdish businessmen, who invited us to their carpet shop and chatted for hours over tea. one of them had been to india and enjoyed recounting his experiences there. the best part was they knew from the start that we were not going to buy anything, and yet they remained hospitable as ever, keen to make friends and not customers.
our next halt was van, where we had an amazing drive along the van lake and a visit to the akdamar island (10th century armenian church) was refreshing. in van we stayed at hotel bayram, the owner of which, mr rashat, was very friendly. he was delighted as we were the first indians to stay there and treated us like vip’s. he even made sure breakfast was available for us at 6am, as we wanted to leave early to cross the turkey-iran border.
our last impression of turkey was the majestic snow capped mt ararat, which we passed as we drove through the border town of degubayazit. fantastic!

near the border we met a swedish group driving ambulances from sweden to india for donation. they were very friendly as well and keen to help us in obtaining pakistan visa. but despite several attempts through their travel agent in islamabad and pakistan embassy in tehran, we were unable to obtain a visa to pakistan. our next few days were spent in talking to various shipping companies based in iran and uae, to find a sea route to india. but as all our options were slowly closing it became more apparent that we will have to fly the last leg of our journey home...

sleeping in the car

2007-06-22T10:19:00.000Z

after spending the night in nuweiba, we reached the port bright and early and bought our tickets for the ferry to aqaba, jordan, scheduled to depart at 3pm. judging from our bad experience at arrival we started the departure procedures well in time (or so we thought), but the extremely lazy and incompetent attitude of the customs officials topped by poor communication led us to miss our ferry by a few seconds….. yes! we got all the exit paperwork done for ourselves and the car, only to find the ferry had raised its hatch seconds before we reached it. desperate pleas to take us on board were ignored, even though the ferry didn’t leave the port for another 20min. we then rushed to another ferry nearby which was boarding passengers, but were told that it wasn’t taking cars that day. they were not sure when the next ferry was but thought there maybe one that evening. thinking we had about 4 hours to kill, and unable to leave the port, we settled in the grubby waiting lounge. evening came and went with no sign of any ferry. security guards told us in broken english that there will be one at 12am….at 12 they said maybe at 2am…then at 5am…9am…after which we realised that we will have to wait for the next one atleast until 3pm. so we spent 24 hours in the port and slept in our car with timed interruptions to check for any chance ferries taking off stealthily in the night. helpful guards arranged for someone to get food from outside as we couldn’t leave the place. there were several loos to do our business, unclean but with running water. by the time the next ferry was boarding passengers, everyone in the port knew us and allowed us to travel with 1 day old tickets. eventually egypt remained a bitter-sweet experience till the end. the upside? we finally slept in our car (which we always though will happen atleast once during our trip) in probably the safest enclosed spaces, and we made some great friends on the ferry we did take….but that’s another story….

nile valley

2007-06-16T16:15:00.000Z

leavıng our car to rest at yasmıne's place, we took the train from cairo to aswan. our respect for indian railways grew tremendously, as we sat in highly uncomfortable seats even in the first class compartment of an overnight train. after getting moved to an empty row of three seats (wıth the help of a little baksheesh), we managed to sleep through the 13 hour journey. the first afternoon was spent sight seeing in the unbearable 45deg heat of aswan (high dam of aswan and philae temple),we retired to the artificial cool of our room. early next morning we left for abu simbel temple....by early we mean 3am...to catch the convoy. the whole of the southern nile valley has high security, and it is almost impossible to travel without the police convoy. the advantage for us was, we met a lot of other travellers and made good friends whom we would have not met otherwise. the rescued abu simbel temple, built by ramses II, for himself and his favourite wife nefertari, was one of the largest we had seen till then and worth the loss of sleep.

we left aswan ın style, by a felucca which sailed leısurly on the nile to reach comombo temple the next morning. like us, jason and megan (from new zealand), who joıned us on the felucca, were also a bit apprehensive about the extremely basic facilities (or the lack of) , but it turned out to be a memorable experience. our captain boss (bostawi) handled the fleucca extremely well and sped us to our night halt along an island, where he cooked a simple but tasty meal. after some nubıan music by a campfire, we retired on the felucca under a cool starry sky. we woke up to a beautiful sunrise as we sailed to comombo temple.

in the next 36 hours we visited 4 temples, each almost as magnificent as the other. but what stayed with us was the people we met along the way, including an indian group travelling with s.o.t.c.

the sad part about egypt was we could barely talk to the locals without them expecting a tip from us. after picking up our car from cairo, we headed back to the port of nuweiba, thoroughly fed up of the hassling by almost every local we met. ...

welcome to egypt

2007-06-09T15:24:00.000Z

did we tell you we had no problems at the borders till now? well.....egypt made up for all the countries we passed through and more.... we spent over 6 hours at the egyptian customs just to get the paperwork sorted. running from one window to another, paying endless fees (800 egyptian pounds in all), getting the locals to fill out arabic forms, fixing arabic registration plates to our car, emptying out all our luggage for the sniffer dogs, the hot afternoon was endless....

driving in egypt was less harrowing although there are checkpoints at every corner. everyone still as freindly as syria or jordan, but amitabh bachchan is the favourite here. after an overnight halt at dahab, we drove on to cairo.

upon reaching cairo, one of the maddest places to drive, we managed to hold it together till we found a place to stay and park our car. parking in cairo is tricky....everyone takes the liberty to move your car to accomodate theirs. the best way to prevent other cars from bashing ours up was to leave the handbrake down, so they could gently push it from outside! (contact us for more tips like these if you plan to drive in cairo). sadly we didnt retain the enthusiasm to chat with the locals, as almost everybody turned out to be a tout, keen to drag us to his perfume/papyrus/souvenir shop and land us a bargain. we made up by spending time with our egyptian friend yasmine, who was introduced to us by anupama from uk. thanks to yasmine, we spent a very pleasant day at one of egypt's biggest malls, city stars mall, doing what all young cairines do...chatting in a coffee shop, catching a movie, and generally hanging out.

after doing what locals do, we headed to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world..... the pyramids of giza! they live upto everything that we've read, heard or seen about them. the heat doesnt bother us, the crowds melt away in the vast desert of giza, which just seems to lie in the backyard of bustling cairo. we end the day by also visiting the step pyramid of djoser at saccara, the prototype that started it all....

wadi rum

2007-06-03T06:58:00.000Z

wadi rum is one of the accessible deserts of jordan, about 50 km south of petra. the visitors centre marks the entry point for all tourists to the desert who must register here. the rum village is further 7km ahead, followed by the desert itself. our final halt in jordan was wadi rum before we left for egypt.
"the visitors centre registers us and makes further arrangements for our stay in the desert. we meet our guide, attayiqh in the village and are served tea in his house while he explains the itinery for the day. we park our car in his driveway and deposit our overnight bag in his jeep. attayiqh’s younger brother, 16-year old abdullah then takes over and we set off into the desert on camels (tom, jerry and sadeqh).
making our way into the heart of the desert, we stop for shai (tea), at a bedouin camp, served by the local bedouin family for free to any visitor that passes their way.
abdullah also shows us interesting sights along the way such as the lawrence’s spring and the alameleh inscriptions, not missing out the various sand dunes and wild camels….. he tells us stories of other indians who come to wadi rum, and reveals his knowledge of hindi music and shahrukh khan!
just as the sun reaches its unbearable peak….we reach our campsite….a bedouin enclosure with comfortable mattresses, under the shade of on overhanging rock face. here, attayiqh is waiting for us with our luggage and we say goodbye to abdullah and our camels.
the overwhelming vastness and silence of the desert is unbelievably soothing… there’s no sign of life for miles around.
after napping away the afternoon heat we prepare for a brilliant desert sunset, and are joined by david and ellen from colorado, another couple looking for some peace in the desert.
as the heat disappears with the sun, attayiqh prepares a fire and we gather around for some traditional bedouin dinner, over amazing desert/jordan/crazy tourists/crazy tourist- guides stories…. even in the remotest of desert camps technology fails to leave us as we exchange arabic music videos, and marvel at the simple, yet well informed life of the bedouin.
we prepare to retire for the night, and as attayiqh puts out the fire and we notice the whole canyon is lit brightly by a full moon, adding the final touch to our magical day.
sleep comes easily in the stillness of the night and all too soon its time to leave….."

jordan

2007-06-02T12:17:00.000Z

from the moment we entered this tiny country till we left it 5 days later, we never failed to hear ‘ahlan wa salaan’....welcome to jordan! (including the friendly custom officials at the departure port).
bypassing amman, we headed for madaba, where we visited the greek orthodox church with a splendid mosaic map, and the well maintained archeological park. we drove down to mt nebo in the evening (from where moses was said to have looked over the promised land and where he is said to have been buried). here we shared pleasantries with the locals while enjoying amazing sunset views of israel across the dead sea.
which brings us to our dip in the dead sea! its true…you cannot sink in this highly saline water body at the lowest point on earth.
refreshed by the sea, we headed south to petra with a stop over at karnak castle.
petra! lonely planet says if you can only go to one place in Jordan, make it petra…and we agree. these ruins of the ancient nabatean city hewn from towering rock walls are an unmissable sight. covering the highlights of petra in one day, we endured a long labouring hike in the summer heat. but it was worth every aching muscle just to see views from the high place of sacrifice (200 steps) and the monastry (800 steps).
in the night we visited a local family and spent 2 hours savouring their unbelievable hospitality.... (arya) exchanging arabic music on mobile phones with the males and (ash) sipping tea with the females in another room.

why dont more indians visit jordan? they love us so much...and now we are completely enamoured by them!

syriah!

2007-05-31T20:23:00.000Z

the friendliness and hospitality continues and the syrians welcome us with open arms, eager to stop and chat over a cup of tea, even if in broken english.
in alepppo we enjoy terrific views of the city from atop a citadel and walk through the bustling souks, marvelling at the local ware, frequently being stopped and asked "are you from india..... do you know shahrukh khan.....welcome to syria...".
stopping overnight at hama to visit the nearby dead cities and ancient wooden water wheels, we enjoy a desert(ed) drive to palmyra. an afternoon exploring the famous bal temple and remains of the roman city leaves us in awe of the romans for their industriousness and of the syrians for appreciating the same.
palmyra is the closest we get to iraq, and resisting the urge to drive east, we head instead for the capital of syria, damascus. the umayyad mosque is the highlight of old damascus apart from the well kept national museum, (which we probably could have done more justice to, if we had time). the charm of the old city is getting lost in the back alleys, which we do and thoroughly enjoy.
the other highlight for us is the dinner at taj mahal, a local indian restaurant, whose friendly punjabi waiters and background hindi music made our day.

arya says...

2007-05-27T10:38:00.000Z

ash has to take an interval in her travels for an exam in uk. i carry on to explore rest of turkey on my own.

friendliness, hospitality and eagerness to communicate are few of the many things that are common to all turks..though you can appreciate differences on the basis of european and asian turkey, east and west divide..and the currently problematic turkish and kurdish divide.

by taking a ferry that crosses dardanils(a strait that connects mamara sea to aegean sea) i reached the asian turkey. gali bolu(gallipoli) was my first stop where i realised the importance of this place in the 1st world war and more importantly to the australians and newzealanders. our guide, bullat, gave a detailed description of every single military site and the mission that took place, neutrally, without taking sides. i realised that the ottaman victory (now famously repeated as turkish) was lead by a german and made attaturk (father of modern turkey and who envisioned the future republic of turkey), a commander of 8000 troops a war hero.

next stop was cannakale where i stayed in a pension run by a half greek half turkish family. the stay was the best part of my trip till now. from here i visited famous epheses (roman ruins) and a greek village (after collapse of ottoman empire, there was a divide between greek and turkey like india-pakistan where mass cross migration happend, leaving behind a few pockets of greek inhabitants in turkey).

next stop was palmakulle, a geological wonder. calcium carbonate rich water formed a white-cupped mountain which used to be an ancient roman spa. i travelled further deep into turkey(cappadocia), where i saw another geological wonder..fairy chimneys. trekking along these canyons and climbing upto citadels was enriching, apart from visiting a local kurdish family who had moved here from the east for a better life.

i then travelled south to adana where ash rejoined me, and we moved on to antakya. here we visited one of the best turkish museum depicting mosaics from 1st century bc to 15th century ad.

we will be driving through turkey again on our way to iran, when we hope to cover the eastern part. but we leave turkey at antakya and enter syria....

Istanbul

2007-05-26T19:22:00.000Z

after europe the asian hospitality is a welcome change. add on to that one of the finest architecture and best cuisines (finally great vegetarian food)... and istanbul is undoubtedly our favourite capital of the trip.

our hotel had a view of the blue mosque....breathtaking by day and night.... and the marmara sea. every morning we had breakfast with this alluring backdrop, pointing out the sights we would visit during the day.

the magnificent aya sofia, the earliest domed structure in the world, charmed arya, while ash's heart was captured by the exquisite interior of the blue mosque (not our first disagreement in the trip).

we strolled through the spice bazaar, sampling the famous turkish delight and baklava and had dinner in a roadside cafe with live turkish music backed by the gurgling of hookahs.

our first taste of asia was heavenly and we look forward to more as we move ahead.....

greece

2007-05-08T16:38:00.000Z

we entered greece by sea through igoumenitsa. (warning! 'superfast ferries' are superexpensive unless you are prepared to camp on the deck). our first halt was delphi, the roman version of tirupathi. perched on top of a high terrace overlooking a great gorge between the parnassos mountain, its easy to see why the ancients believed delphi to be the centre of the earth.

we moved on quickly to athens, where we spent nearly an hour finding a campsite. it was not clearly listed on our map, and it was in the suburbs of athens. but we managed with the help of some very enthusiastic locals. sadly, after that we hardly had any interaction with the locals. the overbearing crowds of tourists seem to have withdrawn the locals into their own world. we got the sense that all they wanted to do was carry on with their life. so, as a tourist one either gets constantly pestered by touts and souvenir shop owners, or ignored by bored locals.

in any case, athens was dominated by our visit to the acropolis and the surrounding roman ruins. as usual we covered athens by walking around, only occasionally using the metro, which appeared new and efficient, probably because of the recent olympics. the greek are taking great care in restoring and maintaining the ancient monuments at acropolis. which means that we had to pass through a lot of building works. give greece another decade or so, and it will be a splendid historical site.

unicef

2007-05-07T20:47:00.000Z

we are thankful to one and all for your encouragement throughout our trip so far. but we would like to remind you that we are also doing this for a cause. we are very fortunate to be able to travel the world and fulfill our dreams. let us help the less fortunate children of india to be able to dream, and grow to fulfill them.

italy

2007-05-07T20:16:00.000Z

venice lives upto its name...this amazing city with no road traffic, only canal traffic, was worth a visit, even if only for an afternoon. spring seems to be the best time to visit as the water is not yet soiled by the crowds.

florence was an important halt for us, where we stayed in an extremely crowded campsite, but with an amazing location in the heart of the city and with amazing views of the duomo and river arno. the two hour long wait in the queue to see michaelangelo's david was worth it, as was walking through the crowds as florence has art at every turn. the change in architecture from gothic/boroque to rennaissance is evident in italy. it becomes clear why rennaissance is termed as such, because the art is both appealing and stunning.

our last halt in italy was the coastal town of sorrento, which served as a base for visiting the surounding sites. an expensive day trip to the island of capri was full paisa vasool, when we encountered stunning views on our trek to the arco naturale, a natural arch in the mountains.

the next day, walking through the ruins of pompei, felt like peeping into someone else's life, albeit 2000 years ago. we had to follow this visit by going to the cause of the ruins, the still active volcano mount vesuvius. as we walked along the crater, our guide raphaello told us of the life of the people in the bay of naples, patiently awaiting the next eruption.

we finally left italy by ferry through bari, not before a mad drive along the amalfi coast, pretty much like the locals who dont seem to drive without a dent in their cars!

austria

2007-04-29T19:36:00.000Z

wien (vienna) was crowded but worth spending a day walking around. the weather is sunny and warm again, so we have started camping again. the architetecture is admirable as always, but the city itself is clean and well organised despite the throngs of crowds year round. although we enjoyed wien, the highlight of austria for us was a half day trek to the walderbach waterfalls near hallstatt, a lovely little town in salzkammergut (lake district of austria.) all the visions of the greenery and snow capped mountains of austria come to life here. never mind the mozart concerts, or the 'sound of music' tours, the countryside is the place to be in austria!

berlin to poland to prague

2007-04-24T19:18:00.000Z

berlin was exciting mainly because we travelled in the local metro. its unbelievably easy to get around a well connected city if you have the underground (U-bahn) network map, and ofcourse a travel card with unlimited travel to allow for goofups. so far, we covered most of the cities by foot, but a travelcard is necessary for a short stay in berlin, as the important sights are quite far apart. the city has the river spree running through it with impressive architectural sights all around. it even has an island dedicated only to museums.

the next day we left for poland. the first place after norway to have a border check. we passed along with a big queue of cars and entered the border without difficulty. but the change in the roads is remarkable, especially after leaving the autobahn. most of poland's highways are single lane roads, and even the few hundred km of motorways that they have are still being developed. apart from that, the nerve racking overtaking of lorries is not different from that in india. the people are all quite friendly, although few speak any english. and polish doesnt sound like any other european language we've heard so far. so it was difficult to even catch key words to understand anything!

we spent a night in poznan, a big industrial town, on our way to warsaw. the old town of warsaw has been very well reconstructed after the war, with a lot of effort gone into making the buildings look exactly like the originals. the tourist crowd is very different from the rest of europe although we never fail to bump into a few english ladies wherever we go. we then went travelled south to auschwitz, about 50km from krakow.

auschwitz-birkenau are the sites of the largest concentration camps run by the nazi secret service during the second world war. due to its remote location, this was one of the sites which remained inaccessible till the very end of the war and was only liberated by soviet troops in 1945. the germans tried to destroy some of the gas chambers and bunkers, but most of the vast camp is preserved with the museum having been set up since 1947. we spent a sobering 4-5 hours in auschwitz, taking a guided tour which included a film taken by the red army while liberating the camp. everyone had the same questions to ask the guide...why? why did the germans do what they did? we came away with the need to read a lot more about the history of this horrific mass extermination.

we crossed the border into czech republic, after a 40min procedure of issuing transit visa. within a short while we hit the motorway to prague and reached the city by evening. the most visited tourist destination in europe is jam packed with groups of all kinds. we walked through the crowds to visit the famous prague castle, viewed the astronomical clock and enjoyed a variety in architecture. sadly we hardly had any contact with the locals, as the tourists overshadowed them all. tomorrow we leave for austria.

driving on

2007-04-19T07:57:00.000Z

from netherlands we drove on to a campsite near brussels. yes we started camping last week. the weather was much warmer, reaching temperatures of 29deg on somedays! most of the campsites are located just outside the town/city and in very green, peaceful environments. its fun pulling out your house and stuffing it back into a bag everyday.

in belgium, we spent half a day in brussels, walking through its main buildings, not missing the tintin shop and the famous statue of a pissing boy manneken pis. we then moved on to brugge, a lovely medieval town still preserving most of the original architecture.

the next day we drove to france, along the northern coast, which is amazing in its own right, and very different from the freezing fjords of norway. we camped at a lovely little place called les angelys. our pitch was right next to the river seine, with views of the castle and bridge nearby. the river was so close that we frequently had ducks walking upto our tents straight from the river! in france we visited the palace of versailles and drove through the traffic of paris ringroad (not unlike the m25 around london), entering luxembourg after a brief halt at reims.

luxembourg is so small you can drive right through it if you're not looking. the capital city is like a quaint little french town, which we covered by foot in half a day. here we visited the casement bocks, the still preserved underground caves of the fortress around the city.

we entered germany again through trier, stopping by to view the roman remains, before driving on to dusseldorf. we visited the neanderthal valley near dusseldorf and drove straight across germany, reaching dresden after a brief halt at a forrest campsite in oderhof.

okay, to all those people envying us, you maybe happy to know that at this campsite we froze our asses off! the temperatures are back to single degrees in the evenings, reaching 0 on somedays. so after visiting the reconstructed dresden, we rushed to the tourist office in berlin, where we hoped to find a room, no matter how tacky, as long as it was heated. we were pleasantly surprised when the office booked us into this lovely guesthouse, which is almost like a five star hotel room. its near the city centre, with all modern facilities including tv, dvd player, free internet, even a radio in the bathroom! its like living as guests in a vip's house. and its not expensive either.

ok, you can go back to envying us again!

amsterdam and around

2007-04-19T07:30:00.000Z

you dont have to enter any of the 'coffee bars' to get a whiff of amsterdam. walking along the streets of this infamous city is the best way to see it. the canal network is amazing, and most of the beautiful architecture is best viewed through the canals. so we hired a canal bike, which is nothing but a pedal boat but can be picked up and dropped off at any one of their docks along the canals. the van gogh museum was the highlight for us in amsterdam.

we had taken the train from rotterdam to amsterdam, and the ride itself is very picturesque, passing through the tulip bulbfields dotted around leiden. but we visited the tulip gardens at keukenhof nevertheless. we couldnt run around in the bulb fields like amitabh and rekha in silsila, but the gardens have a well maintained, vast collection of different types of tulips and many view points giving great views of the bulbfields.

before leaving netherlands we also visited the oldest, still preserved windmills at kinderdijk. they are given out to rent by the government and people still live in it, on the condition that they turn the mills every saturday for the tourists, and at other regular intervals to ensure that they remain in good condition. this information is thanks to andre, a local gentleman who insisted on taking snaps of us, so we could be in them together. he was very friendly, but didnt leave before passing on a leaflet praising the lords glory in hindi!

from netherlands we drove on to belgium and spent another day there...

indian hospitality

2007-04-13T20:19:00.000Z

thank you chengi, for introducing us to your sister.
as soon as we reached holland we headed for rotterdam, where we were fortunate to stay with radhika, arindam and their lovely daughter samyukta. they gave us a warm welcome despite never having met us before and us landing on them in the middle of a working week. they made the next 2 days very comfortable for us. samyukta immediately cast a spell on us with her disarming way of talking non stop! we thank her for cooking a lovely meal for us in her well equipped toy kitchen.
it means a lot to us to be able to relax with fellow indians so far away from home, and we were sorry we couldnt spend more time together. the holland bit of our trip will always remain sepcial. thank you...

jazz

2007-04-13T20:03:00.000Z

on monday the 9th of april, we hunted down this really cool jazz place called cotton club in hamburg. we were lucky (for once) because there was a special performance by supposedly a top german jazz band. although most of them could barely speak english, they sang the chicago blues perfectly well, and their instruments didnt need any language anyway. there were separate jamming sessions by the lead pianist, guitarist, saxophonist, and an unbelievable guy on the mouth organ. he blew in it till his face almost burst and his nose was dripping...but he carried on!

there were mainly old people in the crowd (we suppose all the young ones were in a disco listening to house music, whatever that is) but everyone was extremley friendly and interested to know about us and our trip. the waiter was happy to make something vegetarian even though it wasnt on the menu. a kind old couple even gave us a lift to our hotel, when we finally left the place at around 12.30 am (thank you conny and todi).

the band is keen to come to india, but dont have any contacts. we are hoping to solve this problem for them..... so watch this space.

denmark and a bit of germany

2007-04-10T21:37:00.000Z

we left gothenburg on saturday and reached coppenhagen by evening, having to take a ferry from helsingburg(sweden) to helsingor (denmark).

despite the holidays, most of the tourist sites were open and we managed to visit the ny carlsberg glyptotek museum, and climb on top of the rundetarn, which gave fantastic views of coppenhagen. its a lovely city, clearly a favourite tourist spot for young people, who were happily roaming the streets even in the rain.

on monday we finally left scandinavia and entered germany. there is really no speed limit on autobahn and its fun driving at 140kmph even with a noisy plastic sheet flapping in the right rear corner!

we spent a night in hamburg on our way over to netherlands and walked around the city marvelling the stark contrast between the historic and modern buildings, which didnt seem to blend as well as they did in stockholme.

göteburgled!

2007-04-10T20:59:00.000Z

on friday the 6th of april, we reached gothenburg (or göteborg, as the swedes call it). It seems the town had something against us from the start. we took more than an hour to find our hostel, and had to climb three flights of stairs with all our luggage...the least of our worries as it will emerge.

we parked our car in the hostel car park, and went in search of food. luckily we found this really good indian place serving authentic north indian food (and we're not just saying this because we were deprived of indian food for over 10days). the head waiter 'harry' (harpreet), was very friendly and excited enough about our trip to tell all the customers about it. we promised to return the next day and went to bed with the taste of homeland in our mouths and a good feeling inside our hearts, believing that the town was not against us after all.

only to wake up the next morning to find the right rear window of our car broken, with several of our valuables taken. of course the only night we leave the ipod and camera lenses in the car, it gets burgled! we're still kicking ourselves for it and yes, we'll be extra careful in the future.

for now we're left with listening to local radio (which can be interesting sometimes) and are welcome to any innovative ides for car games/ways to do timepass while driving (no we dont want to play antakshari).

anyway, we took all the necessary steps, especially photographing the crime scene, including shots by expert csi, aryabhat, of blood stains left behind by the burglar/s. there was also a lighter left behind, which we're keeping as a souvenir. the swedish police were quite friendly but even they couldnt help find a car glass service on saturday of the easter weekend. so we had a very helpful shell employee stick plastic sheet over the window instead and headed for denmark.

the next three nights we had to spend in hotel rooms with secure car parks as no one was available to fix the glass until tuesday. we didnt really want to delay our trip so kept going as scheduled and finally managed to get the window fixed today in hamburg, germany.

even though our car is complete once again, part of its soul is left behind in sweden....

sweden

2007-04-06T21:11:00.000Z

on monday, the 2nd of april we crossed into sweden and spent our first night in arvidsjaur, the summer home of ancient sami tribe. from there we travelled south to ostersund and visited the open air jamtli museum and enjoyed a long walk around the frozen lake. the next day we stayed over at university town, uppsala, before reaching stockholme. yesterday and today were mostly spent in stockholme, which is built on inner islands of an archipelago. its wonderful blend of ancient and modern architecture is mesmerising, not to mention the fantastic landscape of the outer islands.

like uk, the swedish monarchy still exists, with the royal palaces fully accessible to tourists, including their very own change of guards ceremony (though much more impressive than the british counterpart, with a fantastic 45min musical drill by the band alone). today we reached gothenburg, and plan to leave sweden for denmark tomorrow evening.

the swedish people are very friendly, very eager to help tourists, going out of their way to make changes in the menu if the food doesnt suit you. almost everyone speaks english, which is a pity because we couldnt practice any of our swedish!

norway snaps

2007-04-03T17:10:00.000Z

just a quick message to let you all know, our norway snaps are now uploaded on our website. we took loads, but could only put up a few. more when we meet you in person!

we are now in sweden....more about it in the next post.

thank you for all your continiuing support. we are recieving all your text messages but are unable to reply. keep them coming!

driving on snow

2007-04-01T15:22:00.000Z

after spending the night in trondheim we left on saturday morning at 8.30 am, taking the e6 towards narvik. although its not a motorway, its well maintained and not very busy on the weekends. we had planned to reach mo i rana by evening and spend the night there, before heading off to narvik. mo is around 420km from trondheim and narvik around 840km.

although there was snow everywhere, the roads were clear and we arrived at mo around 3pm, which was quicker than we expected, so we felt confident we could keep going for another 150 km. after chai pani, we headed for a place called fauske, near bodo.
at 4.15pm on saturday the 31st of march, we entered the arctic circle! as we were celebrating we realised the landscape had changed dramatically around us....

about 50km from mo, we began getting a lot of snow... on the road! before we realised it, everything was white, the surroundings, the roads, everything. there were only red poles at regular inervals on either side of the road indicating where the concrete ended. a glance at the fuel indicator suggested we would run out of fuel in about 60km....not a very clever thing to have done, left a major town without filling up!

so as we were driving on snow and ice, looking at our fuel diminishing.... oh yes...we were still driving. we had only slowed down (not stopped), while we were contemplating our next move. to turn back to mo, only 50km away or carry on till however far we can go. the traffic was not heavy but there were cars pasing us in either directions (we had to let them overtake us, so we could take a look at their tyres). no one had snow chains on, not even the cars coming from the north. thankfully we had recently changed to all-weather tyres, which seemed to be doing fine...so we decided to carry on. besides the snow on the road seemed a day old. it wasnt snowing and we had a clear view of the road...or whatever lay ahead of us.

the trick is to keep a steady pace when on the snow filled roads, not to break suddenly or accelerate.

after about 10-15km of tense driving the road cleared again and we were back on familiar grey roads. and the most welcome sign of all....shell...was not far either. we filled up at storjord and carried on. we found this great campsite a little off the e6 and spent the night in a warm log cabin at salststraumen. its a fantastic campsite about 3o km from bodo, with cabins available when its too cold to camp. there's a self contained kitchen and shower unit, norwegian tv with occasional british shows....but who's complaining. we were considering building an igloo around our car if we hadnt made it through the snow filled roads! this is much better than that!

norway

2007-03-30T15:27:00.000Z

we left by ferry on tuesday the 27th of march...well actually the departure was delayed for several hours and we didnt leave the port until wednesday morning at 2am! they allowed us to board the ship however, so we were fast asleep when we left newcastle.

this delay meant that we would reach stavanger, our original destination at 10pm. so we changed plans and stayed for one night longer on the ferry, disembarking only in bergen on thursday the 29th of march.

we spent the morning exploring bergen and spent the day driving north. we stopped overnight at otta and are now in trondheim. tomorrow we head for narvik, one stop before our final destination in norway, bodo or tromso.

so far the weather has been great, sunny with a slight chill. driving on the right was a little strange to start off with, but we are getting used to it. the views have been absolutely splendid! norwegian fjords have by far the best coastal routes that we have seen!

more to follow soon....

24th march 2007

2007-03-25T13:42:00.000Z

packing and moving house is never easy. packing and moving countries, even harder. packing and trying to fit everything into your car....almost impossible.

no amount of planning prepared us for the small things that had accumulated over the years, which were not expensive enough to be stored, but priceless in the memories they evoke. we had a tough time letting go of things....and were keen to pass them on to friends, in the hope that those memories will live on for a little bit longer....

eventually we left london.
london was the first city we lived in after marriage
the fist place we saw a musical together...
the first place we heard mozart together...
the first place we went in the tube together...
the place where we bought our car together...
the place where we bought almost everything together...
the place where everyone drops in on their way to the rest of the world...

even though we have left london, it will probably never leave us...

our route

2007-03-20T17:14:00.000Z

we start from london on saturday the 24th of march, and drive to newcastle, where we spend a few days with friends.

on tuesday the 27th of march we set off by ferry from newcastle to norway and land at stavanger. we drive northwards and spend 3-4 days in norway, with the hope of catching the northern lights (most of the norwegian fjords have several ferry crossings). then we drive down south in sweden, to denmark by road. denmark is connected by road to mainland europe and we enter through germany, but only to cross over to belgium. from belgium we drive to luxembourg, france and back into germany. we spend about a week in germany then drive to poland, czech republic, austria and italy.

from italy we take the ferry to greece. we keep athens as our base and take ferries to visit the other islands. from greece you can drive to turkey, then syria and jordan. from jordan one can drive to egypt but we will take the ferry as we want to avoid israel. from egypt we take the ferry back to jordan, then drive through syria and turkey to iran. from iran we drive to pakistan and enter india through the wagah border!

so there are lots of places where we will use ferries, but they are commuter ferries which allow cars as well. the longest ferry is the first one, newcastle to norway. we could have taken the shorter route from dover to france, but we wanted to be in norway around this time.

we are using ferries because of the way we've planned the route. if someone wants to drive straight through to india from UK, the only sea that needs to be crossed is the english channel which has an underwater tunnel that can be driven through.....

our first press release

2007-03-17T15:22:00.000Z

hey people! checkout our first news release.... presumably, most of you will not be able to read it as its in gujarati! this is from a fortnightly gujarati magazine read by most gujju's in south india, 'dakshin darshan'. they are planning to cover our trip with a monthly update of our progress.

we are expecting more press releases coming up in the next few weeks, in most of the major south indian english newspapers. there will also be press releases in kannada and telugu newspapers. we will of course keep you posted of the same.... watch out for a familiar face in the papers!

visit to the pakistan embassy

2007-03-17T10:28:00.000Z

on monday, we went to the pakistan embassy to check the progress of our visa applications, submitted ages ago. we were quite surprised when a clerk arranged for an urgent appointment with a senior visa official, for the same afternoon.

we went for the interview with some trepidation.... but the senior official was very cordial and excited about our trip. he was concerned that we were going a bit too bravely through baluchistan, and worried for our safety. he also felt that our choice of car was not appropriate for the rough terrain awaiting us.

"..... trust me I'm not getting any commission from them, but I feel you should go in a 4x4....a Toyota Rav, maybe....its quite compact and yet comfortable...."we felt it wouldn't be wise to request him for a sponsorship, so just smiled at his suggestions.

"...I want your project to work....and I want you to travel safely through my country....to ensure this, I will have to send your application to islamabad..."

so we came away, with a good feeling inside us...but still without a visa to pakistan. we have no idea when to expect the approval letter from islamabad. in any case it was a pleasant interaction overall, reflecting on the relationship between most indians & pakistanis in the uk.

here... we all come together as asians....

climate care

2007-03-09T18:46:00.000Z

we are well aware of the impact our activities have on the environment. we, as everyone else, are guilty of using up the natural resources without a second thought. some people raise this issue with us when we mention our 20,000km drive.
in our defence we have this to say....
first of all, if we did the same trip by air, we would use a lot more fuel. secondly we have resisted driving in a fuel guzzling 4x4, which would have made our trip more comfortable, and are instead attempting to complete the journey in our Honda hatchback (after spending several hours on research, we found Honda to be one of the most economical and environment friendly cars).
finally, and most importantly, we would like to bring to your attention the great work done by climate care (www.climatecare.org) through whom we are going to offset the carbon emissions resulting from our drive. we have discussed this with the team members of climate care and have promised to keep them informed of our complete fuel consumption. they will calculate the carbon released, and we will pay them the corresponding amount which will be spent on environment friendly projects to save the earth. visit their website to know more.
btw, we have outlined this plan briefly in our website on the journey page (see adventure), but it may not be as clear as we would have liked it to be.....

visas and stuff...

2007-03-09T11:24:00.000Z

so far we have successfully obtained visas for Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Egypt & Poland. our Iran visa will be made available in Turkey, thanks to a very enterprising travel agent. for Czech republic, we are using 5 day transit permission available to all neighbouring countries' visa holders. our Schengen visa appointment with Norway embassy is on the 19th of March! yeah....we know its a bit too close, but thats the earliest we could get. lets hope they dont delay in issuing the visa. that leaves out Pakistan. we have submitted our applications, waiting to hear from them....fingers crossed.

its quite a journey getting the visas itself......but exciting when you come out with the stamp!

we recieved the 'carnet de passages' for our car today. which basically is a passport for our car, allowing us to take it into all the countries we need to cross. but it also means that our car is British, and should return to UK within a year! so after our journey, we will be shipping our car back from India, to get a refund on the deposit which we had to pay for the 'carnet...'. by the next week we should also have obtained IDP's (international driving permits) for both of us.

next on our list of things to do, is getting our car ready for its big holiday! we are planning to get winter tyres, which are a must for driving through Norwegian Fjords and the arctic circle.

as we are planning to camp in most of europe, we are also getting geared up to face any adverse weather conditions.

phew! thats quite a lot to do even before we set off. will keep you posted.

thank you

2007-03-04T16:23:00.000Z

welcome to our travelogue!

for the last 2 years we have been planning this journey and now the beginning is near.....

everyone involved in this project has taken it up as one of their own, for which we are greatful. we thank our family and friends for their enthusiasm, our webdesigners for their creativity, UNICEF for believing in us, and finally our colleagues for encouraging us.

join in as we share our experiences before, during and after the adventure of our lifetime!