Meenakshi Sai, 51, looks like all other Indian woman, wearing a saree and sporting a bindi on her brow.
But unlike many ladies in her country, she’s been driving since she was 18 years old. As of 2020, lower than 7% of India’s 236 million drivers were women, in keeping with the information website Statista.
“I actually have been driving since I used to be legally allowed to and have at all times enjoyed the liberty it afforded me and the sensation of being independent,” said Sai. “After my only daughter went away to boarding school, I had a whole lot of time on my hands. I began traveling loads, each solo and with friends.”
Sai was one in every of a team of eight Indians who drove 20,000 km (12,430 miles) across five countries from Coimbatore, India to St. Petersburg, Russia to spread awareness about cervical cancer.
More Indians are taking road trips lately — each inside the country and beyond, solo and in groups — as access to higher vehicles and higher roads grows within the country.
There’s also the rise of slow travel. Nonetheless, Sai took her first road trip back in 2016, before it became a trend.
“I drove to Thailand with a gaggle of 20 people,” she said, “from Manipur in India’s northeast to Bangkok, which took us 13 days.”
Meenakshi Sai, on a road trip from India to Russia to spread awareness about cervical cancer.
Source: Meenakshi Sai
Her next big road trip was from India to London, which she called “complicated.”
“It took me six months to attract up the itinerary,” she said. “It was difficult to search out anyone in my very own circle of family and friends who had the time or were willing to take a position the cash on this trip.”
Ultimately, she found two women through social media — one from Mumbai, the opposite from Pollachi — who were interested by joining her.
Tata Motors sponsored the trip, which stretched for greater than 14,900 miles and coincided with the seventieth anniversary of India’s independence. The journey took 70 days, taking the three women across 24 countries, including Russia, Poland and Uzbekistan.
“We drove around 600 kilometers a day,” Sai said. “Many countries had given us date-specific visas so we couldn’t afford to be delayed, even by just a few hours.”
Sai, who’s a vegetarian, said she subsisted on “a whole lot of potatoes and bread” in countries where meat was a serious dietary staple.
Source: Meenakshi Sai
Road conditions combined with changing weather and altitude levels made the trip difficult, she said — as did the incontrovertible fact that she’s vegetarian, which made suitable food options difficult to search out in lots of countries.
“I ate a whole lot of potatoes and bread in countries like Kyrgyzstan where there was a whole lot of meat,” she said.
Sai now runs an overland driving company that organizes road trips across countries like Namibia, Georgia, Armenia, Nepal and Mongolia.
“Driving through a rustic is the approach to see it, connecting with locals, stopping where you’re feeling like, border crossings, and thriving on uncertainty. I also love the liberty that the open road gives me,” she said.
100 road trips, 50 countries
In 2001, Mumbai-based Rishad Saam Mehta, 51, drove from Delhi to the Nubra Valley, an area of Ladakh in northeast India.
“It was my first drive within the high Himalayas, and I didn’t understand how dangerous and narrow and high the roads were, and the havoc that altitude can play on one physically. It was a lesson learnt the hard way,” said the journalist and creator.
Rishad Saam Mehta near the Great Wall of China.
Source: Rishad Saam Mehta,
Since then, Mehta has taken greater than 100 road trips across some 50 countries. One really exciting one was the drive from Munich to Mumbai, which lasted two months and covered eight countries, he said.
He also drives different cars, depending on the trip, he said.
“I did a drive in a Ferrari through the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, then a snow drive in Spiti in Northern India in a Toyota Fortuner, then a fall drive in Latest England in a Ford Bronco,” he said. “These were all favorites.”
His advice? “There are various great drives world wide, some I come across by likelihood, some I research beforehand … but the corporate must be good, otherwise, it’s a disaster,” he said.
The ‘Great India World Trip’
Tushar Agarwal, a software engineer, drove from London to Delhi in 2010.
He said the journey of 51 days was life-changing and prompted him to resign from his job in London, move back to Delhi, and co-found an organization called Adventures Overland together with his friend Sanjay Madan in 2012.
A road-side stop in Jordan.
Source: Adventures Overland
“I felt that this was my purpose in life… there was no looking back,” said Agarwal.
Today, Adventure Overland is one in every of India’s biggest road trip corporations. It organizes curated driving trips across the globe.
Agarwal has traveled to 92 countries and gone on road trips in six continents. His most adventurous trip, called the “Great India World Trip,” is now a 10-episode series on Discovery Channel. Along together with his co-founder Madan, the journey took them across six continents and 50 countries, securing them a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by automotive in a single country for his or her 10,600-mile trek across Australia.
A 65-day trip from India to London with Adventures Overland costs around $30,000 and features a hot air balloon ride and cruise, in keeping with its website.
Source: Adventures Overland
Traversing beautiful terrains and driving through unknown territory, border crossings and contending with unfamiliar food and inclement weather will not be for everyone.
But as Mehta said, “The sense of freedom and never being shackled to timetables and schedules … and likewise the spontaneity it affords, makes driving the last word adventure.”