Pap passes away

On Monday 30th November 2009 at 12:47GMT my (Anand) father passed away unexpectedly in the UK. He was 69 yrs old. He was full of life and in good health, but was taken from us all too early.



We have stopped our trip for a period, to be with my mum and family, and to deal with his affairs.



We will be restarting this trip in the New Year, as this is what he would have wanted us to do and I personally will be dedicating the rest of this trip, and each challenge I overcome to him.



He loved travelling himself, and spent a great deal of time visiting new places and trying to learn more about the world. In 1969 at the age of 29, my father came with my mother to study in the UK, before returning to India they embarked on a self guided tour of Europe. This was a tough ask for a young couple from, India to do this, but it was made even more interesting as they had my elder brother (1 at the time) in tow. For me, at that time this was the equivalent of a world trip now!



For now I apologise for the delay in updating the blog and pictures - my mind is truly elsewhere...

A little bit of fame (but noo fortune!)

Our trip to India was primarily about spending time with family and having a break from the world trip after 6 months of travelling. However on arrival, due to the amazing interest people had taken, we were transformed into mini celebrities! and by the end of the family portion of the trip we had done 3 newspaper and 2 TV interviews, and hosted 2 family Q and A sessions for over 200 people. It was an amazing experience and put a new perspective on our trip.



The first thing that became apparent is just how big a deal this trip is perceived to be amongst our family in India, and also just how impossible it would be for people to undertake such a venture. I think it was really interesting talking to people about how we went about planning the trip, how we saved for it, and more about our experiences on the trip – what we enjoyed and where we struggled etc. However more important than that was explaining why we were taking on this challenge and travelling round the world. I was glad for this opportunity to distil what we were trying to achieve.



In essence the most important message I wanted to get across to people at home was the value of setting oneself a new and different challenge and working towards achieving it. People of our age in India are very focussed on progressing down a specific line of travel, towards a job/entry into the family business; marriage and kids. However people are totally unable to divert from this thinking and push to achieve other things. I know that our trip is not possible for most in India, but what was important was to use this as an example of doing something different.

We need to be innovative in thinking and test our comfort zones.



The other main topic that came through this taste of fame was just how we could capture the memories and experiences of the trip for the future. Somehow it feels to me that collecting photos and producing a blog would not do the expedition full justice and that something a bit more meaningful is in order. So right now we are thinking of producing a coffee table book that would document our journey through the best of our photos. The aim would be to really showcase the best of our pics, and more importantly enable people, who are not as fortunate as us to travel the world, to see the wonderful places we have. Keep a look out to see how our plans are progressing!