From the Diary of Wanderlusts'...

“Travelling... It leaves you Speechless, then turns you into a Storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

Journey across the seven oceans were common tales narrated to us as a child. We effortlessly painted an impression of a voyage by the sea on pompous ships, sailing past hundreds of tides and observing the shifts in seasons. However, this illustration started subsiding within the chambers of our minds as we grew up and later vanished into the crowd. But until recently, when we got the opportunity to relive those childhood fables and which was not a narrative embossed on the pages of a book. Instead, they were like the lyrics from the song of an unfathomable expedition!

Covering a journey of about twenty three thousand kilometers isn’t a great deal for a traveler. What if those extensive kilometers are traversed through on a car? Astonishing as it sounds like, an expedition that lasted for one hundred and eleven days, crossing over fifty cities and touching the borders of approximately eleven countries. Months of strenuous planning, critical research and making some resilient decisions, did allow the family of four to set on a voyage, completely different in nature. The goal was to reach Paris by car from Bangalore with two kids on board! A breath of disbelief did fill in the air, whosoever had listened to this grand idea. Nevertheless, the doubts soon receded, as the family stood firm with their decision to move ahead with their plan.

But travelling by car all the way to Paris? Why? Eccentric! As people called it to be. Yet for the travelers it had been about attaining the experience of a million bucks! Driving past the Himalayan mountain range in Tibet at 17000 ft, climbing sand-dunes as high as huge mountains in Western China, sudden snowfall in the middle of nowhere in Kyrgyzstan, witnessing the rich culture and rich traditions of Uzbekistan and visiting the world’s largest burning crater called Darwaza, which is burning for over 40 years now in Turkmenistan are a few of the highlights from the pages of reminiscence of these adventure travelers.

A’int choosing from a wide range of holiday packages would have given similar opportunity? True, and a valid point indeed to rationalize upon. But driving on the world’s highest bridge in France, Millau Viaduct. And the ultimate sighting of the Eiffel Tower, where the epic, adventure-journey came to an end. Can this remarkable feeling of reaching all the way to Paris on wheels, cutting across all the hurdles, ruling out all the setbacks- be bargained for any kind of luxury in the world? The answer remains a big ‘NO’, for these wanderlusts! For them one of the best parts about traveling by-road is the flexibility to stop at a certain place for as long as one wants to. The road simply opens up a lot of opportunities to venture into offbeat paths also allowing to mingle with local people and their culture.

‘Live the life that people write novels about’ and this beautiful family live up to these words in the truest sense. So without any further delay, we introduce team L.I.F.E or the Little Indian Family of Explorers as they call themselves, who have created history with their daring adventure. Anand Baid, an animator by profession, was accompanied with his wife Punita and their two children, Yash and Dhriti. ‘Frustration is a good thing and the outcome of it can sometimes be very sweet,’ as Mr Anand Baid believes in and which has surely reaped him fruitful results!