Call for support!

Dear friends,

Thank you all for contributing to our humble efforts and our journey in search of adequacy. A total of 2,283 km of our 12,000 km journey have already been sponsored.

We need your continued support to be on the road with the mission. Be the ambassadors, and spread the word amongst your friends and colleagues, urging them to support. We have estimated our costs to be Rs 60 per kilometer (including both of us). We are inviting you and your friends to sponsor as many kilometers as you want! Click here to know the many ways in which you can help us. If you want to sponsor a few kilometers, you can either contribute online at www.tghf.betterplace.org, directly into our account, or you can sms ‘Ride’ to 58888 for more details (Indian mobile phones only).

We are moving in a space of compelling hope. We have completed 40 incredible days and met more than a 100 amazing people. To give you an idea of the kind of impact they have: around 10-12 of them directly transformed at least 25 villages and inspired transformation in many more, afforested over 30,000 hectares of waste land, raised the ground water levels enough to increase the per capita income through agriculture from 100s of rupees to tens of thousands of rupees, and converted thousands of hectares of cultivated land into authentic organic farms!

As we meet people who have spent most of their lives dedicated to some cause or the other or the wise old men from the villages and listen to their perspectives, our belief in the purpose of our journey becomes stronger... with each passing day, with each passing kilometer.

Thank you!

Day 32. Wed, March 2: Fighting to preserve

The wrestling matches amongst competitors from both gujarat and maharashtra, were part of the shiv rathri celebrations at Mulhare fort! Mr Dhiraj is the local hero who's fighting to revive traditions that unite the current residents of the erstwhile kingdom of Baglan! On this day every year, people including musicians, dancers, wrestlers and singers amongst others, get together and create opportunities to express themselves. We had a great time listening to the many stories and whilst others got trophies for wrestling, we were presented with the only coconut award specially created for these strangers who took an interest in their way of living in harmony with nature.

Link to today's photos

Day 3:

Today's route:

Weather:

Cycled:

Didn't cycle:

Ate & drank:

Highlight of the day:

Health Check:

Stayed at:

Day 15-16: Exploring Aurangabad

Today's route: Arrived at 8 am in the morning back in town and stayed nicely put after the long bus journey through the night. Didn’t get much chance for rest but at least time for shower, change and a hot lunch at the hotel as our new team member Vishakha had already organised a whole host of meetings for us including an interview and photo shooting with a local TV station, a visit to the Center of Gandhian Art of Living at MGM, meetings with the collector and CEO Zilla Parishad to get tips on which villages to visit and much more. Vishakha found the right cycle service to get Kalyan’s new side stand put onto the cycle and she also brought four more papers with her in which articles about us had been printed in the past days. She even manages to talk the Head of MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism Department) into returning the 100 km he is away to Aurangabad in order to meet us because we mean to leave next morning. By the time he arrives with his kids at our hotel at 11 pm we’ve changed plans again and he seems slightly annoyed.

Weather: hot, hot, hot

Cycled: none

Didn't cycle: inner-city auto rikshaws

Ate & drank on Day 15:
We’ve become serious cookie monsters in the meantime. Whenever we’re missing out on a normal meal, we have cookies instead. Gotta change that!!!
12:30 pm: jeera alu (potato with cumin) and rice (W), roti, egg burghi, cashew curry and a cold Thums up (K), H2O
inbetween: more cookies, nuts, H2O
7 pm: sandwiches in the lobby of the hotel over a meeting, H2O, chai
9/11 pm: egg birianhi, buttermilk (W), roti, paneer butter masala, alu ghobi, thums up (K)

Ate & drank on Day 16:
10 am: egg burghi and butter toast
inbetween: Pepsi Cola and nuts
3 pm: the famous vegetable sandwich from MGM college parceled for us to eat on our way to the collector’s office, H2O
9:30 pm: beer, papads, peanuts

Highlight of the day: seeing how Sarees are traditionally made

Health Check: Wiebke’s cough is getting worse, fever comes back too.

Stayed at: back at Hotel Sahara for 900 rs/night

Today’s photos

Day 14, Sat Feb 12: Mumbai-Aurangabad

Today's route: Let go of our train tickets in favor of a sleeper bus leaving later as we wanted to make best use of our time at the conference and in Mumbai. There was things like Biotique Aloe Vera Sunscreen & Body Lotion to be stocked up on (we’re both addicted to it), a side stand for Kalyan to replace the broken one and more tubes to replace the punctured ones (thank you Faisal and dad) to be picked up, gifts like books collected, our Gandhi statues from the Journalists College or the shawls from Girish ji to be left behind (accompanied by a big sigh of sorrow) and our video and photo footage to be backed and as many people from the Caring Friends as possible to be met. We came all the way back from Aurangabad, so what’s a few hours more anyhow? Everyone we spoke to at TISS was very happy to support us when crossing ‘their’ territory and that will make our life on the road much, much easier.

Weather: perfect

Cycled: none

Didn't cycle: 375 km back to Aurangabad and our parked cycles on a sleeper bus. Much better than the sitting compartment of the train on the way here!!!

Ate & drank:
7:30 am: cookies, bananas (W) at Sarvi’s place, H2O
9:30 am: idlies with chutney and H2O
inbetween: chai, H2O, cookies, chai, cookies, H2O (cookie monsters????)
7:30-9:30 pm: dhal tadka and rice (W), roti, chanha masala and egg burghi (K)
on the bus: cookies, didn’t dare to drink too much water as the bus drivers don’t really appreciate if you make them stop because you have to pee...

Highlight of the day: The product manager of Google Apps India getting enthused about our mission and promising us to support whichever way he can, if necessary even by donating his very personal Android mobile with all Google apps pre-installed.

Health Check: all well

Stayed at: Sleeper berth in the AC Volvo bus, rather ok and both managed to sleep. Paid some 1.300 rs for both of us as we booked last minute.

Today’s photos

Day 13, Fri Feb 11: Tata Institute of Social Science

Today's route: Enjoying a couple of days back in the big town. Came for the annual meeting of the Caring Friends at Tata Institute, which also hosted a major social entrepreneurship conference at the same time. We were able to meet the founders and representatives of some of the finest NGO’s and social entrepreneurs and were very moved by their stories. One of them works as a Hindu and Non-Kashmiri in Kashmir, has been kidnapped some 19 times, threatened with his life so often he stopped counting and has never - not even once - thought of leaving. In the meantime, the local youth have joined forces and together, they help many children to get their lives back on track.

Weather: fine, not too hot even for you know who...

Cycled: none

Didn't cycle: Just the usual - cabs in South Mumbai and auto riks in the northern suburbs. No roaming around other than inner-city but that’s more than enough. Every journey here is quickly tallying up to a bigger-than-fair share of time, every km can take up to 15 min. Just to get us to TATA Institute of Social Science (TISS) it took us over an hour.

Ate & drank:
8am: cookies and H2O in the cab
9 am: quick breakfast at TISS, don’t even remember what it was. There was pow bahji and omelette, wasn’t there?? Well, there was definitely chai, so much is safe to claim.
11:30 am: tea/coffee break with cookies
2:30 pm: beautiful buffet for the conference participants with dhal, mixed vegies, raita, some sweet dishes, water in small plastic cups
inbetween: cookies, chai, chai, H2O
8 pm: clams and rice (Wiebke), chicken kebab and rice (Kalyan), dhal, H2O

Highlight of the day: bumped into Prof. Madukhar Shukla from XLRI Jamshedpur who was also at TISS for the Social Entrepreneurship Conference and who recognised even Wiebke at first ‘real’ sight despite just having been in touch via Facebook. Remarkable and that’s definitely not the only remarkable thing about him. Check him out at Facebook!!!

Health Check: perfect

Stayed at: Yeah. Sarvi’s place including TV.

Today’s photos

Day 12. Thurs, Feb 10: Mumbai, we're back again

Today's route: Aurangabad - Mumbai. We got invited by Dr. Girish to attend the annual conference of the support structure they put together for some of the best Indian NGO’s. Caring Friends is their name, caring for one another their program.

Weather: too hot for someone on the team :)

Cycled: Not cycling back to Mumbai, no worries! We might be crazy but we ain’t that mad.

Didn't cycle: A morning excursion to Saleem’s stretch of land just outside of Aurgangabad, which he really wanted to show us. It’s a beautiful terrain with lots of trees, a couple of waterholes where the deer and  other animals of the area quench their thirst and a vision that ses a horse stable on top of its peak. After Saleem headed back to his office, we shared the remaining hours with our new team member Vishakha who showed us the main sights of Aurangabad all the while stopping here and there to hand out more of our Marathi press release. By the time we reached our train and were seen off by Pinku, Ravi and Vishakha, two articles in local newspapers were printed and another few in the making. We had lunch bags in our hands and it was only when the train finally arrived with 45 min delay at 3.15pm that we realised we’d have to make the entire journey sitting. No sleeper class on this one, no wonder why the tickets where so cheap. After some unexpected pleasure of playing with the baby of the Muslim lady next to us we arrived tired but well at 10pm in Mumbai Daddar. Only a short cab ride and we were “back home” in Mahalakshmi quarters where our friend Sarvi waited for us.

Ate & drank:
Left for Saleem’s property without breakfast. Only had 3 cookies and some H2O before a late breakfast at
1pm: shared egg burghi, puri bahji and omelette with Vishakha
on the train: heaps of bananas, some Kashmiri type of sandwiches, some really yummy idli from a station on the way, topped by icecream (which K. gave a miss) and of course, plenty of H2O
11pm: dhal, mixed veg and rice from our parceled lunch plus a cool beer and some series on Star World TV before dozing off

Highlight of the day: seeing some of the 52 gates of Aurangabad town, old palaces and mosques with a way of bringing water from the hills to them that remains a secret until today. Also amongst the sights: something like a miniature of the Taj Mahal, which got designed as the resting place for some queen (sorry guys, don’t remember more details and as I’m writing this I’m without internet access to research more thoroughly).

Health Check: K. with fever on and off, W. fine.

Stayed at: our pal’s Sarvi in Mumbai Mahalakshmi - lots of laughter included...

Today's photos