THANKS to IIT GANDHINAGAR for providing us this wonderful opportunity of explorers fellowship. Explorer’s fellowship is not only exploring India in 42 days, but also it is a opportunity which helps us to learn many new things. It made us learn how to interact with unknown people. Explorer’s fellowship gave us something unique. It is a wonderful experience which we will cherish for rest of our life.
Our team decided to book train ticket from day 1 to day 42 but we decided not to book hotel room. Before starting the journey we contacted many hotels to know about the rate and after this our aim was to search room in every city within the range of 500-800 per day but somehow we managed to get the room in many cities within the range of 300-500 and this is a very big achievement for all of us. From this we learnt that online booking of room is not beneficial as bargaining is not possible. One of the important thing which we learnt from this 42 days journey is bargaining.
We covered more than 10000 km and we visited more than 8 states. We started our journey from Delhi. All three of us meet on New Delhi railway station. For the first time we were in the unknown city and it was very hot and humidity was at peak. Now the main thing at that time was accommodation. We decided to take shelter in GURUDUARA so we took a metro for BANGLA SHAHIB. But they refused us to give us shelter. Then we visited SIS GANJ GURUDUARA IN CHANDNI CHOWK and there we took a room in 30 rupees for 2 days. Accommodation in Delhi was cheapest and we were very happy from this achievement. The first place we visited was “THE RED FORT”. And then we visited ISHA KHAN KA MAKBARA which was very beautiful and was made up of stone and even the floor was made up of stone. And in Humayun Tomb we meet with one Chinese Marketing team and they told us about their marketing stategy.
This journey also made us to travel in train without confirm ticket and also our experience teaches us to deal with different situation and it also teaches us to deal with agents. During this journey we slept on railway station which was again a wonderful experience.
During this 42 days journey we have many seen many things. We have seen different culture and we have also experienced the good as well as bad living conditions. During this journey we enjoyed different regional food and street food. And before starting the fellowship we decided to drink “GANE KA RAS” of different places and now after completing the fellowship I will say that even taste of “GANE KA RAS” is different everywhere in such a diverse country like India.
I will say that after exploring such a diverse country like India we are fully prepared to overcome any situation. Also after returning from 42 days journey we are more confident and matured.
