1 team, 3 members, 11 states, 13 different languages, 43 days, over 9000 km journey. All it come true from our dreams, which became reality here at IIT Gandhinagar.
We started our journey on 1st May 2017 and 1st team of EF-17 to begin without going to home. Yes, we were so excited to visit and explore our nation for first time in life. After listening all safety advices, lectures and tips from parents,our journey started from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, the economical capital of India.
From Mumbai to Goa, traveling in general coach of train without reservation, throughout the night, standing all the way in an overfilled general compartment of Indian railways gives you a different kind of experience. Goa – First time on the beaches that we all saw in our life, the endless sea, holy churches and many more..Bangalore, the silicon valley of India was a great experience in big MNC’s and some historical places along with beautiful and calm Mysore.
Ooty is the place, where one can experience shiver cold in hot summers. The famous spice markets along with chocolate shops and late night events makes this place perfect. Then we went to Ernakulam. HAL museum was a great place for technical aspects. In Munnar and Alleppey, one can see why Kerala is called God’s own country.
After Chennai’s delicious food, fish market, port harbours and perfect weather beaches of Visakhapatnam we went to Bhubaneswar. 4th dham of ‘Char-Dham’ in Jagannath, Puri with some holy and religious temples and the archeological sites like Konark sun temple gave us positive energy and enthusiasm.After Kolkata we went to Darjeeling. Tea gardens, delicious chocolates, cold weather, Buddhist temples, Himalayan railways and spectacular view of world’s 3rd highest mountain Kangchenjunga made our day memorable.
After it, the next stoppage was Guwahati. Then came Meghalaya. First we promenade Shillong with extra covered clouds, mist and fog everywhere all around and then came the best part of our journey, Cherrapunjee. More than 8000 steps journey for root bridge and double decker root bridge, rainbow falls, dark Bora caves, beautiful viewpoints, forgot the way and got astray, crazy climbing all these events reminds me life of Bear Grylls. Finally, all after this our journey ended in heart of our country and capital, Delhi.
The experience of talking with people having different mindset, experiencing different cultures and traditions with different food, languages and dishes, negotiating skills, punctuality for time, careless behavior to some level of careness, expending money wisely, ADJUSTMENT, real life problem facing skills, sleeping in dharamshala and even on railway station and much more that’s all I got from this life long memorable journey of our incredible India.
Thankful to IITGN,
Rishabh Jain.
