In 2015, Pandey was at a party attended by Harley Davidson bikers who had been to Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia on their vehicles. "I thought to myself, everyone travels abroad but why not explore our own country, which is so diverse and colorful that even foreign tourists come here to visit," he said.
India's rich diversity attracts people from all over the world, who travel for months across its different destinations. But three men from the central suburbs have gone one step ahead and undertaken a motorcycle expedition wherein they travelled across 33 states and even touched three countries in 43 days.
Highway Bandit is a bikers' group in which the members own Harley Davidsons. Founded in 2011, it has 300 members from Dombivli, Kalyan and Ulhasnagar and its members have undertaken bike expeditions to Leh-Ladakh, Pushkar, etc. "We have traveled up to 8,000km on our bikes in the past," said Prem Pandey, one of the members of the group.
In 2015, Pandey was at a party attended by Harley Davidson bikers who had been to Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia on their vehicles. "I thought to myself, everyone travels abroad but why not explore our own country, which is so diverse and colorful that even foreign tourists come here to visit," he said.
So he discussed this idea with other Highway Bandit members group and two of them — Aniket Gurav (31) from Badlapur and Vatsal Jogani (31) from Surat — agreed to be a part of the expedition that Pandey proposed. "We planned the places we wanted to visit in the country, which included lesser-explored areas like Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Telangana, and started our bike ride across India on March 28, 2016," Pandey said.
The trio travelled across 33 states and even touched three foreign countries — Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar. During this 2,400-km ride, which they completed on May 9, they experienced everything from scorching summers to snowstorms. "On one hand, we felt the burning heat in places like Chennai and Kolkata, while on the other, we travelled through Gangtok, which had cool temperatures. In fact, when we crossed Nathu La and reached a village called Kupup, there was a snowstorm and our bikes skid. The locals there gave us a place to stay," the biker added.
The trio also earned another important insight during this expedition — they saw the difference in the way that city residents and people from small towns and villages used natural resources. "In cities like Mumbai, Thane and Raigad that are densely populated, there is a lot of wastage of natural resources like water. We use showers, bath tubs, toilet flushes and pressure pumps, that cause wastage of water," Pandey said. He added, "But in small towns, people use water judiciously and there is thus optimum utilisation of resources."
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