21,477 Km, seventeen Countries, ninety seven Days, one Car – Meet the three Indian Women Who Accomplished This!
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M eet Rashmi Gururaja Koppar, Dr. Soumya Gopinath and Nidhi Tiwari, three best friends in their mid-30s who determined to undertake a special journey with the desire to fulfil their long-time wish, and to raise awareness about women empowerment.
They finished a 21,477 km long journey, crossing seventeen countries in ninety seven days. No! Not on flights and trains. They did so in a car that was driven by Nidhi across the way.
Nidhi Tiwari specialises in outdoor education, off-the-road jeep drives, and also has a lot of practice in long-distance and high-altitude driving. She was the one who came up with the idea of driving till London, and her friends instantly agreed. She was also the only driver in this expedition, but that did not discourage the trio. They determined to take a sabbatical from their respective jobs and live their desire.
Ultimately, they were all set to begin the journey. It embarked in June and came to an end in October. The excursion was sponsored by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Ministry of Outer Affairs, Mahindra Very first Choice Wheels, Lenovo India, Via.com, @Round Table India Area 6, M.S. Ramaiah Memorial Hospital, Social Empowerment by Empowering Women SEEW, and Tea Trails India.
“Driving has been a passion. It is absolutely therapeutic for me to be behind the wheel. I have built my own vehicle almost ten years ago. So, I had both the skill and the urge to drive in raunchy conditions,” Nidhi told Women’s Web.
The vehicle they used was an SUV sponsored by Mahindra Very first Choice.
The team is also a part of Women Beyond Boundaries, a community embarked by Nidhi in March 2015, to encourage women to drive long distances. And their journey was permanently being documented on the Facebook page of Women Beyond Boundaries.
Driving six hundred km a day, they crossed India, Myanmar, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Russia, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Rashmi Gururaja Koppar is a hotel management professor, an escapade sports enthusiast, and the mother of a youthfull daughter. Dr. Soumya Gopinath is a physical therapist at MS Ramaiah Hospital, a sultry traveller, and the mother of two youthful boys.
Sharing about their journey, the team informed that the very first thing they used to do after coming in any country was to buy a local SIM card.
Crossing forests, rocky terrains, violated roads and a lot more, the women loved their excursion to the fullest. They also had to face some hardships when they got stuck due to a landslide in Myanmar. They took over five days to cover two hundred km from Imphal to Myanmar. But even during those harsh times, they got a chance to practice the goodwill of local people there.
They stayed with the local families, ate home cooked food, and it helped the three women restore their faith in humanity.
“We dreamed to tell the women of the world that such expeditions are possible and that there was nothing to be startled of. We avoided driving late at night, instead, spent evenings exploring the cities. In fact, we didn’t find a single woman driving on the highway till we reached Europe,” Dr. Gopinath told The Times of India.