Jeep girls are crossing frontiers

Jeep girls are crossing frontiers
Three Bengaluru women will set out on the first ever all-women off-road expedition from Delhi to London, covering 15,000 km across 14 countries

Three thirty-something-women (a physical therapist, professor and a curriculum developer), mothers of five kids between them and leading hectic lives are embarking on an adventurous 54-day journey in a 4WD (diesel). The first all-women trans-continental expedition from Delhi to London will be flagged off on July 24 at the India Gate.

Driving off-road means driving mostly through uninhabited areas, unusual non-tarred roads, rocky terrain, forests, streams, dunes and danger. Something Bengalureans Nidhi Tiwari, Rashmi Koppar and Dr Soumya Goyal crave for. The trio who have taken a two-month sabbatical from their respective jobs will be driving through India, Myanmar, China, Central Asia, Europe… 14 countries in all. The women have christened their 15,000 km journey as Women Beyond Boundaries — “It’s purely for adventure,” they chorus.

The women have been friends for 25 years and have done several expeditions across the Western Ghats, the Malnad belt and the Himalayas. But, the desire to do “something greater than…” has always lingered in the back of their minds. And that ‘lingering’ took form and shape in June last year — at 16,000 feet in Bara-lacha La in Zanskar Valley in Jammu and Kashmir; on a dark, cold night when it felt like hell had frozen over. Tiwari was stranded, in her car, on a snow-clogged road. She was alone. “I had enough time to ponder,” recalls Tiwari, who heads curriculum development and teacher education at Educational Innovations in Gurgaon recalls. By dawn things had cleared and she had made up her mind. “It was time to do that ‘something-greater-thing’; it was time to go on that transcontinental journey.”

Tiwari, an ‘army wife’, mother of two boys (aged 11 and 9), specialises in outdoor education and off-road, jeep-ing while her friends Koppar is a professor of hotel management, and has a 11-year-old daughter; Ghoyal is a physical therapist and mother of two young boys (aged 8 and 4). All of them are passionate travelers. Since Tiwari has had experience driving through Bhutan, Nepal, USA, South Africa and Kenya she will be at the wheel during their Delhi-London journey.

As a seven-year-old, Tiwari was part of the SPARK (Society for Propagation and Activation of Rock Climbing) and embarked on several treks, hikes and mountaineering expeditions across the Western Ghats. Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, SPARK and KMA (Karnataka Mountaineering Association) were the only registered organisations that carried out such expeditions. In early 2000, she met Srinivas MP (a renowned name in the off-road driving community for assembling and modifying jeeps for off-road trips) who introduced her to off-road driving.

He also introduced her to Jeep Thrills, a group which organised off-road expeditions through difficult terrains. Bitten by the bug, Tiwari, then in her mid-20s, bought her first jeep – a blue coloured Mahindra 4x4 in 2004 – replaced the engine with a Bolero engine, made other modifications to suit her needs and began going on weekend drives along with her toddler sons. Soon the drives became longer and tougher. And Tiwari came to be known as “that awesome lone woman jeep driver” in Bengaluru. She would also organise off-the-road trips with family and friends.

But these trips were never easy. “I remember the Sharavathi Challenge, which we did in four-five jeeps. Driving through the treacherous terrain we reached a spot which had a 40-feet drop in the middle of the dirt track. We had to lay bamboo sticks across the gap and drive the jeep on the precarious make-shift bridge. Remembering that still makes me sweat,” she recalls. In 2008, she did her first long distance trip from Bengaluru to Siachen, where her husband who works with the Indian Army was posted. She covered 7,500 km. “My mum, aunt and two sons accompanied me on this trip. There has been no looking back since.” Apart from drives to the Himalayas almost every year, she has driven from Bengaluru to Delhi six times. “It gives me inner peace and keeps my sanity intact,” she says. Tiwari has been the chief-planner of the Delhi-London trip. Her plan was guided by her desire to “question stereotypes regarding women and their capabilities.” It took her a month to map the route and chart their daily rides. The women will be driving 110 to 915 km per day for 54 days. 11 visas are required for the trip. They have got nine. “I hope to get the remaining three by the time we leave,” Tiwari says. The trip will cost Rs 30 lakhs — they have been lucky to get a few sponsors.

“I’ve learnt a lot through the planning of this trip and I am excited about travelling to Central Asia,” says Tiwari who has trained herself to handle any kind of mechanical snags that usually rears its head during such trips. And while they are on the road pursuing their dream adventure, back home their respective husbands, parents and in-laws have promised to hold fort. “I met my husband on a hiking trip so he knows how much these expeditions mean to me. I am glad he understands and supports my decisions and it’s the same with my friends too,” Tiwari says. But what they hope their journey will do is “encourage other women to travel; explore new lands and discover themselves.”

The Route

Day 1 to 7 Delhi- Kanpur – Siliguri – Guwahati – Imphal – Moreh/ Tamu border point (Myanmar) – Monywa Distance covered: 2,403 km

Day 8 to 14 Monywa – Mandalay – Lhasio – Muse – Ruili – Dali – Xichang – Chengdu Distance covered: 1903 kms

Day 15 to 21 Chengdu – Ruoergai – Xining – Jiayuguan – Hami – Turpan – Kuerle Distance: 3,520 km

Day 22 to 28 Kuerle – Akesu – Kashgar – Sary Tash (Kyrgystan) – Osh – Tashkent – Samarkhand – Bukhara Distance: 1,964 km


Day 29 to 35 Bukhara – Khiva – Nukus (Khazakistan) – Beyneu – Atyrau – Astrakhan (Russia) – Volvograd Distance: 2,352 km

Day 36 to 42 Volvograd – Kamensk – Kharkiv – Kiev (Ukraine) – Lviv – Karkow (Poland) – Prague (Czech Republic) Distance: 2,589 km


Day 43 to 54 Prague – Frankfurt (Germany) – Brussels (Belgium) – London (UK) Distance: 1,269 km
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