The Great Driving Challenge | User Application

Mayank Kumar & Alka Kumar

Total Vote(s) : 175 | Total Testimonial(s) : 7

We're Mayank and Alka from Noida. We both work in software industry (myself in IT sector and Alka in Telecom sector). We're here because we both are passionate about being to places, especially in our own vehicle. We specially like hills. Fearing for our safety, our parents think that we're little over the top and kind of act as catalysts to each other when it comes to driving around. We can’t help it but we don't blame parents. We had to take a break when kids came and they were small, but we're again letting the lid little loose for two years now. We just came back in June 2009, after traversing whole of Ganga and Yamuna river valleys for 9 days, and also took kids for two days Gaumukh trek. Pictures for this one at http://www.flickr.com/photos/39650111@N07/sets/72157619915945289/.

We are the best candidates because...

We think we're the best because when it comes to travel, we kind of complement each other. I like to take my Scorpio and Alka around, and Alka loves to see newer places. That way we're not easily tired of being on road. When we felt the need for a bigger car, we zeroed in on Scorpio primarily because some day we wanted to drive to Leh. We love it when roads are tough or sometime when road isn’t there at all. Alka would remember a place or recall a bend not by name, but, for example, as the place where we bought fresh apricots from local kids. Isn't that amazing? I think that’s possible only when one just loves to feel a place and a journey by heart (and not by name). And I just love to be on wheel, air in my hair, grunt of the engine and feeling the terrain through the vehicle. We think, that’s how even though we’re not professional drivers, we still manage to do long distances on our road trips without getting too much tired.

Our Travel Plan

We'd like to drive from Delhi to Hyderabad (and back) via Agra, Gwalior, Jhansi, Sagar, Nagpur. We've not decided about the return path, but would like to traverse a different path on the way back. Attractions of the trip would be crossing the Chambal ravines, Chambal Bridge, Madhya Pradesh plateau and excursions to nearby places like Orachha.

Our Travelogue

Our past travel experiences (which we did together only) include the following: 1996 - Manali, Dharamshala-McLeadganj, Almora-Binsar; 1999 - Port Blair for 2 weeks; 2000 - 9 days in Paris and around; 2003 - Multiple drives from San Francisco to nearby places like Monterey, Santa cruz, and longer one to San Diego via Los Angeles, Reno, Sacramento; 2004 - Multiple drives from Seattle to Portland, Grand Coulee dam, Long beach, Ocean Shores, Pacific coast highway in Pacific Northwest (east, south and north), Columbia river gorge, Mt. Rainer, Mt. St. Helens, Mt Hood, Las Vegas and Hoover dam; 2008 - May: Drove my Scorpio to Uttarkashi during the weekend and came back without missing any workday, 2 days (~900 Kms) June: Drove to Delhi-Manali-Leh-Kargil-Srinagar-Jammu-Delhi in own Scorpio, 9 days (~3600 Kms); 2009 - May: A rafting weekend near Rishikesh; June: Drove Scorpio to Gangori, Yamunotri traversing whole of Ganga and Yamuna valleys over 8 days (~1250 Kms), and a two days’ trek of 36 Kms to Gaumukh. Places where Mayank has been to are marked at http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&doflg=pt&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=113949338991953559906.00045fd0e634ef7897608&z=2

People who voted for us

Krishna Kant Sharma

12th July 2009

Tanvir

12th July 2009

Sumit Ahuja

12th July 2009

Ashish

12th July 2009

Vijay Arora

12th July 2009

SUPERSTAR

12th July 2009

THIRUMALAI

12th July 2009

RAJAN THIRUMALAI

12th July 2009

PRIYA RAJAN

12th July 2009

Udit

11th July 2009

Ajay Chaudhary

11th July 2009

smriti

11th July 2009

Neetu Singhal

10th July 2009

Kapil K Arun

10th July 2009

Siddheshwar

10th July 2009

sp mathur

10th July 2009

Shobhit Kumar

10th July 2009

Sanjeev Singh

10th July 2009

Kamal Kumar

10th July 2009

r rajesh

10th July 2009

Navniet Sekera

9th July 2009

piyush gupta

9th July 2009

Pavan Varshney

9th July 2009

Dilip Pal

9th July 2009

Neeraj Agrawal

9th July 2009

Neelima Rustagi

9th July 2009

ms yadav

9th July 2009

m adav

9th July 2009

ashish gupta

9th July 2009

Abhinav Mathur

9th July 2009

Manisha Malik

9th July 2009

manisha

9th July 2009

Atul Verma

9th July 2009

Kapil Goyal

9th July 2009

Jimit Maheta

9th July 2009

jaydeep nag

9th July 2009

Gurpreet Singh

9th July 2009

Amit Goenka

9th July 2009

Narendra Bansod

9th July 2009

Devesh Yadav

9th July 2009

Asokumar Shanmugam

9th July 2009

Dhirendra Kumar Kamboj

9th July 2009

agrawal neeraj

9th July 2009

Marieta

9th July 2009

Anil Singh Bansal

9th July 2009

Ashish Shukla

9th July 2009

Mayank

9th July 2009

Dang

9th July 2009

Ashish Gupta

9th July 2009

Amit Kumar

9th July 2009

Mudit Mittal

9th July 2009

Sanjay Gupta

9th July 2009

Jagpreet

9th July 2009

sunil arora

9th July 2009

Sunil Kumar

9th July 2009

Shivali Mittal

9th July 2009

Saravanan Manoharan

9th July 2009

PADMAKAR

9th July 2009

surabhi seth

9th July 2009

Abhishek

9th July 2009

Alok Wadehra

9th July 2009

SUBRATA MUKHOPADHYAY

9th July 2009

Annumunnu

9th July 2009

Harish R Prabhu

9th July 2009

vijay

8th July 2009

lillian potter

8th July 2009

kartik

8th July 2009

V Phani Kumar

8th July 2009

Rahul Choudhary

8th July 2009

ritesh

8th July 2009

AtinKr

8th July 2009

Anil Makhija

8th July 2009

Anindya Sharma

8th July 2009

puneet mehrotra

8th July 2009

Kunal Goel

8th July 2009

bineet

8th July 2009

sid

8th July 2009

Milan Nanda

8th July 2009

ajay tripathi

8th July 2009

Nitin

8th July 2009

Anjali Arora

8th July 2009

Shailesh Tiwari

8th July 2009

Dhiraj Kumar

8th July 2009

sunil arora

8th July 2009

Vaibhav Gupta

8th July 2009

satish bansal

8th July 2009

Amit Aggarwal

8th July 2009

SiddharthSharma

8th July 2009

madhur bhatia

8th July 2009

TarunKhurana

8th July 2009

Pethi Venkatesh

8th July 2009

GeetModi

8th July 2009

dhruvsharma

8th July 2009

AvinashSharma

8th July 2009

AshishJain

8th July 2009

RajivPoplai

8th July 2009

ManishPopli

8th July 2009

Ajay Kumar

8th July 2009

YuganshuPathak

8th July 2009

Yudhishthira Sapru

8th July 2009

Vikram Jalan

8th July 2009

Ashish Jain

8th July 2009

sid

8th July 2009

geet

8th July 2009

Maneesh Singhal

8th July 2009

Varun Joshi

8th July 2009

Dang

8th July 2009

Sandeep Sehgal

8th July 2009

Ajay

8th July 2009

Ankur

8th July 2009

Ankur

8th July 2009

Mrinmoy

8th July 2009

Ashwani Sahu

8th July 2009

Shakul Gupta

8th July 2009

S. M. Sharma

8th July 2009

Vandana

8th July 2009

Manish Popli

8th July 2009

Manish Goel

8th July 2009

Varun Gupta

8th July 2009

Dinesh Hooda

8th July 2009

Rajesh Mishra

8th July 2009

Ravi

8th July 2009

Rajeev Goswami

8th July 2009

MUKUL SHARMA

8th July 2009

Yukti Bisht

8th July 2009

parul parashar

8th July 2009

Parul

8th July 2009

Ramesh Bhalla

7th July 2009

Alka Bagga

7th July 2009

A Kumar

7th July 2009

Nandini

7th July 2009

Mayank Kumar

7th July 2009

Alka Kumar

7th July 2009

Dinesh Hooda

7th July 2009

Mayank

7th July 2009

Udit

7th July 2009

Tapas Kumar Panda

7th July 2009

Sameer Pareek

7th July 2009

Anjana

7th July 2009

babu arunachalam

7th July 2009

Karthik Gopalakrishna

7th July 2009

dherendra

7th July 2009

deepak parashar

7th July 2009

hema

7th July 2009

Parul Parashar

7th July 2009

Pareek Sameer

7th July 2009

Susheel Gautam

7th July 2009

Sampooran Prasad

7th July 2009

Dharam Singh

7th July 2009

Jonathan Discount

7th July 2009

Abhishek

7th July 2009

Ajay Kumar

7th July 2009

Avinash Sharma

7th July 2009

Vaibhav Gupta

7th July 2009

Nitin Puri

7th July 2009

Varun Gupta

7th July 2009

Rajiv Poplai

7th July 2009

Atin Kr

7th July 2009

Madhur

7th July 2009

Pandat Sharma

7th July 2009

Yogesh Sharma

7th July 2009

Jayant

7th July 2009

Anchal Arora

7th July 2009

Kumar Gaurav

6th July 2009

Amitabh Bhargava

6th July 2009

Ashley

6th July 2009

Dhruv

6th July 2009

Nikhil Jain

6th July 2009

Sandeep Sehgal

6th July 2009

Bobby

6th July 2009

Susheel Gautam

6th July 2009

Rashmi Barara

6th July 2009

Barara

6th July 2009

Nitin Gupta

6th July 2009

Manoj Barara

6th July 2009

Testimonials

Kalikinkar

Hi...I saw your profile and liked it very much. You can join the Cedia great driving challenge community in orkut to gain more votes and testimonials. http://www.orkut.co.in/Main#Community.aspx?cmm=91293176

Susheel Gautam

Over the years I have travelled with Mayank and Alka to world famous spots like Niagara Falls to remote areas in Himalayas. Their spirit of adventure knows no bounds and I'm sure they will come out of the Great Driving Challenge with flying colors.

Ajay

Mayank has been very passionate when it comes to car and driving. Driving and visiting new places are key hot topics when in discussion with Mayank. I am sure that he has the potential to win this challenge and wish them both best of luck for winning this Great Driving Challenge.

Dinesh Hooda

Mayank is very Enthusiastic, Adventurous and loves to travel. He is very passionate about travel. Good luck Mayank%u2026

Maneesh

Hey Mayank, Very nice profile... You are truely a traveller !!

Manish Gupta

Mayank and Alka truly have traveller souls and have unbridled enthusiasam to explore new places. I had the privilege of accompanying them on the Ladakh trip which is one of the most toughest and remotest drive in the world, we ended up doing the trip as it was the easiest thing in the world to do. Wishing them all the best for the great driving challenge and am sure that they will come out victorious.

Dharam

I have known Mayank & Alka for quite some time and had privilege of accompanying them on many trips, they both bring great enthusiasm and energy to every occasion. Wishing them all the best for driving challenge. Good Luck !!

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