Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru

Mangaluru, Apr 25: They say marriage is a lifelong journey of two hearts bonded by love. Here's a Mangalurean couple, living in Mumbai, who have taken this a step further, literally. Louis and Janet, aged 61 and 55 respectively, are about to embark on a journey of a lifetime, traversing through Central Asia and Europe, by car.

As they put it, theirs is a 'story of dreaming together in matrimonial bliss, seeing the world together as one, reliving life’s glorious moments as we discover unchartered lands, panoramas and vistas via an overland route'.

And they have aptly named their adventure 'The Lifetime Journey'.

What's more, in the process, they will be raising funds to support two charities, namely White Doves in Mangaluru and Muskaan in Mumbai.

What is 'The Lifetime Journey'?

In a nutshell, 'The Lifetime Journey' is the travelogue of Louis and Janet on a Mumbai - London - Mumbai return round trip through Central Asia and Europe. The overland adventure will flag off from Mumbai on May 20.

On what motivated them to undertake this road trip, the couple says, "We are bored with the daily humdrum of life’s rat race and a world ruled by consumerism, so we have decided to charter the road less travelled into the unknown and unseen."

Louis grew up in a village in Udupi, while Janet grew up in Mumbai city. They first met in 1978 and got married in 1982. They have two children - son, Lloyd (32) and daughter, Lynette (30), both well-settled. Louis and Janet run a successful logistics and freight clearing firm and will be undertaking this travel in a new BMW X5 SUV with some sponsorship from BMW to promote the brand through the journey.

"We have made several trips by road from Mumbai down to south India, but never picked up the courage to travel by road up north as there were a lot of rumours of robberies and kidnappings, etc. But the desire to travel the world by road in our own car was magnetically irresistible. Thus, the Lifetime Journey was conceived," they say.

"Through the past years life for us has been tremendously busy, with demanding jobs, bringing up the children and settling them in the early years. Later on, from 1999 we got busy with setting up the a logistics business. Life seemed to be very good after 2000, travelling to different parts of the world by flight twice or even thrice a year. In 2015, we stumbled upon an article uploaded on Facebook regarding a family of four who travelled for 111 days from Bengaluru to Paris. That was the point of challenge in our lives and our love for travelling fired our imaginations to explore at least parts of the world in our own car.

"We contacted the Little Indian Family of Explorers (LIFE) and after feedback from them, started with the research work for 'The Lifetime Journey'. Not for a moment did either of us hesitate or have second thoughts, nor did we foresee any obstacles. It took us no time in deciding to go ahead. Our overland buddies who had done this, were excited about our journey since were also planning to drive back home, unlike others who had shipped their car back home. After a few weeks of devouring all the information we could about the route, we took the gig. We couldn’t focus too much on it though, what with a full time involvement in the business and travels in between," they explain.

And how did their family react? "When friends and family were informed about the plan of driving from Mumbai to London by car, quite a few considered us insane and had several questions - 'Is it possible to drive through the continents?', 'Isn’t it dangerous?' 'Are you planning to travel through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, is it safe?', etc. At the same time, some of them were even excited about our plans and wanted to know more about the journey. Our friends lived in fear, from a destructive emotion largely stirred up on account of several uncertainties in various parts of the world. But those fears of the outside world didn’t bother us; we were too excited about the journey."

'The Lifetime Journey', to be flagged off from Mumbai on May 20 to London through Central Asia, Europe and back to Mumbai covering more than 50,000 km and more than 40 countries, will take approximately six months. The rough route that they plan to follow is Mumbai-Imphal-Myanmar-China-Mongolia-Russia-Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Italy, Malta, Greece,Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan,Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tibet, Myanmar or Nepal (if the border opens), and then back to India.

"The mission of this journey is to rediscover ourselves together, explore those parts of the world that are less travelled and less known and educate ourselves and understand the social, cultural and humanitarian aspects of the many countries we visit during this journey. To us it’s all about being in a place, not only to see it but also to experience it, feel it, hear it, taste its food and sniff its smells; to connect with people and share their lives. We hope our enthusiasm and focused target to relive this journey would be an inspiration to all those dreaming of living their dreams together, no matter what theirage and take the road less travelled," say the excited couple.

Here's wishing the couple a successful and enriching journey!

The couple can be contacted at janet.dsouza@excelexim.com.