Roni Antony
Port Blair, July 17: With an aim to promote ‘Adventure Tourism’ related to bike ride, find a new avenue in Tourism Activities and also to experience unique adventure ride, four youths of Port Blair have drove two Royal Enfield Bikes all the way to Diglpur from Port Blair.
Hoping that someday this would also become a new tourism activity in Andaman and an adventure mean to reach Diglipur these youths not just travelled in their bike but also made keen observations so that in future others too can plan similar trips.
Mr. Amit Kumar Nandi, Mr. Sudip Das, Mr. Raj Pandayan and Mr. Rajesh are the riders who achieved this difficult feat.
Although this is not the first such adventure trip, earlier also NCC cadets and some adventure loving people had organized bike and cycle rallies from Port Blair to Diglipur but this trip of these four guys had specific aim of promoting Adventure Tourism.
As per them, they started the journey early morning at 4 AM and reached Diglipur, by 9 PM at night, because of horrible condition of Andaman Trunk Road, which according to them, made their journey very challenging.
According to the youths, the main hurdles to this long ride were two stretches of Jarawa Reserve Forest and two major creeks.
“In Jarawa Reserve Forest our bikes were transported by pick-up vans while to cross the creek, we had to use vehicle ferry as usual,” said Mr. Amit Kumar Nandi.
“We wanted to hit the road on our bikes and explore the beauty of on our way. People in Mainland India are not aware of the scenic beauty that Andaman can offer. The tourists cover just a few islands when they visit Andaman and Nicobar. That is what we wanted to promote. We believe that our expedition on bikes has set an example for the tourists and some of them might get encouraged to take this long bike ride, when they visit Andamans,” he added.
Mr. Sudip Das said that it was an altogether different experience as there is no road in Middle Andaman area, where NHIDCL is carrying out ATR upgradation works. “We thoroughly enjoyed the ride and we got the opportunity to eat traditional food on our way. The ATR, which is being upgraded gave us some off-roading experience too. The trip would be even more wonderful once the ATR is upgraded,” he said.
Other riders also added that once ATR is fully upgraded, it would reduce the journey time. “We can suggest the tourists to try bike ride to Diglipur and request the Administration to facilitate this new side of Adventure Tourism for the tourists. This would surely boost tourism in Andamans,” said Mr. Raj Pandayan and Mr. Rajesh.
For these four youths this trip to Diglipur might or might not bring sea of changes but this is just a sincere effort from their side to contribute something new for Andaman Tourism and do something out of the box.
