Travel trauma!

How much can an average Indian afford to travel? Our estimate is: not more than 5 km each way per day!

I tried to break that 5K barrier using Matt’s dad’s 25 year old Hero Honda giving 50-60kmpl yesterday…

Initial reaction: holy cow!

Tushar: Its the end of day two for me and as I eagerly wait for Matt to join me on Thursday morning, here is a summary of things changed and new things learnt till now along with a video interview of a representative average income lady ( a local vegetable seller)

1. Offloading the excess:

We had to say goodbye to:

The budget plan – how much can we have

Before we begin, here are some details on whats going to be our daily budget and what can we spend on and not! This is going to be our bible for next 4 weeks – overshoot it one day, go hungry the next! Cost is in rupees per person

NON FOOD EXPENSES

Breakdown of total non food expenses - in Rs./person/day

what are we getting ourselves into

So, we are about a week away from our start date. After normalizing for rent, we have about Rs. 3000/person to spend. Time to get into the hard numbers. Here’s what we think it roughly costs one person (we plan to have exact numbers in the next day or two and further do a post fact update at the end of each day):

1. Utilities
-LPG: Rs. 100
-Electricity: Rs. 100

2. Communications
-Telephone (mobile prepaid): Rs. 300
-Internet (slowest plan, with less than 10GB/month download): Rs. 300

3. Transport (buses, and the occasional ride on motorcycle that give us about 50 kmpl):Rs. 400

4. Toiletries/household supplies: Rs. 100

5. Contingency planning (if possible): Rs. 200

All that adds upto Rs. 1500. This means we have about Rs. 1500 or Rs. 50/day for food (hungry already..) and this has to generate a 2,000 calorie diet (thats 40calories/Re. 1), ideally balanced to 40% carbs, 30% protein, and 30% fat (okay, we need to stop dreaming!)