Date:12/05/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/05/12/stories/2007051207190200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

`Backpacking is arduous and adventurous'

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: Rafting in the rapids of the Amazon, listening to samba in Brazil, visiting the souks in Morocco and walking through hilly Sikkim, it seems like a National Geographic documentary. Swaroop Manjunath, all of 25, backpacked across four continents over 18 months.

A biotechnologist by profession, he funded his trip of self-discovery working part-time during college, besides putting in a year in a pharmaceutical company. And then he was off to Honduras, Morocco, Nepal, parts of Europe, Istanbul, parts of Central and South America, besides good old India.

Chsallenge

"I wanted to challenge myself and learn about different cultures. It beats anything taught to you in university or college. It's hands-on experience," he says. Backpacking is both adventurous and arduous and he relied on his instincts, exchanges with other backpackers as well as the ever-reliable Lonely Planet guidebooks. Swaroop declares that "if you can travel in India, you can travel anywhere in the world".

India has immense potential to attract tourists, but the bureaucracy and lack of appropriate facilities make foreign travellers think twice before coming here.

There were plenty of Indian backpackers during the 1960s and 1970s. But it is a little unusual for our Gen X to be as adventurous.