Mridula’s adventures-Antarctic expedition

I’d met Mridula Dwivedi first during Club Mahindra travel bloggers’ meet at Coorg. An academician by profession, but she’s known for her adventures and travel tales.  Despite a day job, she’s managed to indulge in wide range of travel and adventure, including Himalaya Base camp, balloon rides, Skoda Yeti adventure drive and numerous other treks and travel.

Now she’s gearing up for a real big adventure- visiting the Antarctic. The place most of us can only manage to see in National geographic. Visiting Antarctic is not easy and certainly not cheap.

I also learnt about Robert Swan and mission 2041. A treaty between various nations is currently in force which ensure that there’ll be no drilling and mining in Antarctica till 2041. That’s 29 years from now. Most of today’s leaders may not be alive by then. Unless we educate today’s youth about the importance of preserving Antarctica, we won’t know what’ll happen in 2041 when the treaty expires. If the treaty is not continued and if all nations split Antarctica among themselves for exploitation, crucial eco balance will be lost. Robert Swan is on a mission to educate people, create awareness about this cause.  http://2041.com/ has all the details

Mridula got selected to be part of next expedition to Antarctica under Robert Swan. But she needs to raise a fund of USD 22000 towards expedition fee, air fare to Argentina and other expenses. The International Antarctic Expedition 2013 (IAE 2013) starts on 28^th Feb 2013 from Ushuaia ,Argentina and will end on March 13 2013.

If you can donate something or can point her to someone/some company which can consider corporate sponsorship for such an adventure, pls get in touch with her (tweet her on twitter (@mridulad)or leave a comment on her blog or any other medium available) (The firstgiving.com link doesn't seem to be working)

I see many direct selling agents in front of my office trying to sell flyers offering “Personal loan of upto 15 lakhs” by various banks. I am wondering if any bank would give us the loan if we say “I plan to head to Antarctica with this money”

I remember working with Sandhosh kumar, who raised a part of the expense required for his climb Everest mission though corporate and individual contributions. Seeing the images and writings he used to send across and updating the same in his blog was a task I had enjoyed thoroughly 2 years ago. Sandosh carried a banner to Himalayas which had the logos of companies and people who funded him. He photographed this banner on top of mount Everest and that was his value proposition to sponsors

I wish all the success to Mridula

Also read: HT steals Mridula's pic *  The Borderline drive *