Kochi man walks, hitchhikes, cycles and rides to raise awareness and funds for health-related causes

Vaishak Seetharam Dattani will take lessons on how to build a solar-powered e-scooter. He will ride it all the way to France from Kochi in 2025 as part of the fourth ‘edition’ of his personal project — Shores to Pinnacle.

From September 27 to November 22, 2023,  he walked 1,600 kilometres and hitchhiked 12,751 kilometres, making his way from Singapore to Sikkim (not in this order) in version three of his personal project and initiative to create awareness about and raise funds for health-related causes. 

The September solo expedition by Vaishak, Head of Service Excellence, Aster DM Healthcare, was to create awareness about ventricular septal defect (VSD) which affects children. His aim was to provide free cardiology treatment to 100 children from underprivileged families. He explains how it works, “Aster Volunteers is the CSR wing of Aster through which I was able to connect with healthcare professionals in the North-East. I connected with hitchhiking communities outside India via Facebook in Thailand and Laos, so I was able to spread the word among them. As part of Heart2Heart Cares, an initiative of Aster Volunteers, for every 10,000 steps achieved by those registered with the initiative, Aster Volunteers donates ₹100 to aid critical surgeries of 50 underprivileged children at Aster Hospitals.”

Vaishak, 34, started the hike from Singapore, heading to Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. While in Cambodia, however, circumstances changed. 

The trip turned out to be more of an adventure that he bargained for when, 14 days into the journey, he lost his passport, other identification papers and money at Phnom Penh. A couple of scooter-borne thieves snatched his bag leaving only his phone with him. “Now when I look back, it seems like a great experience, though it did not feel like that at the time. Luckily I had my phone but I don’t want to have to do that again,” Vaishak says. Losing one’s passport in a foreign country comes with a massive set of problems, he recalls. He needed an exit visa which would, literally, be his passport out of Cambodia. The plan was to head to Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar before hitting the North-East.   

Changing plans

Since he had to fly out of Cambodia and return to India, due to the lost passport, he completed his journey in the States in the North-East. He then headed to Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. “During those 55 days, the experience of my passport getting robbed to getting stuck in Dawki Valley forest [in Meghalaya] for a whole night without mobile network, the curfew in Manipur and the unrest in Myanmar caused plan A to give way to plans B, C, D and changed routes. This was challenging as it paved the way for me to see and experience more than what I had planned, and also do much more than what I thought my potential was,” he says. 

Since he was backpacking, he found accommodation through connections he made via couchsurfing.com and postcrossing.com. [sending and receiving postcards from people across the world] besides railway stations, hostels, and terraces of buildings. Vaishak refers to himself as a traveller rather than a tourist.

“A traveller explores the road less travelled, enjoying the journey, exploring the culture of a place rather than confining oneself to ‘sightseeing’,” he says. He ‘wore’ the names of the city he was headed to — an A4 sheet on his backpack — as he walked. Among those who gave him a lift were two-wheeler riders, truckers and once a driver of a Mercedes Benz car. “In India, waiting at dhabas for long distance buses helps. If you tip the driver a decent amount, he would let you pick a vacant seat,” he says. On an average, he covered 200 kilometres daily. 

For a cause

Vaishak’s first Shores to Pinnacle expedition was in 2021, in Sri Lanka when he cycled 1,311 kilometres in 10 days to help raise funds for the Government Cancer Hospital . The expedition was in association with the Karapitiya Oncology Foundation and Sheraton Resorts. “The endeavour was to get oncologists from other private hospitals to pledge a visit to the outpatient wing of the hospital one day a month for a year. I got 30 doctors to commit.” The vintage two-wheeler aficionado, who owns a few scooters and motorbikes, cycled the distance on an original, ‘made in Italy’ 1982 Peugeot bicycle.  

Shores to Pinnacle 2.0 came after he returned to India. This time around it focussed on educating Marriott Hotel employees on how to raise funds for leprosy-affected children at the Kanchipuram-based Rising Star Outreach of India, which works with people affected by leprosy. Over 50 days, Vaishak covered 22 States on a 1965 Jawa motorcycle, which led him to the ambitious third expedition. 

Recalling his physical preparations for his hitchhiking expedition, he says, “I walked for three hours daily, from February to September and I had only breakfast and lunch, no dinner.” He travelled light, had a prepaid phone, and currency was US dollars, “I had allocated $100 for each country.” Although he had prepared route maps in advance he had to reroute due to unforeseen circumstances like the one at Phnom Penh.   

Building a bike

The fourth edition will focus on creating awareness about mental wellness, says the Kannur-born Hotel Management graduate. Of calling his expeditions ‘shore to pinnacle’ he says, “The route map for my ‘travel for a cause’ series has so far started from the south of a country, finishing in the north; secondly, the aim is to bring individuals to the pinnacle of their lives by helping provide them with what they need in terms of better health and lives.”

For now he is focussed on his next trip. After he completes his online lessons with TUV SUD, a certification, testing, auditing, inspection and training company, Vaishak intends to intern at the diyguru.org, a Pune-based company which will finetune the design and build the scooter. “It should travel 120-odd kilometres a day and should be ‘pedal-able’,” he says. 

But isn’t it easier to purchase one? “No! If I build it, I will be able to repair it as well in case something malfunctions in the middle of nowhere!”