Seventy-five-year-old Lang Kidby and Bev Kidby (76), Australia’s husband and wife travel enthusiasts, arrived in Coimbatore on Friday from Mysuru and their next stop will be Kochi. The couple are on a 3,000-km drive of south India on a Wagon R car.
For over four decades they have organised and led expeditions in 40 countries. Their latest is a trip of south India, driving almost 500 km a day and covering cities such as Chennai, Mysuru, and Coimbatore, besides Goa. After nearly a month’s travel, they will leave for Australia on December 29.
“Taking 10 hours to cover 300 km has happened to us more than once. But the scenery, history and, most importantly, the people make it all worthwhile. We always say that Indians, no matter how badly off compared to many others, accept their lot in life with a calmness and equanimity never found in the West or even other parts of Asia. The older kids in high school have a vision of where they want to go and in one lifetime India has risen from a colonial fiefdom to one of the technological and manufacturing power-houses in the world – all while remaining a stable free democracy,” they wrote on their website (https://next-horizon.org).
“They (Lang and Bev Kidby) are an amazing couple. Their life is a series of adventures - audacious adventures. We (Elgi Equipments) are associated with their current adventure .... We like to believe and we are equally audacious in our business ... there is a lot of sync between who we are as a company and who they are as people,” said Jairam Varadaraj, Managing Director of Elgi Equipments.
Lang and Bev visited Elgi’s manufacturing facility, school, and vocational training centre here.
The couple is not new to Indian cuisine as they have visited north India before and eaten at Indian restaurants in Australia.
In the current tour, they walked through a mangrove in Goa and plan to spend a night in a boat house in Kerala. They stop often to interact with students. “We will come back again (to south India),” said Mr. Kidby.
