Late in May, we announced a contest about nominating a traveller friend to gift him or her a Prrem's Jacket. Over the month, we received some great entries and we had to pick one winner.

And the winner is Sankara Subramanian, a traveller at heart who writes and clicks on his blog- Be On The Road. Mridula Dwivedi, an avid traveller herself nominated Sankara for his 9 month SE Asia backpacking trip.

As promised, Sankara wins an all-weather Parka from Kosha!

Sankara Subramanian- Be on the road

Also, we got in touch with Sankara to know more about his travels and what he thinks of travel:

Yuktie (Prrem's co-founder): Tell us a bit about yourself. How and when did the travel bug bite you?

Sankara: Well, where do I start? I am male, early 30s, from Bangalore, an engineer by education, worked 8 years in the corporate world across India and USA, love to explore new places and now running my own travel consulting startup. My focus areas in travel are Adventure Travel, Wildlife, Unique Cultures, Budget Travel and Vegetarian Food. To know more about me, you can go to my site.

I am not really sure when the travel bug bit me. I have been travelling from the time I was young through school excursions and trips with family. But, travel took off to another dimension when I started my career in 2003 as I had access to my own money, which allowed me to indulge in travel.

Yuktie: What is your inspiration?

Sankara: Life is short and the world out there is so beautiful with beautiful places, lovely people, great history, unique cultures, interesting languages, tasty food and much more. Plus, the learning curve from travel is way faster and higher than from traditional education. In short, learning is simply tremendous. My inspiration is to discover as much of the world as I can in my life span. But, I am in no hurry to get stamps on my passport or count the countries I have visited. Instead, I am a very slow traveller. I like to get into a culture, know and understand it well before moving to another.

Yuktie: Some of the things that travel taught you.

Sankara: Humility - Once you see poor and less privileged people very happy, you learn to become humble.

Patience - When you travel, things are not in your control, you learn to be patient and wait for your time.

Adaptability - Languages can be a problem and so can food. Travelling makes you see many alien situations. You simply learn to adapt.

You don't need too much: when you travel, you travel out of a box or a backpack and seem to be happy with all that is in it. Somewhere down the line, it reminds me that I am happy with lesser little things.

Yuktie: Tell us in brief about the SE backpacking trip.

Sankara: I travelled (budget backpacking) 9 months across 12 countries (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan). For the first 3 months, I had one of my friends give me company and the other 6 months, I travelled alone. I travelled with no agenda and kept moving from place to place and simply loved the entire experience. I had to return home as my family was missing me :-)

Again the purview of this trip was also Budget travel, backpacking, adventure, wildlife, unique cultures and vegetarian food.

(All the SE Asia Backpacking posts can be seen here)

Yuktie: Were you always a vegetarian? What is your stand here?

Sankara: Yes, I was born into a vegetarian family and thus embraced vegetarianism. I eat eggs sometimes if I feel I am not getting enough vegetables. I am also an animal lover, though that would be my secondary reason.

Yuktie: What are you working on these days?

Sankara: I am busy with my travel consulting startup and am also travelling to newer destinations.

Yuktie: What's on the road ahead? :)

Sankara: The road ahead has a lot of work for my startup, my blog and lots of domestic and international travel.