ok-tata-bye-bye

Tomorrow is what seems to be the final round for the oktatabyebye travel contest. If you're looking at the profiles of the people on that link, you will find the amazing levels of passion for traveling and travel among them. Especially Mridula, whose travel blog is a delightful revelation. Who'd have thunk that HR professors could live such an interesting life?

oktatabyebye is a to-be online travel community, which I reckon would be a bulletin board enhancement based on travel (?)

After you travel sufficiently for leisure in your life, you begin to form opinions about travel... travel as a hobby, industry, the media associated with it, etc. With strong opinions comes a natural disgruntledness, a desire to make things work differently, a feeling of 'they could have made it work that way'.

Travel is picking up greatly in India, but strangely, people are spending a lot more on travel than they could have. Indians by nature think of leisure travel as something complicated and dangerous. In my hometown Pune, Maharashtrians are known for their affinity to what I call the Raja-Rani-Tours-and-Travels mentality. On a tour to Ladakh, the typical Maharashtrian would rather be more worried about the food he/she will be served there than whether he/she is carrying enough woollens. Which is why a Raja-Rani-Tours-and-Travels pitch like 'We serve you assal shrikhand-puri and batata-bhaji when you are with us, no matter where you are' works magnificently. The premium for these homely service is high, but the Maharashtrian would rather be safe.

This is the sole reason why my uncles and aunts have been to Dharamsala-McLedoganj twice but do not know what a Momo or a Thukpa is. And I think that's pathetic!

Many people visiting oktatabyebye would have strong opinions about leisure travel based on their own travel experiences. You get a bunch of people like this together on a forum, and they have the strength to change people's perceptions about travel! So regardless of who wins tomorrow, travel in India and the backpack-culture is sure to move forward. If Webchutney pulls this off properly, that is.

In other news, I've been underground for some weeks getting PaGaLGuY.com in its new avatar. Take a look at our new design (http://www.pagalguy.com/). We've also tied up with two of the best international companies in the MBA business. The first is with TopMBA.com, the guys who get us Stanford, Tuck, Harvard, INSEAD, Chicago GSB at the annual World MBA Tours. The other is with Manhattan GMAT, who're at the top in the US in the GMAT training. Both tie-ups are for content exchange. There are exciting times ahead!

Win Free Go Air tickets

PaGaLGuY.com is doing a rather unique campaign! Allowing the world to win 24 Go Air return air tickets in India just for blogging about them. The concept is simple. All you need to do is tag four of your friends while making a blog post for which the details are given below.

Best of luck in winning those free free free air tickets!!!

## Start of GoPaGaL Tag ##

If your blogger friend has tagged you, follow this link to participate: http://www.pagalguy.com/goblog/

GoAir and PaGaLGuY.com bring to you the GoPaGaL Campaign where you can win free return tickets to the destination of your choice. Winning is simple, just copy paste this tag on your blog after adding answers to the questions below and publish this as a blog post on your blog! Then head out to http://www.pagalguy.com/goblog/ , fill in the form and send us your Name and Blog post URL & Finally, tag 5 more blog users and let the world know. Promise! Its that simple and should take you no more than 5 minutes!!

— Answer the question below —

Q) On which GoAir Sector would you like to win a free air ticket?
A) Mumbai - Srinagar
( Answer the above question after you visit http://www.goair.in )

[ Link (Tag) 4 other blog users in your network so that they too get a chance to win the tickets. Without you tagging 4 other bloggers, your entry will stand disqualified.]
Tag
I would like to link the following bloggers!
(Please include the full URL to the blogger you are tagging)
e.g: http://insane.pagalguy.com, http://whatblogmen.blogspot.com etc etc

1 — Neha - http://neha16.blogspot.com/
2 — Zarine - http://toughmorns.blogspot.com/
3 — Siddharth - http://blogmia.blogspot.com/
4 — Neeta - http://could-it-be-mpd.blogspot.com/

— End of Question & Answer —

Now head over to http://www.pagalguy.com/goblog/ and submit your entry to win the tickets. New winners will be announced every fortnight!

Why? What? How?

This is an unique campaign run by ‘GoAir - The People’s Airline’ and ‘PaGaLGuY.com - India’s largest MBA forum’.

We are giving out over 26 return airtickets over a period of two months!

Join the insanity and find more ways to win tickets at http://www.pagalguy.com/gopagal/

Visit GoAir - http://www.goair.in
Visit PaGaLGuY.com - http://www.pagalguy.com

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