Tapprs rental as a business

‘Why do you want to get into equipment rentals?’

A financially savvy friend of mine asked me.

Few of you might know that I handle Tapprs as a hobby venture.

Equipment rental, esp dealing with equipment like photography gear is

• a high risk business and equipment damages can hurt returns
• is dependent on volumes and return per rental activity is small
• is capital intensive (to make more money, you need to pump in more and buy more equipment)
• break even period is about 75-100 days worth of rental which in calendar terms could work out to more than a year for a very successful rental shop and could take 3 years for those that aren’t as successful. In 3 years, the equipment could fall out of favor from the user crowd.

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Sundarban, Sikkim & Lava trip: Details

Sikkim – Sundarban – Lava trip was a crazy solo trip where I was constantly on the road spending crazy hours in shared jeeps mostly.

Usually, I prefer to spend more time in a single place than keep hopping. But this time, I decided to hop every day, esp because I was solo and didn’t want to feel the lack of company. In the end, it turned out to be yet another good trip. The places were good enough company for me… perhaps except Gangtok!

A few friends asked me about the trip expenses and if I would be providing a break-up like I did for Borneo.

So, here it is along with a few other stats.

1. Itinerary

12 days from 4 May to 16 May. 12N 12 D to be precise.

Day zero: Home – Airport – Kolkata. Stay in the airport (yeah, quite used to sleeping on chairs )

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Sundarbans – Drag net fishing

Prawn seed fishing is a prominent river-bank occupation in the Sundarbans, done mostly by the women and children who are usually forced to do it to supplement the meagre income of their families. (Men usually are engaged in honey collection, boat-fishing, pulling rickshaws, mono-crop agriculture etc)

A rectangular net, as seen in pic, is immersed in the water and dragged along where the women (or children) wade through the clay bed in chest high water.

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Sikkim and Sundarbans

The backpack is ready!

After quite a while, am travelling again.

This time, it is solo backpacking to Sundarbans and then to Sikkim for 2 weeks.

The plan is to stay for 3 days in Sundarbans (in a not so easy to reach village where there is no electricity) and then to head to Sikkim for the Goecha la trek. I hope to find a group to join, else the cost of doing the 8-9 day Goecha La trek alone would be pretty high (and I don’t want that).

Here are a couple of pictures that I hastily clicked using my pocket camera.

Sorry, am in a hurry and this is all I can post for now. Will blog in detail later.

Bicycle touring

I was googling for bicycle rentals in Sikkim and Uttarkhand (to ride for just a day or two) and landed up at these pages.

1. Prof Amit’s 11 day 900km bicycle tour of Uttarkhand
2. Professors Amit’s and Saumyen’s tour of Kumaon region

I know both the professors through TFN where all of us were participants. So, it was even more interesting to read the trip report of someone  you know already.

And then, there are Shree’s tours of N. E. India and across the country.

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