“I travel not to go anywhere, but
to go. I travel for travel’s sake.” Robert Louis Stevenson couldn’t have echoed
my thoughts any better. The bug of
wanderlust had been implanted in me when I was very young, thanks to my father.
I remember every year we would take this grand trip to some part of the
country; it was a majestic affair. But those were different days, and these are
different days. I grew up, moved out and am now traveling all by myself with a
mate. This is the third trip that we took in less than a year. While all three
of the trips have been short ones, mostly over extended weekends, but the
aching legs, the dirty laundry, the worn out shoes, the insect bites, the empty
wallets that the trips have culminated in, have been profoundly satisfying.
The one thing that I absolutely
desperately miss in Mumbai is the capacity to walk around freely. My friend and I often lament about the lack
of space to move or walk around freely in the city. So we try and tame these
longings of walking around and then let them free during the trips. On this
recent trip to Mahabaleshwar, we let our fancy of walking run amok and ended up
walking 15km, give or take in two days. We walked under the blazing sun, we
walked in the drizzle, we walked under a cloudy sky, it didn’t matter to us
what the condition was, we just walked.
The trip served both of us as a
nice break from the city. Don’t get me wrong, both us love Mumbai, but one has
to turn away from it on occasion to appreciate it more. The trip was a sudden plan and it happened to
coincide delightfully with the ‘Strawberry Festival’ at the Mapro Gardens. We
were thrilled as we were greeted with free bowls of strawberries and
mulberries; we hadn’t expected such hospitality at a festival.
At Panchgani, we decided to do
the entire table top plateau on foot. We were enthusiastic and brimming with
energy and excitement for having found the opportunity to walk around such a
huge open space. The experience of the entire walk under a blazing sun would
have been surreal had we not been robbed by a water bottle robber. Yes, our
bottle of water, which I had set down to investigate a cave, was robbed by
someone. I had set down the bottle and went down the steps, cut out crudely at
the side of the mountain, which made climbing down the stairs, without the use
of your two hands to hold onto something for your dear life, a little risky. I
grumbled for a while as my friend tried to pacify me, with her logic that
probably the thief was thirstier than we were but after a while she gave up.
She said if you want to go on grumbling for the rest of the walk, then let’s break
up and walk separately. Well, I didn’t want that of course so I shut up
immediately. I am happy to announce the rest of the walk was very pleasant
indeed.
After the taxi dropped us off at
our hotel, we realized that we were short of cash. And the nearest ATM was 2km
away, in the main market. So we set off on foot, gleeful at the opportunity of
another walk. We walked all the way to the main market and found it to be a colourful
and vibrant place. We congratulated each other for undertaking the walk for we
would have surely missed the sights of the market. We roamed about the
streets for a while before setting off again for our hotel. It started
drizzling, but that didn’t deter us from completing our 5km walk. We marched on
and our painful calf muscles are our proud war wounds. But we didn’t stop
there. While nursing our sore legs and enjoying the cool breeze at night, we
hit another crazy idea: we would walk the 2km with our rucksacks, up and down
the hill to the bus stop. When we were checking out the manager kindly offered
us to book a cab, but we vigorously shook our heads and said we were going to
walk to the stop. It is needless to say, the poor guy looked very surprised and
I think I also detected a hint of bewilderment. No one sane decides to walk 2km
in the sun with a rucksack, up and down a hill just because they were deprived
of walking for three months.
1 comment:
yes...I feel the same and u really don't have to doubt if I would connect over travelling or not.. I always do. As a matter of fact, most of the girls from our school r similar I think..similarly crazy to be precise. I recently went on a hike where we didn't have enough time to complete the trail. So, thumbs up to you people for making the most of the trip!
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