When The Travel Bug Caught Us!!!

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

Such a profound thought 🙂

‘A soothing wave touching the soul, a sigh of relief amidst all dissonance.’ That’s how I would like to define Travel.

There could actually be so many reasons as to why one travels? The most obvious ones being vacation, work and education but here I’m hinting on something beyond the ordinary.

I believe one travels for the inspiration, experience, touch more souls, make an impact, for adrenaline rush, to find oneself, allot time to retrospect, do bizarre crazy things, plan your future in solace or might be simply to take a break from the chores.

The list is endless; it took us some time to happily realize that we both (me and my Soulmate) are immensely fond of travel alike. Travel, for us, offers the palate & we wish to continue our journey throughout our lives. Do you guys recall that old super emotional ‘Dairy Milk’ advertisement ‘Kuch Khaas hai Zindagi Mein’, in English it means ‘there is something very special in life’ and our every travel adds that special element to our lives. And the readers are welcome to share their special element with us. For different people the interests are different and that special element could evoke from Dancing, Shopping, Reading, Painting or anything.

Let me share a little background here.

Our first trip together was to Shimla, Himachal, India. Well, there is no embarrassment is accepting the fact that great learning comes from the experience, like amateur first-time-tourists (mind it not travelers!!!) we embarked on our journey. As it unfolded we discerned that there are so many things that we could have done & enjoyed in a fuller & unconventional manner. But being our first time, we were skeptical about taking risks & trying out new things.

Most of the hill stations & attractions in India have these ‘bhaiyas with horses’ charging anything between INR 100 – 500 or may be more, equipment & clothing rental walas and the tea & maggi stall walas, in one way or the other they fleece the customer depending on their own whims & fancies. We soon realized that we also have been cheated after paying the amount for the services and not being able to enjoy the nature much.

So, we decided to travel around the land ourselves, we ditched any local conveyance until necessary & started exploring the attractions on our own. And bang on, the contentment we garnered was so energizing like true TRAVELERS. Every travel has since been an insightful discovery and we stick to explore the destinations in ways untraveled before.

Bountiful, magical and vibrant Nature, shot on our bike trip from Mcleodganj to Dalhousie 🙂

We have continued & followed our plans to all our succeeding destinations till today & it feels awesome.

Shimla was the beginning, same year we covered Rishikesh, Jaipur, Manali, Agra; following up with Srinagar, J &K, Dharamsala, Mcleodganj, Dalhousie, Jaipur, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Udaipur, some parts of Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai and ofcourse Delhi. Currently our focus is India.

Travel, photography, discovering have completely enticed us for life 🙂 and we are totally glad for that.

Tips:

• Always carry variety of eating items with you like dry fruits, bread & butter and ready to make maggi are good options. You will get hot water almost everywhere you go. These ready to make maggi stuff comes in really handy.
• Research every place you plan to go well & keep map of the place with you while traveling. The GPRS in phone does wonders, on most of our bike trips where we cannot find a soul on road we usually find mobile maps very trustworthy.