When I watch travel vloggers videos on YouTube, there
is a stark contrast in the way men and women describe their scary moments. The
guys talk about “other” scary things, while women’s scary moments mostly
revolve around men.
But, hey, let’s face it. Solo trips are not just about scary moments. Indeed the scary parts are almost nothing in the whole big
picture. Every moment is a learning when you travel. But, sometimes you learn
it in a fun way that lingers in your memories for eternity.
I present two such incidents from my travel that
taught me to be more hopeful in approaching life.
Hippie Island at Hampi:
The best things in life are never planned. It is because
we have an open mind to embrace any opportunity instead of sticking to a “plan”
our ego never let's go off.
One such amazing experience was at the Hippie island
of Hampi. The second day at Hampi, my plan was to go “planless”. I just wanted
to cross the river and see what that side has. And, it turned amazingly well, to
say the least.
Usually, in solo trips, we get to do only solo stuff
mostly. But, here I got a friend to hang out with and even got to swim in the
river with a bunch of kids. I still think sometimes what I would have done that
day if I had not got a company. Because the Hippie side is completely opposite
to the temple side of Hampi. It has got no monuments to explore. You just have
to explore the village side which would be quite difficult to do all by
yourself.
I had one of the most amazing memories of my life in
the river at Hippie. I don’t know how long I played there with the kids. The
friend I got in Hippie still stays in touch with me, though we are miles away.
We had some amazing conversations throughout the day.
The story of my 2nd day at Hampi is what I
keep telling myself whenever life doesn’t seem fair to me. It reminds me it
will all work out if I could just let go of trying to control life and accept
it as it is.
Parliament entry pass fiasco:
This happened in my Delhi trip. A couple
of weeks before the trip, I have mailed Tamil Nadu MPs to arrange for a show
around pass for the parliament. On the day of the trip, I have been instructed
to get it from one of our MP’s secretary. He handed me the pass and told me to
take an auto and reach the Sansad Bhavan gate. For my ease, he said it is Rail
Bhavan gate, meaning, the Sansad gate near Rail Bhavan. As fate would have it I
got it wrong. I told the autowala and he dropped me at the Rail Bhavan. It was
a very busy central government office fully guarded by CRPF. Like the secretary
told me, I showed my letter to a security i.e armed police. He didn’t even care
to look at the letter and pointed to a box where people kept dropping letters.
I tried to show him again and he shooed me away.
I remembered the Secretary’s advice, he had told me to
show the letter to the security and follow his instructions from thereon. So, I
had no other option than to obey him. I walked to the box and turned around one
more time. The police again told me to just drop it. I still could not
understand how it might work. How would someone tell me to enter the parliament
if I just drop a letter in a box? Where should I wait? And from where would I
get a call? Most importantly, why do I not see the Parliament here? While I
kept wondering, hovering my letter over the box, the next person in line grew
frustrated and snatched the letter from me and shoved it inside the box. I was
still in that confused state of mind and desperately needed answers. But, even
the police did not seem to speak anything other than Hindi.
While I was still there, one person came and dropped a
letter. I knew I should not let him go. I pestered him on what was the letter
he just dropped. He said it was a letter from an MP. I asked him what was in
it. He said it was something related to Railways. By this time, I have followed
him to his car. There was a lady in the car who saw me annoying her driver. She
promptly called me and enquired about the matter in impeccable English. Luckily, I
had a photo of the letter and told her that I just dropped it in the box. She
told me I was supposed to take it to a gate a few feet away from there, where the
parliament is actually located. She also told me to tell the cops to open the
box to take the letter out. This kinda freaked me out. I asked her again. She
said that is the only option and assured me that the cops would definitely do
that.
Motivated by her, I went straight to the cops and said
in broken Hindi and English, that I need my letter back. One cop took me with
him and opened the box. I rummaged through other mails and found mine and took
it to the Parliament.
If not for that lady, I would have never visited the
Parliament that day. She was that ray of hope, the universe sends you when you
are in a pickle. I always think of that incident to remind me that whatever be
the situation, if we just stick around and try to sort a mess, we will,
eventually, through some miracle.
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