diary of a traveler

There was a time when Diwali (the Hindu new year day precisely) was the opportunity to meet all our relatives & friends for whom we had no time throughout the year & was the greatest festival of social networking. In those times telephones were a luxury & all social gatherings were physical only. Those meetings had its own charm as we could not personally meet as frequently.   But now after voice/video calling reaching to all the corners & classes of the country, the appeal of those meetings is lost & the festival is forgotten. So now everyone has a different agenda to spend the mini vacation of Diwali. And as I never had any agenda, It has always been difficult to spend time during these group of festivals.   Anyway, this Diwali I was conscious of the upcoming holidays & had made up my mind to have a getaway tour. So, I joined a package tour of Jaisalmer as a solo traveler & what follows is the story of this Diwali Getaway.   Sam Dese...

          Travelling to new places is the hobby I am focusing much more in past few years so when this opportunity came for an official visit to Mumbai, I grabbed it with both hands - both figuratively & literally with as it involved carrying one suitcase with equipment.           There's nothing special to talk bout the journey or the job I went for so I will go straight to the Vashi railway station from where I caught my first Mumbai local train. It was very easy to get on board compared to what I had imagined & was both cheaper & faster compared to the taxi ride I opted to reach early. The struggle to get home is real in Mumbai & I got to experience it this time. It took all the three modes of commute - train, rickshaw & taxi - plus one & a half hour through the evening life of Kurla, Sion & Dadar to reach my hotel. Finally I found the bed to let my body to relax after a tiring day.       ...

            C onsidering the fact that love is life, here I have avoided the obvious title for this story but it is almost there. This was a weekend getaway  on a riverside ashram just outside my city . The name itself was a major motivation to join this program - happiness program. Anyway I never expected it to make my life happy magically but I knew that a weekend away from city in the wilderness can only be better than struggling to pass time in malls or multiplexes. The Friday evening long drive began at home & reached the end of the city, crossed picturesque river Mahi on NH-8 & in the last lap, crossed muddy farm roads leading to the Ashram. Not much was there to do except from getting settled in our rooms, having Sattvic dinner & enjoying Satsang music. Sleeping late is also a kind of happiness for many but you have to sacrifice it for the happiness program of life. Anyway for past many years my morning starts around 5 only so I...

            I like the monsoon very much, I like the aroma of wet soil after the first rain, I like the romantic atmosphere that monsoon brings, but I don't like to get wet & stay wet for long & that's what got to me on my very first trekking adventure. Now as the April tour of Mount Abu wasn't as delightful as expected, I jumped onto one Saputara trekking adventure.  The Saputara trekking camp was just another weekend getaway for me & I never intended to do actual trekking there. But I oversighted the fact that summer was already over & in July it rains almost all day in Saputara.       The adventure began in a very cheerful & lively fashion as it was mostly filled with youngsters who played music all night & set the tone for the time ahead. Night journey was sleepless as usual for me but being a sitter bus it was sleepless for my back too.      Anyway this being an adventure trip with very reason...

      I have always been fond of remembering past days especially good ones & the following story is about going 14 years back down memory lane. The occasion was official but the feeling was almost-not completely-like having a vacation in country side.       The training cum exam was planned to be an exciting get together of our batchmates & that was a nice change from the past tour when I was the only one from my state. But my approach towards studies was almost as casual as it was in the year 2008. (The story is available on this blog with the title 'India Dekha' inspired from MP tourism ads)       Meeting long lost friends on the train was the only excitement on the otherwise boring train route to Jabalpur. I still can't believe that all of us are past 40 years of age & most have teenage kids. But that's what life is - you keep thinking, planning, preparing, shaping, designing, organizing & it just happens. Anyway it was of...

                  Here it is - story of another solo adventure - short weekend trip to a hill station for a change. After Daman - 2019 and Diu - 2021 trips, the next destination was supposed to be Goa but as it is not suited for a short/solo trip, I zeroed in on Mount Abu as my summer interlude.                As usual, there was about an hour of extra waiting at the pick up point for the sleeper bus followed by sleepless, uneventful journey. It was well past my breakfast time & the bus stopped right in the snacks zone. There I had a satisfying breakfast of Meduvada with tea to begin the adventure on a tasty note. DAY 1 Entering Abu at Sunrise           Reaching the hotel was not so pleasant experience as It didn't look like it looked online & also it cost me 200 Rs. to travel the 1.5 km distance to the hotel, maybe that was the fixed charge of a jeep there. Anyway after...