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Sure, we've become pretty adventurous what with the world shrinking. On World Tourism Day today MetroPlus gives you a few tips on the pitfalls that invariably accompany strolleys
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MILES TO GO Travel is all about exploring the unfamiliar PHOTO: VIPIN CHANDRAN
How do you travel on something that doesn't exist? Like a road for example. There was really no road to Mandu: just miles of rubble. Our battered Maruti 800 growled and wheezed its way up the awful slope. It was sundown and we'd driven from Phardapur near Ajanta early morning. It took us two hours to climb 20 km of gradient. Get the picture?
Finally we reached Mandu village. Time was when Mandu, in Madhya Pradesh, was at the heart of history, associated with the Khiljis, Ghauris and Mughals. Today it suffers all the maladies of a Bimaru State.
We'd decided to go there to check out the remnants of Afghan architecture in a moment of unerringly rotten timing. It was the week after Diwali and the entire population of the neighbouring Gujarat had decided to do likewise. There wasn't a single room available.
Our sense of adventure gave way to that of panic. There was no question of going back. After we'd done with rebuffs after rebuffs, we headed for a dharamshala recommended by that urban middleclass traveller's Bible, the Lonely Planet.
The dharmshala was impressive-looking. But we were not. Not after two weeks on the road. The official at the counter was curt. "Room nahin." Clearly, he had formed his own impressions of us: spouse looks like a firang missionary when the light is right and I a tribal convert when it isn't. And an adolescent who wanted to chill elsewhere and hadn't stopped scowling ever since we'd left Bangalore didn't help either. Using the tiny car as sleeping quarters for three was going to be a problem.
Finally, in my ingratiating best, I pleaded: "Bhaisaab, sirf ek raat ke liye."
Bhaisaab relented. We coughed up a modest "donation" after which he glared at us and snapped (in shuddh Hindi): "Don't eat here. Don't use the toilet. Don't bathe."
A flunkey showed us our room. It was the storeroom. On one corner was a mountain of stained mattresses and pillows. We rummaged through and prepared ourselves for the night. And no, barked the flunkey, we couldn't lock the door.
Spouse artfully used a spanner to keep out the world after we went out to dine on dal-baati in one of the numerous tiny eateries lining the main road. We spread ourselves on the floor, with lizards and other humble denizens for company.
Around midnight we sneaked out to check out the bathrooms. They had more filth than our bodies. We fled, holding our noses.
Before the crack of dawn, we furtively washed ourselves at the drinking water tap and crept out, unlamented and unmissed.
On our way out, we noticed that half the decent rooms in the dharamshala were empty.
SUGANDHI RAVINDRANATHAN
Eyes everywhere. Haven't you noticed? Prying eyes travel with you and around you and seem to grow larger and dig deeper into your soul when you're in a strange place.Is it for real or is it because while travelling we have nothing else to do, so our frenetic mind imagines these things?
Women will know this feeling through and through though I wonder if men have been the subject of snooping eyes. Let me tell you about Hyderabad. Maybe we should have been more careful in choosing a place to stay. Afterthoughts always follow wrong decisions, don't they?
It was a small obscure hotel. We had reached the hot and grimy city after a long journey from Goa. Morning ablutions done, my mother was busy with the intricacies of her sari-wearing ritual. Knock-knock. My father opens the door to find a li'l brat, head shaved, his face alight with an electric smile, holding on to our three tiny cups of chai. A little pat on his shoulder, a small tip and he's gone.
As we come and go into and out of the hotel, Brat whistles the latest Hindi cinema tunes. Kid! We ignore him.
That evening, after a hectic day of sightseeing, we're getting ready to hit the sack. Mother is changing her sari. Dad hears an odd noise and jerks open the door. Little bald head's there! One eye screwed shut, and the voyeuristic other firmly embedded on the keyhole. But only for a split second. Peeping Tom flees. All Dad grasps is the thin air and the ludicrousness of the situation. He roars.
I freeze in horror. My teenaged imagination overheats: I'd just changed before Mother who is by now cursing. Father tapes the keyhole with scotch tape (we always carry that for emergencies).
The next holiday, we land again unannounced, unplanned at another obscure hotel in another city. "Do you have any rooms that can be padlocked on a chilka? No rooms with keyholes please." Another learning experience, another conclusion. Another traveller's tip to take home. And share.
BHUMIKA K.
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