The year 2013 has been quite exceptional for me so far in terms of travel. We're barely into the third month, and I've already had four memorable trips. In fact, the Travel Gods have been good to me not only in quantity, but quality as well - all the trips were so different from each other!
The first trip was in the second weekend of January. It was a three-day weekend because of Pongal, so Nikhil and I went off on the Chalukyan trial - the cave temples of Badami; Aihole - often called the cradle of temple architecture; Pattadakkal - a museum of temples.
After a bare day's gap, off I went to Goa. Fantabulous food, shiny beaches, and - God - the sheer magic of Goa. I think I finally understood what it is to be a man in India - to not have judgemental eyes on you all the time, to not care about what you're wearing, to walk on a beach in the middle of the night with no worries.
The next trip was home. It was almost unplanned, to be honest. We were supposed to just enjoy the Kochi Biennale for two days and come back to Bangalore. But we got tired of the biennale on the very first day (it was SO HOT and HUMID - Bangalore seems to have spoilt us weather-wise), and scooted off to Kollam and the grandmother's awesome food. From there, we went on home to Trivandrum. And then ended up staying for a week because of the two-day all-India bandh.
And then last weekend, we went off to Delhi. The trip was ostensibly to collect my award for winning this competition. But my friends in Delhi have been wanting to meet Nikhil for a long time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. So I had three wonderful days soaked in nostalgia - meeting old friends from school and college, visiting Dilli Haat, street shopping in Sarojini Nagar, travelling on the wonderful Delhi Metro.
So history, beaches, home, nostalgia. A pretty good set of trips, don't you think? I'm planning a bunch of posts on these travels. In fact, a couple of them are half-way done. Let's hope I actually finish them this time around!
The first trip was in the second weekend of January. It was a three-day weekend because of Pongal, so Nikhil and I went off on the Chalukyan trial - the cave temples of Badami; Aihole - often called the cradle of temple architecture; Pattadakkal - a museum of temples.
After a bare day's gap, off I went to Goa. Fantabulous food, shiny beaches, and - God - the sheer magic of Goa. I think I finally understood what it is to be a man in India - to not have judgemental eyes on you all the time, to not care about what you're wearing, to walk on a beach in the middle of the night with no worries.
The next trip was home. It was almost unplanned, to be honest. We were supposed to just enjoy the Kochi Biennale for two days and come back to Bangalore. But we got tired of the biennale on the very first day (it was SO HOT and HUMID - Bangalore seems to have spoilt us weather-wise), and scooted off to Kollam and the grandmother's awesome food. From there, we went on home to Trivandrum. And then ended up staying for a week because of the two-day all-India bandh.
And then last weekend, we went off to Delhi. The trip was ostensibly to collect my award for winning this competition. But my friends in Delhi have been wanting to meet Nikhil for a long time, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. So I had three wonderful days soaked in nostalgia - meeting old friends from school and college, visiting Dilli Haat, street shopping in Sarojini Nagar, travelling on the wonderful Delhi Metro.
So history, beaches, home, nostalgia. A pretty good set of trips, don't you think? I'm planning a bunch of posts on these travels. In fact, a couple of them are half-way done. Let's hope I actually finish them this time around!
0 comments:
Post a Comment