Travel or Vacation

What do you like to do? I loveeee to travel... I have heard this so many times and I find that the entire world loves travelling. It makes me wonder what is so special about travelling. Is it seeing new things and places? well ,... And if I really cherish travel that much. If you ask me, I do not remember the last trip I really enjoyed.

I think I am so used to some routine comforts that any thing that takes me away is painful. And travel definitely involves a lot of uncertainties. The few trips I enjoyed were the ones where I had little to do..... But there are some learning from my travel experiences

1. Travel with like minded people, preferably... There are times when you are stuck in a group whose tastes and interests are entirely different. When you wish to visit a monument, they wish to sit in the room or sleep..that becomes a very tricky situation. I had gone to a trip to central india with a group of office colleagues who were so tired during the journey that they refused to move out of the room. It was a strict dampener. Moreover, they had no interest in sight seeing. I had to force them to stop so that at least I could do some sight seeing to get back some value for my money...

2. A similar thing happened when we went to corbett with a group of colleagues long back. The group had many smaller groups on a cold war... While coming back, we decided to halt at Nainital. There was this girl who refused to get down of the car because of her ego.It was such a stressful experience for the rest of the group.

3. Summer travel: Kids get vactions during summers, however, travel during summers could become a pain. The recent trip to Agra was a live example where I had to walk barefoot on burning marble inside the Taj at 43 degrees in the afternoon. We were scalded and drenched..Summer heat can get really oppressive and I would any day prefer to sit in the AC room with a book, laptop or TV.

4. Food: Sometimes there are uncertainties about the kind of food you may get during travel. There are times when we ended up hungry due to hygiene issues in places on road travel. The need to eat out is so high in some places that I find people lined up outside substandard eateries to get a bite. I mean why would I queue up to get a bite in the heat.. not me....High prices and poor quality

5. In some places, you are also duped by localites as they easily guess that you are a tourist and take advantage of the ignorance. In one of the religious palces, we were harassed and surrounded by people selling stuff at exorbitant prices. Due to our ignorance, we bought them and later got to know that they were not worth the money. Also, Autowallahs take you for a ride, i mean literally .... in new places. They take you round and round and end up making a lot of money. This is not just about money but about the mental harassment

6.In one of the trips to haridwar-rishikesh, we did not get a place to stay and had to go round and round to shady guest houses...

7. Hygience and loos: Indian public toilets are rarely clean and it becomes a nightmare to use them. Bathrooms at home are your own however basic they are.. but outside, even some really good places have not so maintained ones and the worst part is to share..