Saturday, December 24, 2011

Travels

I've been on the road for a while now. My travel is mostly such - that when it is travel time, I end up traveling up to 10 days a month, and when it's not, I don't travel even for a couple of months at a stretch. And most of the times, I can decide if I want to travel.

So recent travels took me to Mumbai. I don't dislike Mumbai, but I am not a huge fan either. I have mostly traveled to the city for work, and haven't stayed in the city for more than a week at a time. Plus, I haven't traveled extensively within the city as well, since mostly I end up staying close to my office, which is far from where most of the friends stay, and I hardly get time when traveling for work.

Of whatever I know and have seen, Mumbai has not been my cup of tea. Needless to say, Delhi's been my fav, and I could never get used to the pace of Mumbai. Too fast for my liking. And what puts me off most in Mumbai is that it is not conducive for self driving - I love driving, and staying in a city where I can't drive would kill me. Reading this (Delhi vs Mumbai) doesn't change much either. The debate on which city is better is endless, and I know I'm bull headed enough to stick to my gut.

Well, this time around, I ended up spending the weekend in the city as well. Friends insisted [and who am I to resist, when friends insist ;)], and the plan that chalked out was to make merry through the night, and go to WK the next day. Awesome fun, mind you. Can't describe better than P has, in her blog.

So what I was coming to, was that traveling this time was so unique in ways more than one. Firstly, I ended up spending some quality time in the city. And second, in those 2-3 days, we chanced upon traveling on a bike, an auto-rickshaw, a cab, a bus, a ferry, a train, a local, an airplane, and even a raft! It was as if we were destined to travel by all modes - where we could not get a taxi, auto was the saving grace; where we could not get an auto, a bus saved us; en-route airport while I could have missed my flight, a local came to the rescue. So net net, realized that all means of transport have their own niche.

And I guess I left Mumbai with a few brownie points to its credit.

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