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Trying Travels


I recently travelled by bus on an overnight journey, and in a nutshell, it was a terrible experience. This was an anomaly, considering the number of times I've travelled ever since I was a kid.

The bus was in a bad shape, and the driving - what can I say? Half the time I felt as if I was being dragged along the rugged road, with the bus taking off in short leaps like a grasshopper. And the rest of the time, I was trying hard to lie down with the tiniest part of me touching the sleeper berth, so that I could spare my poor aging body the agony of being flipped in air often with a vigorous jolt.

The bus was of course air-conditioned. I had wanted that so that there would be at least some semblance of neatness and comfort on a long journey. What I had not anticipated was a gaping wide AC vent right on top of my head with the thermostat set at 16 degrees Celsius on a cold winter night.

Well, the best part of my journey was that : it ended!! As I got down from the bus, I was thanking my stars, feeling as lucky as someone who had just escaped from the vicious teeth and the scary bowels of a horrendous monster.

And yet, today, on my way to work (which is a 90-min commute), I was just thinking about how wonderful it is to travel. Traveling in solitude with a book for company, traveling with a loved one, traveling to explore new places, traveling to meet old friends, traveling to work in anticipation of a busy day, traveling back home eager to see my family again -each one a unique experience that I love and cherish (except the times when I'm stuffed in a bus full of people with barely enough space to draw air into my lungs).

So, in spite of my recent (mis)adventures, I'm not yet ready to give up traveling, though my aching bones would be grateful if the journey was a little less threatening.

-Loud Speaker

Comments

  1. Jisha Ashok13 January 2015 at 21:31

    Perceiving travelling experiences as a journey to another experience.. Except for the mention of "aging body", i too seized every bit of this write.

    ReplyDelete

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