As a solo traveller, I believe that trouble has been my companion without my consent. Depression and anxiety accompany me during the rest of my journeys. The year passed, and being the person I am, the travel memoirs of the past only remind me of the bad experiences (lol, just kidding). Traveling doesn’t mean that you will be collecting pleasant memories on your way. The bad experiences are what shape you as a traveller and give you things to rant on social media, Tripadvisor and so on. Now that the year 2017 has passed, I am jotting down some of these experiences. Read on –
Trusting Rajasthan’s Private Transport
Rajasthan’s private transport is incredible. I think they conduct special tests and employ the ones with the worst driving skills. I was doing a monsoon trail of Rajasthan in the last week of July and ended up booking the private buses thrice. I had no idea about the bad roads and the driving. At points it was so rash that while traveling from Jodhpur to Kota, my bus jumped several feet up in the air after bumping into a pothole. The impact was so bad that the glasses of the rear window shattered into pieces. Luckily, no one got hurt but I couldn’t sleep the whole night. While traveling from Ajmer to Jaisalmer (long story, don’t ask) the driver and the conductor probably confused the bus for Pushpak Vimana and gave tickets to more people than the bus could accommodate. At one point, people were standing inside a fully air conditioned bus as if it was a local transport vehicle.
Taking a non-stop trip from Delhi to Kinnaur and return
Kinnaur is amazing but one needs to have proper number of days in their hand while traveling. There is one bus from Delhi that goes straight to Sangla. It takes almost 18 hours to reach its destination. I thought it will be a good idea to board this bus and save some time that I’d probably waste by staying in Shimla or Narkanda. On my return I did the same thing and rode my bus straight to Delhi. Both times, after my rides were over, my body was paining from the speed bumps and I wanted to poop so badly because I was riding a bus for 16 hour straight. Worse, I acquired a look that made people confuse me for the bus conductor (no offence to the bus conductors).
Trekking to Bijli Mahadev and booking a return ticket for same day
Day treks sound fun. Travel websites that write articles on ’10 weekend treks in Himachal for every adventurous soul out there’ probably count three days in their weekend because trekking and then returning home is simply impossible. Of course it won’t be applicable to those who live near those mountains or have their own vehicles and can drive at the speed of 160 kmph. And after all this, they’ll still stay fresh to attend office on Monday morning. I arrived Manali on a Saturday and planned for Bijli Mahadev trek on Sunday. Worse, I booked return a bus ticket from Manali to Delhi on the same day. Little did I know about how awesome the local buses of Himachal Pradesh are? These small buses use the same technology that was used in Pushpak Viman but its speed is slower than a tortoise (no offence to the tortoise community). The driver drives so slow that one can run a marathon and the bus will still be the last to cross the finish line. Worse, it stops after every five minutes because every passenger riding it is either a relative of the driver or the conductor and it is their moral duty to drop them right next to their home.
Now that I have ranted so much, you must have understood that how late I would have started my trek and how amazingly I would have missed my bus going to Delhi. One thing I learned, THERE IS NO SUCH THIING AS A WEEKEND TREK IF YOU LIVE IN DELHI AND DO NOT HAVE A CAR.
Being too dependent on Indian Railways
Now that I have written praises for private transport of Rajasthan and public transport of Himachal Pradesh, how can I not write an ode to Indian Railways? The biggest rail network in the world is also the most unreliable. Here is how my year has gone thanks to amazing Bhartiya Rail. I was on a train from Delhi to Lucknow. It started 4 hour late from Delhi and reached Lucknow 10 hour late. Result, I missed my next train and ended up spending an entire day in the city wasting INR 1000 on my stay for no reason. Second instance, I had a train to home from Lucknow, going to Patna. The train was 20 hour late, by the time I reached home, the train was more than 36 hour late. I had to take a bus to Allahabad, another bus to Banaras, spend one night in Banaras and then finally catch another train that was again 16 hour late, had to give a bribe of INR 100 to the TT who then allowed me to sit on that train. I could have reached Patna in 24 hours. It took me five days to reach my destination. And these are just a few of many examples how royally Indian Railways have screwed my travel plans.
The fun part is that I am writing this blog sitting in a train to Delhi (it is five hour late :P)
Banaras Dev Dipawali
I love Banaras (in a very non sarcastic way) and I have been attending the Dev Dipawali festival of Varanasi for 4 years. This was the fifth year and the first time when I would have gone to the event with my DSLR. So what happens when a lesser known festival appears on the global map of every travel website? This year’s Dev Dipawali saw such a huge crowd that it was not ready to handle. Millions of people walked all over the Ghats, knocking out diyas and pushing each other. This was unlike anything I have seen in the past. The exit point of Assi Ghat got so crowded that people starting jumping and running over the cars and jeeps to cross to other side.
Attending Cherry Blossom Festival
This year, one festival that made its presence felt all over the social media was the Cherry Blossom Festival of Shillong. The festival authorities made sure that every travel buff(oon) knows about the event through paid promotions and content on every major travel website. As a result, the festival saw a huge crowd and participation from travellers and photographers from all over the country. What the festival attendees didn’t see were the Cherry Blossom flowers in full bloom. For me, it was a colossal waste of time and money. However I was lucky to see the full bloom only the day after the festival ended.
Getting high in Spiti and trekking to Chandratal under AMS
I used to believe that I have the endurance that one needs to travel in Spiti. After-all, I regularly travel with a 30 kg of weight on my back. But even this tough guy couldn’t withstand Spiti’s weather and altitude.
The story goes like this – I had to trek to Chandratal. A logical way to trek is by spending some time exploring Kaza, Hikkim and Tabo and getting used to the altitude. Instead of this logical approach, I planned for the trek first and then decided to stay in Kaza afterwards. The trek for Chandratal starts from Battal which is a small stopping point in middle of nowhere. Here I met some other trekkers who offered me a joint. And after a few puffs, I felt asleep.
On a day when I had traveled from Manali to Battal, was already tired and wanted to sleep, I failed to take every precaution that a trekker should be taking. I woke up with the worst headache of my life. Next morning, after a couple of glasses of ginger lemon tea, I started my trek. I realized that I would faint. I took a lift and then walked and then took a lift again. When I reached Chandratal, I ended up puking my guts out.
Not keeping gaps between my travel plans
I am a content writer who believes that he has luxury to work from any part of the world. But to write content and get paid, it is important to stay at the place, lose tiredness from continuous travel and then deliver quality content to the client. I learned that the hard way. Here is an example what happened, after spending a week in Kashmir, I took a train ride to Banihal, then a jeep to Jammu and then a direct bus to Delhi. By the time I reached Delhi, I was in no shape to stand properly, forget write. Worse, I had a bus for Rishikesh next morning and then a trek to Valley of Flowers. During this time period I wrote zero blogs and hardly delivered any content to any of my clients. This was the time I learned that I am supposed to keep a gap of at-least a week between my two trips.
Holi at Mathura
Holi at Mathura is considered as an amazing festival that one needs to experience at least once in their lifetime. Only that my experience turned out to be on a bitter note. Instead of Holi, I saw tourists coming to the festival with the sole motive of eve teasing and groping the female travellers. I am so sure about these people being the tourists as their appearance was extremely different than that of the locals. Of course, the locals of UP hold a PhD in molestation and bad behaviour but I felt that this aura made the visitors take a chance and bring out their perverted self under the disguise of colors. Worse, in the first few minutes the festival started, water went inside my camera and it stopped working. When I took it to the service centre, they took out ounces and ounces of colours from everywhere. I am never going to Mathura again.
Full moon experience at Taj Mahal
Full Moon tour of Taj Mahal is an example that how far the tourism companies would go to scam the ‘wanderlusting souls’. I spent INR 500 on this full moon tour of Taj Mahal, the paperwork for which is more complicated than visiting Area 51. But the trouble would be worth it if someone was truly able to experience full moon over Taj Mahal. Instead, the moon was straight opposite of the building, over the entrance. The tour only goes for 15 minutes, as they need to accommodate more people who voluntarily want to get scammed. May be, the full moon would finally go over Taj after 1 AM or something, but I am not taking that chance again.
These are some of the biggest mistakes that I made in the year 2017. Some lessons learnt and old mistakes are to be avoided in the year 2018. But in the first three days since 2018 started, I have already missed a bus, a train and now on another train that is 5 hour late. Welcome to the year of new regrets and bad decisions.
Ha ha.. most of our event organisers actually dont bother about crowd handling. Now its so easy to promote the events but no one cares about their safety and ease during the event.
I know right, everything is taken so casually here.
Well, at least you learned what you don’t want to do again. Sometimes you do have to make mistakes in order to learn but sometimes they still stink. I hate the mistakes that cost me money!
I totally agree with you.
That sucks that the Cherry Blossom Festival was so packed! Wish your experience would have been better!
Mistakes that cost money are the worst. At least you can say that you learned from this experience what not to do. You also learned that you need to give yourself time between trips to be able to produce quality writing. I couldn’t help but giggle a few times while reading this. Though I haven’t been to the above mentioned places, I have been in similar situations elsewhere. Good Luck on your future travels.
Yeah, after a while these stories start to sound funny.
Haha, an amusing read and as you say, it’s these experiences that shape us and make for the best travel stories! You really do seem to have run afoul of India’s (in)famous public transport network! And that AMS experience sounds dire, worse than some of the stuff I saw people going through on Kilimanjaro. Here’s to a great 2018 for you and, hopefully, a few less travel woes…even if they do make for great stories 😉
Public transport is worst here. Is Kilimanjaro that dangerous? I so wish to scale that mountain someday.
I love blogs about travel. Specially because you can see amazing photos of wonderful places and know much more interesting things is amazing exchange expirience :3 This photo with bus is amazing 🙂
Do you think you will go again knowing now to take it a little easier? just reading it made it seem exhausting, i cant believe you lived it!
Haha. Thanks for dropping by.
at least you have some really interesting stories to tell your grandchildren! Honestly I think I would have been most disappointed at the cherry blossom festival. All of those tourists and no show! such a disappointment.
I think that gives me more hope to keep traveling. Nice stories for the future.
Sometimes in our life of being travelers, there are these unforseeen things that will happend. I can surely feel you when you had your train late more than 30+ hours that’s really insane. My worse nightmare is my sickness and nausea on the plane, seasickness when I’m on a boat and headaches on buses. Despite of all those pains I still endure them even if I have to take bunch of pills everytime. Well that’s life. Cheers to us! more travels to come this 2018!
I can so agree with you. I once fell sick recently and all my work went sideways. But like is like this, we will get surprises nice experiences in return. Cheers
Oh dear it sounds like you had some downs between all the ups. I guess at least you can learn from them and move on in the years to come.
That’s a part of life, isn’t it? 😛
Can’t believe how right you are! We always tend to write about the nice things that happens on a holiday however not everyhting goes perfect to plan 🙂 I loved reading this well done.
All travels are not perfect. And it is more enjoyable to read a story that tells everything, the good and the bad.
I totally agree with you
Haha…That’s so cool. That’s why I never make solid plans.
It sounds like you definitely had some travel experiences last year. However, even good or not so good, they all make an experience! Shame about the disappointing cherry blossoms!
Wow! I didn’t know that there’s Cherry Blossom Festival in India! I had seen twice in Korea and Japan but not in India.
We have started one and why not. Whatever brings more tourists.
We learn from our mistakes. Last year sure was really adventurous for you.
#Lifeofatraveller
Such a great thought. Thanks for dropping by.
i guess experience like this somehow makes the trip somewhat more memorable in a different way, lol
I totally agree with you.
Its funny how we can remember the worst part of anything and that sticks in our minds more than the great parts. To say you had some issues with the railway and buses is an understatement. I would all but give up on public transport after all the issues you experienced.
Your experience of driving in Rajthastan did make me chuckle when I was reading, I won’t lie! I had very similar experiences when I was in Delhi, they drive like loonies! x
Wow, what a trip. But you took some great pics. The worst thing ever is spending money on our mistakes. We live and learn and you can chalk it up to experience. Hopefully we all have learned a valuable lesson from your experience. Good luck on your future travel endeavors.
You know what they say about times like thees, they make good stories! It sucks that you didn’t have such a great time. But at least you can learn from this on what not to do.
And I love telling my stories, whether they are good or bad.
Life sure is an adventure, huh? I love that you shared the good, the bad and the ugly! Atleast you wont be making these mistakes again
HAHAHA I am sorry to hear about your mishaps but this is fun to read! I can relate with a lot of things with you, especially taking some bus lines with the worst drivers!! “Not keeping gaps between my travel plans” — yeah it’s fun and it will also make you like a living zombie, lol. I feel bad when these things happen but I do not regret any, it’s a part of the adventure! 🙂
Thats what keeps me going. Misadventures are an experience that shape your travel in future.
This is why I don’t prefer visiting places in touristy season…they are an experience but more of disappointments…I feel like being in a herd of sheeps
That’s how I felt in Jaisalmer Sam Dunes this year.
I think the errors and mistakes we make are what really contributes to our life experiences and makes us who we are ultimately. That said, I have to concur that Rajasthan’s buses are the absolute worst. I once took an overnight bus to Jodhpur from Jaisalmer, in a so-called sleeper bye and half the time, I was being tossed in the air.
Absolutely Danny, and yes, Rajasthan buses are the worst and most terrifying. I am never taking one ever.
I guess this is part of the adventure and experience. As much as we want our travel plans to be perfect, sometimes there are this kind of events. Probably charged to experience then.
Bas experiences is part of the fun 🙂 Oh. In 2017 I had my worst, I was deported from Ukraine. (It is bad I guess, but I found the whole thing hilarious)
Did you write any blog on it I would love to read it so that I don’t get deported as well.
Hello 🙂 Here is the one:
http://engineerontour.com/i-was-deported-from-ukraine/
That is a lot of misadventures for one year…no wonder you wanted to write a post on them 🙂 They make for the best stories, don’t you think? I would have just cried after that Taj fiasco..how did you feel?
Exactly. Why tell only positive aspects about travel when negative experiences are equally important.
What a mix of a year you’ve had — but at least you’ve learned from your mistakes, right? And I’ll be keeping all of these things in mind for my own travels. Thank you for sharing!
Hey Emily. Life is fun that way, isn’t it?
Aww! This is heartbreaking to read. It seems like so many of these events would have been so much fun if managed better by the powers that be. I do agree with keeping gaps. When I lived in Orlando, I frequently advised tourists there to make sure to schedule in at least one rest day – especially if traveling with children. So many times, I’ve seen screaming kids and parent’s at their wits end on what should have been a magical vacation – if only they’d listened,.
I have learned the value of traveling with gaps but it could have been an easy lesson.
Misadventures is really unpredictable when you travel. Good thing nothing really serious happened to you. Moving on and learn from it is the best thing to do. Wishing you an awesome 2018!
Yes, and thanks for dropping by
As a solo traveler myself I can whole-heartily agree with you in that trouble can be an uninvited companion, I’ve had some bad experiences myself. However what I’ve found is that as time goes on these bad experiences you had, will turn into funny travel stories in the future.
I would love to read about your negative experience. People glamourize travel as if it is all things good.
I sometimes get scared to travel too much. I have a condition and I’m always afraid it’s going to ruin it and then all the bad experiences will be all I have.
I totally agree with you
Wow…life is full of ups and downs. I hope your downs can become stories you share with generations…and they laugh in disbelief.
Late trains and delayed buses are common in India. I also had some bad experiences. Since each and every travel related thing is getting my hype nowadays, the chances for scams are also big. It is better to be little cautious while traveling. Great post.
Exactly @Jithin Travel has become so mainstream that everyone is trying to make a money out of it.
I have never been solo traveling and I am always quite chilled on holiday but oh man, these are a lot of mistakes. But at least you learnt so that is still something!
This is a really different type of travel post to read which was refreshing. Normally people go on about all the good things and I think it’s important to remember that travel isn’t always easy and things can go wrong! Shame you didn’t enjoy the cherry blossom festival as it sounded like it should have been beautiful.
Thank you Rachel. It is great that you found my article different.
Bad experiences are only lessons learned. Although most of these don’t sound too terrible after all! I would hate to be scammed into a “full moon tour” however, and not taking gaps between travel plans can definitely be tiring!
This was an interesting read because people don’t usually share the negatives about their travels. Bummer the Cherry Blossom festival wasn’t great.
I totally agree with you. Thanks for dropping by
Yes, I expected so much out of that festival and waste so much time and money. But now I can stop others from going there. LOL
Even if you regretted these things, I loved how you maintained a tongue-in-cheek disposition as you wrote about them. I found this post very entertaining. But no, I wouldn’t take a non-stop trip from Delhi to Kinnaur, either. I learned my lesson when I took a train from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. Haha. And wow, I didn’t know India had its own cherry blossom festival! 😮
Thank you so much for reading this post.
India does have its own Cherry Blossom Festival. I am planning to visit Thailand soon, can you link me to the article on how to travel there?
I guess not all travels are great. There are times we regret it, but we also learn something from it.
Yaaaas! I loved this. Such a fun read and really real. Travel can be a bitch
I’m sorry you had these experiences, but your writing style made them seem epic anyway! I got such a funny visual of your bus jumping 3 ft in the air! LOL. I would love to visit the Cherry Blossom viewing, so it sucks to hear that it wasn’t very worthwhile for you.
Haha.. I can totally agree with you but there is an experience being added everytime this happens.
This is such a fun read. Good thing you made it out Okey with all of these mishaps. Hope you had fun.
Thanks for dropping by @Ophelia, yes these things happen and add to the experience.
It looks like the Cherry Blossom festival was beautiful, it’s terrible that it was so crowded and you couldn’t enjoy it as much. Hopefully there will be some better, less crowded, things to come soon! Thanks for sharing!
It’s nice to read about your (worst) travel experiences from the last year.Some of the things such as private transport reminded me the buses of Sri Lanka.But,during my previous visit to Sri Lanka , I enjoyed such a bus ride just to give the experience to my kid.It was like a war for a short period. 🙂 It is true that constant traveling make us tired which doesn’t give the mood for writing another blog post.I have similar experience as I traveled too much last year and worked remotely at the same time.
nice post