Travel tales

Listening to Safari TV's Santhosh George Kulangara - a Keralite travel journalist - as I go about my kitchen chores is a new habit that has helped to relieve the boredom of cooking as well as gain some GK. A self-made man from a non-descript (Onamkeramoola = literally meaning a corner where our festival Onam will not enter), Santhosh is an inspiration. 

I hope that in these troubled times - when a bishop or two from the Catholic community in Kerala is spewing venom at Kerala Muslims and a certain political party is hoping to reap the harvest of this divide - the sane observations of Santhosh will prompt people to think twice about hating the other. That no community is to be hated, and that there are good people everywhere, that no country is our enemy  - these are valuable lessons we could learn from Santhosh's monologues and dialogues on his Youtube/TV channel.

Santhosh says he was lucky he could travel on college tours as a primary schooler when his dad was running a private (the much-ridiculed parallel) college. Interestingly, he says he had to read up about those places before travelling and makes notes as he travelled. He also reminisces that his father did not let him join a regular college because he wanted to do 3rd group (Humanities) for PDC/Plus 2, and had to join the parallel college. Through sheer will, he reached out to Doordarshan producers and slowlu established himself as a documentary producer. The rest as they say is history. Today he is a member of Kerala State Planning Board.

Listening  to him yesterday, I remembered I had no such luck regarding excursions though my dad took his department students on trips every year. Since it was a co-ed institution, he didnt take me. Instead he took mom and brother, the former to look after the girls in the group. 

I went on an excursion for the first time during my BA, when the hostel girls of our batch went to Hyderabad by train. It was a fun trip when we visited the Golconda Fort, the Charminar and the Salar Jung museum. I also made one bus trip to Madras from the same hostel which was best forgotten as the nun-in-charge provided the worst facilities and food. All I remember was the chill of Thekkady as our bus wound its way up the high ranges, the water scarcity in Chennai and the Santhome Church, where the remains of Apostle St Thomas was originally interred. 

The next trip was to Kodaikanal from MCC during MA (the first trip without teachers and wardens breathing down our neck; the only junior professor sent along being a sport and falling in love with a good friend during the trip - they married years later), and then to Mussoorie with a senior and her friends while in Delhi. Though I love hill stations, I develop motion sickness on bus rides to the destination and hence I dread them partly. After marriage, we have made a few trips - to Bangkok to visit sis-in-law, to Pondy on the scenic ECR route often, around a section of Tamil Nadu to visit Madurai, Thanjavur  and Chidambaram temples, the Velankanni church and the Pichavaram mangrove forest. 

Bangkok was amazing, and we loved the food the most. The two of us often went to Big C supermarket to eat and shop to our heart's content. We went paragliding, made a tour of the Grand Palace, and a few Buddhist temples including the Reclining Buddha one. We made a trip to Pattaya too with our relatives, and got a taste of what makes Bangkok famously notorious. Beautiful transgenders and nude bars filled the wayside. At our hotel in Bangkok, elderly white men splashed in the pool with their temporary local girlfriends.

The Kenya trip in 2012 was without Vinod, who excused himself saying that he was busy at work  - just me and the kids and dad to visit bro and family for 3 weeks. It remains the best holiday the kids have had so far.

Since shifting to the UAE in 2015, I had the good fortune to visit Myanmar and Lebanon on an assignment. The half-believer in me temporarily donned the garb of a believer to do press releases and reports for a Xian organisation.

Dubai Frame.

We have not made many trips here except for the weekend mall hopping. On our first two trips as tourists I probably saw more places than I have done since - the Miracle Garden which blooms in winter, the many malls which are like pilgrim centres (the iconic Ibn Batuta mall, the gargantuan Dubai mall which has a dinosaur fossil from Wyoming). We are yet to see as family the Burj Khalifa from the top, the Dubai Frame, a dhow cruise or a desert safari. I once managed to get a free pass which helped me go up to the 124th floor of Burj Khalifa on a very very crowded evening, while Ash went up Dubai Frame and I took Mira to the Underwater zoo and aquarium in Dubai mall. All on a day during peak tourist season in pre Covid times.

From atop the Burj Khalifa.

And now like some Indian expats here, we hope to make a trip to Georgia/Armenia which gave visa-free entry to UAE residents in pre-Covid times, to the Love lake here in winter, and to Jebel Jais the tallest peak in the country. When restrictions ease, we may make that stalled trip to London too. Plans, that is all. For the expat, the first destination is homeward.