Saturday, December 04, 2010

The lone journey

  
Travelling to a holiday or vacation alone as far as the Indian mind-set is concerned is a big No-No, almost to the extent its frowned down upon. A friend rightly said travelling alone is so under-rated. I was quite unsure myself at first about planning on a trip on my own, but the very grain in my body refused to spend a 3 day weekend at home doing absolutely nothing. So I started floating the idea around friends regarding destinations for a short vacation and from the responses I got I decided to go for this. Musandam-Dibba-(Oman) The price was quite reasonable, considering all the things on the offer but had a hard time trying to get a seat because it was the weekend and everyone was trying desperately to get on it. Still managed to get on one with last minute frantic pushing.

So, Mr. Badshaah Khan on D-day wakes me up at 7 AM, telling me to get to the pick up point in fifteen minutes or so. I almost banged the phone on him thinking he has got the wrong number but then it suddenly stuck me and the world felt like it was gonna come crashing down on me. As usual I had forgotten to set an alarm. I was probably thinking I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep in excitement of the impending travel (Yeah that’s me :|). I told him not to worry and I'll be there on time although he didn’t sound too convinced. 

I have a special routine redesigned for such emergencies, where we stick to bare minimums to get ready on time, if you know what I mean. And I convinced myself saying "Anyways I have to go swimming later in the day", so having a bath wasn't really that necessary and neither am I fan of having early morning bath on a holiday. Plus I am a responsible earthling, I am against unnecessary water wastage, so with a generous dab of deodorant I managed to get out of the house just in time since I had got my bag packed the previous night. 

A glorious morning waited as I stepped outside the flat, the birds singing tunes of autumn and dew glistening on the parked cards. I was quite happy with how the day was turning out so far. I was almost Halfway near the pick up point and like right on cue as if the universe had a way of leveling things with me, I remembered that I forgot my SLR. I felt like banging my head on the nearest wall. I had to run back almost a quarter mile and finally the lactic acid build up kicked in and had to walk the rest of the way.It was a quick grab and deploy mission and I decided that I was not going to run my way back. Let the driver wait if he has to. In the end I was still early, that's the greatest tragedy of my life lately, I can never be late, even after trying hard. 

Mr. Badshaah Khan was on time and after picking up the other fellow passengers which involved a lot of circling around unknown neighborhood’s for what felt like an eternity because some blonde chick refused to be picked up from anywhere else but in front of her doorstep, we were finally on our way. The road ahead was straight like an arrow with the weather still kinda dull and hazy with the sun shining on with pleasant warmness and sand engulfing us from all sides. I was left to my devices with nothing better to do and with a Autestic kid sitting behind me making weird noises and pulling my hair from time to time, I started experimenting with the SLR and the 300 lens and then there was this unusually beautiful section of the road which literally looks like the hump's of a camel's back. 


And soon enough we crossed the Sharjah border into Oman without any major security screening process, I guess the border security were least bothered even if we had been carrying a huge crater of RDX we would have been just let go into the Sultanate of Oman, with just the odd wave of the hand. I could feel the humidity increasing as we were getting close to the land's end and the horizon up ahead disappearing into bottle green vastness...

(To be continued...)

1 comment: