Musings of a Wandering Mind

Getting Lost

“To get to Lepakshi, turn left at Kondikonda on Bangalore-Hyderabad highway,” said an informational posted on the internet. But Kondikonda was such a small place that they did not even have a sign naming the village. Or if it did exist, it must have been masqueraded by movie posters or went into hiding behind tea shops and trucks spread haphazardly near the road.

Consequence to not seeing a sign was obvious – we kept driving further in search of our destination. But time was on our side. There was no hurry to reach the place and we did we have any designated time to get back to Bangalore. We drove at ease, stopping at will where we felt like, spending time along lakes and fields that we kept seeing along the road. It was many months since the monsoons had departed, but subsequent showers had kept the lakes alive and filled with calm and clear water. Paddy fields had just been churning out slightly grown saplings in shallow stagnations meant to keep them green. When we eventually found our way through some circuitous twists and turns, we were drunk from a abundance of scenery that made our unintended deviation worthwhile.

When we lost our way to Lepakshi…

There are many a times I have lost my way and wandered in wrong directions during my journeys. I have ended up wasting time and searching for the way in such occasions, but a lot of times it has also lead to something interesting. Stumbling upon picturesque countryside near Lepakshi is just one such incidence. And then there are times I have wandered aimlessly without having a destination, and without knowing where to go. Places I have stumbled this way have often made my journeys memorable and eventful.

When we lost our way to Lepakshi…

But there are also times when I did worry about having lost the way and worried about not getting back on track soon. While trekking up Goecha La, I was walking alone and inadvertently took a path that I presumed is my way up. I did not spot anyone for next fifteen minutes on that path – be it my companions or porters which made me wonder if I am on the right path. Loosing my way in those high mountains where terrain can be harsh and weather is cold is not exactly my idea of fun, but I kept my calm. The bridle path I had taken had a few wild flowers and green surrounding, and I pressed on slowly, stopping every now and then to take pictures and enjoying the silence of the mountains. One of our porters found me before I had gone off too far, but the moments of solitude that I had spent among the unknown trail was pleasant and delightful.

When I lost the way in Sikkim…

The best moment of getting lost happened to me in Gokarna, when we wandered along its hills and beaches. We were searching for a path that should have lead us to the town, but instead found us away from the road, on a rocky shore lashed by the waves and chocolate brown boulders with crabs scurrying on them. It was devoid of people but for a lone fisherman who did not seem to be bothered about not having any catch, but went on throwing the thread farther and waited with no hurry for a fish to catch the bait. It was our moment away from the tourists, restaurants, boats and activities of the beach; it was our own moment with the sea on one side and rocky hill on the other, letting us into the real beauty that Gokarna is.

When we lost our way in Gokarna…

Another occasion that I often recollect is loosing our way once when we were trekking in the Sahyadris. I still don’t know where exactly was this – a friend of ours who lived in the region had taken us to a place that even he did not know well enough. We walked at will, climbed higher and higher and went into grasslands at the peaks where few people seemed to venture. It was rainy season, and turned foggy in later half of the day. We had wandered far away from the known path and could not find a clue about our way back in the fog. But it was a beautiful day in the mountain amidst green grass, wild flowers and no human presence. We were fortunately equipped well and ended up spending the night in the middle of the forest against our will. It was a cold and wet night and was not the most comfortable sleep I have had, but the memories of the day still remain fond. Were you ever woken up in the middle of the night by alarm call of a wild boar at close vicinity that found intruders in its territory?

Not every account of getting lost has been equally delightful. Driving through roads stretching out of Ooty trying to discover its places not in tourist map, we had lost our way a countless number of times and sometimes had to abandon our search. Trying to climb Kumara Parvatha on a rainy day, we could not figure the way ahead in fog and had to return without reaching the top. We had ended up driving many unrewarding additional miles in Wayanad for having chosen the wrong road.

But just heading off in a direction without knowing what is coming has more often been eventful than not. My first and only encounter with wild dogs(dhole) happened when we wandered aimlessly on the roads of Wayanad. Walking on Babadudangiri, we took an unknown detour and stumbled on a picturesque alternative route against the much travelled one. An impulsive decision to go beyond the last point of tourists in Manali lead us to an unknown place that was a riot of efflorescence and greenery. Such memories are many, and they keep pushing me to go further and look up to places not in the tourist map. Undoubtedly, there are times when such explorations have yielded nothing, but it is always worth the trouble when I look back at all the cherished moments that were a result of straying way.

Adding maps on India Travel Blog

I have been experimenting a bit with Google Maps on including relevant maps with all the posts. The task of setting up maps seems to be a little cumbersome but it works fine and the effort seems worth it.

I shall now try to spice up posts in future with relevant maps. Here is a sample map I generated of Laxman Jhula, with a marker for the bridge across Ganga(click on the marker to get info). If time permits, I hope to add maps to existing posts too.

I am slightly worried on the dependency on Google here though. Ideally I would just make an image copy of the map and post it here, but Google Maps terms doesn’t seem to allow me to do it. Hopefully it should not cause any problems in near future. If you know of any alternatives, do let me know.

So many tourists, just one Taj Mahal

Nearly every image you see of Taj shows makes it look lonely. There is just the majestic monument against a nice blue sky. No other construction of any kind, no people, nothing else. It gives an impression as though you could get there and spend time all by yourself marveling the monument.

The truth is far from it; it is almost always buzzing with thousands of people. Even at 6am in the morning when the doors open, you see a queue of people waiting to be let in. The morning crowd is largely western but Indians arriving later in the day are also in a formidable number. The economic prosperity and newly found riches of the Indian economy are propelling people to get out in large numbers.

We are a country where tourism has kicked off well only in the last few years. Continued economic growth will only make more and more people footloose, freeing up their resources and enabling them to spend on travelling. That’s a good thing indeed, but the question comes, how many tourists can the Taj accommodate? It already feels crowded, and the system may not be able to bear two to three times more people in the future.

The number of people waiting to see the sunrise at Kanyakumari exceeds a few thousands in winter weekends.

The likely result is that numbers may have to be restricted sometime in future. That might mean booking a ticket and waiting for a few years for your turn to see the monument. Or the other thing that could happen – entry prices may be hiked up to unreasonable levels making it difficult for everyone to afford it.

It may be really long way for such a thing to happen at Taj Mahal. But Ranthambhore is feeling the heat for a long time, and entry restrictions have meant booking ahead far into future. Corbett National Park also has entry limits which can cause similar problems in the days to come. There are other national parks like Bandipur and Nagarahole where there are no restrictions yet, but the heavy inflow of tourists is indeed disturbing the animals and a step at restricting the flow may be inevitable.

The problem is not limited to India, the same trends can be seen world over. Machu Picchu, a prized possessions of Peru’s history is crowded with tourists and bookings are already closed for next few years. The trend is likely to continue and may affect more and more places all over the world. A news report talks of the lack of supply for the growing demand in tourism:

Indian call centre employees, Russian engineers, Chinese middle managers and Brazilian salesmen are scouring the web for deals on trips. They want to see Paris from the Eiffel Tower, relax in the Maldives and play blackjack in Las Vegas. According to the UN World Tourism Organisation, international tourist visits are expected to double by 2020, from roughly 800 million in 2008 to 1.6 billion…

…governments and institutions may seek to control demand by imposing heavy surcharges on travel to the most popular places or by requiring costly visas for access to them…

…rationing — and the resulting waiting lists — will become commonplace. Some groups, for example, are already calling for limits on traffic to ecologically sensitive destinations…

The way we are all going out in search of destinations, I can see this becoming more common all over the world.