Travelator

travelling - i can say i like travelling. like most of us, i too have experienced my share of travelling with parents, as kids. or in school and colleges. but after taking up my present job, my touring graph has gone up and high. not only within India, but outside too. so i say, i like travelling. some people have excellent memory and they can throw names of places, restaurants, dates even related to their travel. i am not so gifted. i sometimes have flashes of images in my mind and then i sit and think for hours, damn, which place is this???? or when a friend or a relative is visiting a city which i have already set my foot on, then i struggle to think of nice restaurants or the bazaars which i had been to, or the famous chaatwala. at times, this is really frustrating. most of the times, its embarrassing.

the year 2010 has been quite extravagant in terms of travelling. if i recall correctly, then from May up till November, i have been on move each month. this is not regular for a person like me, with a profile which doesn't ask for compulsive travelling to projects or partners. another factor is sasural being situated in another city. that makes up for at least twice a year outing, and visit to new towns.

being an architect and planner (not having put it to practice though), i am an avid collector of maps and guides. makes my life easier in cities. i like to explore cities on my own. its kind of suffocating for me to be in a city and not knowing how am i placed geographically . for almost all the cities i have been to, i have a map, a collection of tickets for temples and museum etc., SIM cards of various nations!!!, general touristy info, magazines and other stuff. they say the best way to recall is to write. so, i will write about cities, i have been to. a compilation of my experiences, situations, food habits, people's behaviour, fashion trends. this will require lot of scratching of my brain cells, i will also cheat and look up google for erased memories and poke my co-travellors for finer details.. i think this the least i can do for myself. "i would love to read these when i get old. it will bring back fond memories".

step one in this direction would be to compile a list of places i have visited. second would be to select destinations for reporting. this will not include places which i have frequented most in my lifetime, unless there is a stupendously exciting experience attached to it. otherwise the whole series will amount to a book. third is to review all memorabilia attached to this destination and file them in a scrapbook. last would be to rewind and write. let us begin by listing the places, with some categories for easy sorting:

a) foreign destinations:
- bonn -berlin-freiburg- frankfurt-stuttgart-paris-koln 2007
-new jersey - new york-chicago-philadelphia 2008
-bangkok 2008, 2009
-jakarta 2006
-singapore 2008
-shanghai 2010
-colombo 2006
-manila 2010

b) in India (touring)
-jammu
-manali
-dehradun-mussorie
-ambala -kasauli-chandigarh
-mathura-agra-vrindavan
-gwalior
-meerut
-bareilly
-chhibramau
-kanpur - lucknow-gorakhpur
-nainital
-bharuch-ahmedabad-ankleshwar
-jaipur-amber-udaipur-nathdwara - chittorgarh
-bikaner
-mumbai -pune -goa
-solapur-hampi
-bhopal - khajuraho-jhansi-orchchha
-ooty -bangalore-madurai -chennai
-hyderabad
-calcutta

c) in india (piligrimage)
-gangotri-kedarnath-badrinath
-haridwar-rishikesh –neelkanth
-katra-vaishnodevi
-ajmer
-dwarka-somnath