The Sporadic Traveller

I love travelling. The experience, the sights, and most importantly the food. Unfortunately, I can't do it very often.. Now I've taken inspiration from a few friends to document my experiences.. So here are my stories :)

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PROMPT: "YOU WERE A CHOICE BUT NEVER AN OPTION."

PROMPT: “YOU WERE A CHOICE BUT NEVER AN OPTION.”

Dear God, 

It’s been a while since we last spoke. I only write your name with a capital ‘G’ because of the prevalent social construct and you’ll see later in the letter why I’m deciding to give up on it. I’m writing this letter to clear some things up between us. I feel like I owe you and myself an explanation. 

I remember when I first met you as a kid. Mom introduced us at a puja for some…

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PROMPT: "IT'S NOT EASY TO LIE."

PROMPT: “IT’S NOT EASY TO LIE.”

Think of lying as a Ponzi scheme. By lying, someone alters the natural order of a system, removes something from its place. The only way to fill the adjustment is by taking another lie and filling its place. You cover every lie with another because the truth can no longer support the system. And like every Ponzi scheme, the bubble has to burst somewhere. You run out of lies or one triggers a…

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Prompt: "I Had To, I Just Had To ."

Prompt: “I Had To, I Just Had To .”

I was 16 when I smoked my first joint. I was 18 when I snorted my first line of coke. I was 19 when I first tripped on acid. I was 20 when I stopped keeping track of my firsts. Life from then was a hazy far off memory. Every moment felt like déjà vu. If you’d ask me to recollect something, I’d get that subtle nag at the back of my brain telling me to try to make the effort, but there would…

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Abandoned

Walking to an abandoned plane in the middle of nowhere.

We’d just landed in Iceland and taken a rental out of Keflavic airport when I went onto Instagram. I was just scrolling through my feed when one of the ads showed me this gorgeous picture of a crashed white aircraft with the northern lights in the background, set in the middle of no-where. I looked it up, its location was right there in Iceland! I whipped out my mom’s “itinerary” to see if we’d…

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So every weekend, during my internship here in Germany I try to go to a new place. I sat down and made a list of places that absolutely cannot be missed while I’m here. Obviously, Schloss Neuschwanstein was almost top of the list. I mean who hasn’t seen that picturesque castle nestled up among the hills and looking like the more and more beautiful with each seasonal change in its backdrop. Walt Disney himself was inspired by the place and modelled his Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland after it.

  So my first weekend would be in Fussen! That’s the nearest place I could find with a hostel in it. The Bavaria City hostel. I reached Fussen midafternoon around 15:00 pm and rather than checking in, I decided to head straight to the castle itself. I wanted to do a hike around but it turns out I chose one of the worse possible times of the year to go there. There were rockslides and the hiking trails were submerged under a foot of snow so the tourism department there had closed all of them off. But I went anyway. There were too many tourists and it was almost closing time so I thought rather than going up to the castle, I would walk around it trying to get a good shot of it on my camera. I didn’t realize until I got there that you can walk all the way up to a cable car nearby which takes you up the mountain to Tegelberg. It takes about half an hour to walk till there and I would definitely recommend the walk. Why? Because this gave me the best shots and view of Neuschwanstein I would get that weekend.

Unfortunately by the time I got to the cable car station, the last car had already left. It was 16:00 and I was EXTREMELY bummed out. So I headed back to town, where I went straight to check in. It was getting pretty cold and I desperately needed to warm up. I was sharing the room with 5 other travelers. This was the first time I’ve been in a hostel so I didn’t really have the courage to talk to anyone and just smiled at them as they walked by (pretty creepy I know).

  But then something awesome happened. One of the other travelers initiated a conversation with me! Her name was Chelsey and she was from the UK. We decided to head out and walk the city together and when we were moving out we found a leaflet to a nearby pub. The Bayrish Pub, a combination of both Irish and Bavarian. This place HAD to have good beer. By the way, the inner streets of Fussen are some of the nicest I’ve seen. If ever given the chance, just head out there after dark when the street lamps come on and walk till you get lost.  I swear you won’t regret it.

  We got to the pub and sat and chatted the hours away, when the bartender told us that the Carnival was in town that day! The Carnival is a German festival that celebrates the end of winter and the coming of spring. Chelsea and I decided to head out and we even asked two American girls, who were staying at the same hostel and had walked into the pub after us, to tag along. The Bartender’s English wasn’t so good because when we got to the other side of the river where the procession was supposed to be, it was dark and soul-less. No a single person to be seen and not a sound to be heard. I even called the bar back from the number on the leaflet but the guy could understand me even less over the phone. So instead we kept walking. The American girls decided to head back though. Chelsey and I were out till past mid-night. The city looks extremely beautiful with its warm orange glow at night and walking through its streets is an amazing experience.

The next morning the Americans, Chelsey and I woke up very early to catch the first bus out to the castle. Turns out the ticket office in the winter months, opens only at 9:00. We reached by 7:30! And it was freezing outside while we waited. I wasn’t really interested in going inside, I just wanted to see the castle in its natural setting. Chelsey was in agreement so we headed over to the carriage stand and were driven up to a castle in a horse-drawn carriage. (Yes, you can do that). Stuff of fairy tales, I know.

The castle is painfully beautiful. However, it does get severely congested by visiting tourists, even though it was the off-season. We were lucky enough to start early, but on our way back down there were hordes of people making their way up and visiting the castle in that much of a rush would put anyone’s mood off. Next we warmed up, got some breakfast and headed to the lesser known but still very relevant Schloss Hohenschwangau. Honestly, this place does not get enough credit. It is a spectacularly designed place and extremely beautiful in its own way. You can walk up there from a path starting at the lake, which I must say is a stunning view to look at from the castle.

We’d heard about a waterfall near Fussen the previous day so after the castles when we got back to the city we decided to walk out and try to find it. Let me say that we got severely lost. Don’t trust those maps, that the tourism office gives you, with the small streets 😛 But we did eventually manage to find it after taking an unnecessarily long and convoluted route to the falls. They were man-made but still very pretty, set amidst the back drop of the Alps. The water was crystal clear too! Chelsey and I just sat on the banks of the river skipping rocks for a while until it was time to leave.

On the way back however, Chelsey showed me something extremely cool. She introduced me to something called Geo-Caching. Apparently strangers from all around the world hide certain object (it could be anything) in random locations around the world! And equally random strangers get a notification from an app when they’re near one and try to find it! Anyone who finds it can then add their names to the list inside the object! It has no real purpose except that it is extremely fun to do, like a treasure hunt! We passed some people poking around near a corner and she correctly guessed that they were Geo-caching! We got in on the action too and it was several minutes before Chelsey found the box! It was genuinely awesome fun.

Turns out Chelsey’s train to Munich was the same one I had to take to Kaufbauren before I switched to the one that took me home. We picked up her luggage from the hostel and headed to the station. An hour into the train ride, and we parted ways.

This was the first trip I had taken by myself alone in Europe. I’d been here two weeks and hadn’t made any real friends. I was genuinely glad to have met Chelsey and was pretty bummed that we didn’t get to hang out longer. But she made my first weekend out in Europe far more interesting than it would’ve been if I’d just sat in that hostel room and not spoken to anyone.

First weekend out~ So every weekend, during my internship here in Germany I try to go to a new place.

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I’ve always had a fascination of going to places which are unique in their own right, as I’m sure a lot of you have too. One such place was Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is a tiny country landlocked between Austria and Switzerland smack dab in the middle of Europe.

My fascination with it was that even though I had exhaustively scoured the map for places to go in Europe and that I was right across the border from it in 2008 in Switzerland, I’d never really heard about this tiny country until 6-8 months ago. A place like this was bound to hold some good secrets and places to visit. Google maps’ legend showed that the whole country is a mere 25-30 km in length! So, I’ve been to the Vatican, officially being the smallest country and all, but the Vatican doesn’t have a “country” feel to it. Liechtenstein however, did. It’s land area is practically the same as my city back in India, but it gives you the actual “small country” vibe.

My opportunity came almost immediately! I was to do an internship in Bavaria, Germany this year and Liechtenstein was a simple bus and train ride away! I tried couch-surfing for the first time, and let me tell you it is difficult to get accepted if one doesn’t have prior references from other surfers and you’re just starting out. Fortunately, after many many rejections, an awesome Portuguese guy named Hugo Batista, accepted me as a surfer. He stayed in Feldkirch in Austria, which is about 10 minutes away from the border of Liechtenstein.

So I landed up there, and had a few hours to kill before meeting up with Hugo so I simply walked around the city. It is a LOVELY place to see, especially the old town. There is an old museum perched on a hill right in the middle where I went to take some dusk shots of the city. Hugo picked me up and we went back to his place, and met up with his flat-mate Verena. They were so hospitable, I can’t tell you how much fun I had. We cooked, we talked, they took me out to a party, met a German-Indian friend of theirs, everything! It was a lit night !

So for some reason I held this fascination to cross the whole country (Liechtenstein) on a bicycle. It would be one of those personal achievement things. I was assuming that I’d go to Vaduz (the capital city) and rent one there, but it being February, the height of the off-season, I wasn’t so sure I’d get one. Hugo again saved the day, by offering his own! I caught a bus heading to Vaduz by around 11:00 and in half an hour I was there. Easy.

But here was the problem. There’s a reason it’s off-season at this time of the year. The weather was absolutely terrible! Low clouds, intermittent rain, close to sub-zero temperatures… I was almost put off by the whole scene and was wondering if this was the right time to see it. I am so glad I went ahead with the plan though, you’ll see why.

I reached Vaduz and headed straight to the tourist office to get some information about what would be the best route to follow on a bike. At the end of the conversation I decided to go from Vaduz, to Triesenberg, to Triesen, to Balzers and back to Vaduz. If I was okay at that point I would continue all the way up to the border with Austria. So that was the plan. Turns out, I had seriously underestimated the slopes of Liechtenstein. The road looked reasonably straight to Triesenberg on the map, so I assumed it wouldn’t be that bad, but boy was I wrong. I ended up pushing the bicycle uphill rather than riding it!

I was about 2 km into the 6 km to Triesenberg, when I saw a hiking trail peel off into the woods from the main road. There was a sign there that said that even that led to Triesenberg. And it was closed. But for some reason I had this itch to go check it out. So I flipped for it and, HEADS, I took the trail. Now here it was impossible to cycle up, so I was pushing the whole time. It even started to rain and I was freezing! And as I went higher up the mountain, visibility was reducing with every step. It was less that 5m near the top. The one redeeming factor however was that everywhere I looked, it was breathtakingly beautiful, in an eerie lonely way. I found a mountain stream on the way up and, like an idiot having brought no water along, I shoved my face into it.

Two and a half hours later, I arrived at a small village called Fromahus. It was deathly quiet and there was not a single person around. Suddenly there was this strong breeze pushing down into the valley. I parked my bike and found a corner to tuck myself into my jacket, to wait it out. When I looked up, it was one of the most amazing things I’d ever seen. The clouds had been pushed down into the Rhine Valley below and cleared up at the level I was at. I was above the clouds! It was stunning! I just sat there gaping till I remembered I had a camera.

I was in agony because of the climb uphill and I was practically begging for it to end. When it did, I plopped my self on the sidewalk and nearly cried with happiness. A cat came out of nowhere to play for a little bit while I rested. I named her Ms. Orangey.

So, here’s the best part! After all that effort I was now on top of the mountain. It was a sharp descent on the main road down to Triesen, filled with twists, hairpin bends and unreasonable heights to fall through at the edges of the road. I did the only natural thing. Go down a 35-40 degree slope at breakneck speeds, with the frozen air eating into my face and the rain making it impossible to keep my eyes open fully 😀 It was one of the bigger rushes I’ve felt in life, I’ll admit. A speed camera caught me and it turns out I was doing 60 km/h at one point! Damn that was fun. But it ended all too quickly, sadly. I was back down in the valley before I knew it.

My aim now was to hit the southern tip of Liechtenstein, at its border with Switzerland. This was around 10km away. I followed the river till I reached Balzers and turned to the road leading out-of-town. I was exhausted and even tempted to catch a bus back to Vaduz, but I stuck it out and made it! I literally just sat there for half an hour doing nothing and breathing hard. Have you ever been in the condition where you’re frozen solid and sweating at the same time? I was a very weird state to be in.

The tough part now was the way back. I had to bike another 13 km all the way back to Vaduz. My wrists were killing me from holding the handlebars, my extremities were frozen enough to start hurting, I was soaked through my jeans because of the rain and now my jacket was starting to let in water. Fortunately for me, it was now a straight road back.

I passed so many signs talking about a McDonald’s nearby and that was all that was keeping me going, to be honest. I hadn’t had breakfast or lunch and I was STARVING. And wouldn’t you know it, it turns out that the road I’d taken left it behind almost a whole kilometer back. I had to choose between heading back to Vaduz (1.5 km) and going backwards by 1 km for McD and then back again to Vaduz which would have made it a 2.5 km trip.

It was one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made, but I decided to head back. My plan to bike all the way up to the border was not even under consideration anymore. I was lucky enough to make it to the bus station just in time for the next bus back to Feldkirch. I know it wasn’t border to border, but that’s how I biked across a whole country.(-ish)

Cycling across a country-ish. I've always had a fascination of going to places which are unique in their own right, as I'm sure a lot of you have too.

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Bhutan Diaries (6)

I almost didn’t make it to my bus the next morning, what with the crippling exhaustion, the deliberate lack of sleep and everything else that happened the day before. They put me up on the seat just next to the driver and I have to say it was significantly more comfortable than what the people at the back were going through. The initial plan was to get off at Mongar and stay a night there but I…

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Ok, only two more of Bhutan, I promise!

It’s my second day in Bhumthang and I suddenly decide that today, I need to see EVERYTHING. I make sure I get up early and start walking north towards two monasteries: the Jambey Lakhang and the Kurjey Lakhang.

About halfway to the first monastery I manage to hitch a ride with a farmer going up the road. He dropped me off about a kilometer away. Jambey Lakhang is on the outskirts of a village with no proper path to it. It’s all mud roads. But once you step inside the monastery it is a quaint and pretty little place. There are no monks inhabiting it and that day there was no one around except for the caretaker.

I pushed on to the Kurjey Lakhang which is a trek along the river, over a little creek and through some paddy fields where my shoes got soaked. This monastery, unlike the previous one, is filled with monks, old and young. Some of them took me around the whole place to see it. It is set right on the bank of the river and one can practically see the entire valley from the highest floor!

I then followed the monks’ instructions down to a swaying footbridge that crossed the river (can’t see this on google maps btw).

I was trying to make an entire circuit to get to this place called the Swiss Guest House, because I’d read online that you could trek up to a place on top of the mountain called Pedtsheling Goenka, and the trek would start from there. After briefly going around another Tamshing Lakhang I headed there. I’d walked about 6 km by now and it was only 10 o’ clock in the morning! It was raining too. I hitched a ride down the road to the guesthouse, which I found was completely devoid of any guests (off-season sucks). I went up to the lady, who was sitting outside the kitchen and asked her if I could wait there until the rain stopped and then start on the trek.

She was really nice. She opened up the dining hall and gave me some coffee to warm up while I waited. We got to talking and she was one of the most amazing people I’d end up meeting on my trip. Her husband was Swiss and she was Bhutanese. She’d gone to study in Germany after that come home, married and opened the Guest house! She had these two adorable dogs, whom I was just fawning over for the greater part of an hour. I honestly didn’t even notice time just pass by..

By around 12 the rain had stop so I thanked her and asked her to point me in the right direction. She sent her brother along with me up to the starting point of the trek. Now he didn’t speak English very well so once we got there he was explaining the directions and turns I would have to take and I mostly didn’t understand anything. But I was really excited so I started off without trying to understand further. And guess what? The dogs followed! I called back to him to ask him what to do about them and he said they knew the whole mountain. They’d come back if they wanted to, on their own!

So now I had company. The first hour of the trek was great! I got some great views of the valley below. My dogs were running around, chasing things and having a ton of fun. After this is when my troubles started. I reached a fork in the path and, not having understood his directions properly, I took the right fork. Now that I look back, I remember the dogs trying to get me to follow them the other way, but I insisted, so they ended up following me instead. I reached a forest and I could still make out a path through the trees, though now the climb was extremely steep. I pressed on. The dogs would randomly disappear for minutes at an end, off to chase something they saw or heard nearby, but they always came back. Three hours in, I was seriously tired.

Suddenly I realised, I’d lost the path! I was on the side of a mountain, in the middle of the forest with no idea where to go. I pulled out my phone and saw that I was getting a weak signal. After waiting for almost 10 minutes, my GPS dot came up on google maps. Fortunately, I’d had the foresight to download the satellite version of the area prior to starting the trek. I remember texting my friends back home in Bangalore, India telling them that if they didn’t hear from me by 8:00 pm that evening, they should organise some sort of search for me because I’d definitely be lost 😛

Anyway, I found that I was only about half an hour away from the top of the mountain, if I cut a straight path through the trees. My dogs were stuck with me even though all of us were extremely lost, but didn’t seem to mind so much. After some hard trekking I made it to the top of the mountain. And at that exact moment the clouds around us cleared away. From this point, I saw some of the most gorgeous sights in the world. I could see all three of Bhumthang’s valleys spread out before me. I sort of collapsed onto my butt and just sat there with my mouth gaping for a while.

But I wasn’t done yet. I had to get back down or I’d freeze once it became dark. Looking at the map I decided to follow the crest of the mountain. I realised I’d come out almost 4 km away from my actual destination, which was also on the crest, but of the next mountain! So I started again. Another hour or so in I found a radar transmitter which was for the airport, barely visible down in the valley. At just that moment a small Cessna happened to take off from there. It looked tiny, almost ant-like!

Eventually I did reach Pedtsheling Goenka. It’s a building that houses only young monks and some of their teachers. One moment there was nothing, and the next it was right there! It sort of opened out from inside a cloud as I was walking towards it. The whole place was misty. There were a few kids playing around in the distance and a monk was sitting on some steps nearby staring me. I can’t imagine what must’ve been going through his head: a dirty, muddy and sweaty Indian teenager, walking into his monastery with two dogs. I took my dogs to nearby a hand pump and gave them some water after which I filled up my bottle too and drank noisily, just like them. I just sat for a while recovering from the fatigue. My poor dogs were exhausted too. They just flopped down next to me.

Pedtsheling Goenka

It was going to be dark in two hours and I had to get down soon, so I asked the monk there if he knew an easier way down. He pointed me to a shortcut that they usually took down to the nearest village for supplies. He said that would put me on the path that I was originally meant to take, which would then take me back to the Swiss Guest House. I set off, down some very steep steps cut into the side of the mountain. Progress was slow, because my dogs were finding it difficult on all fours. But we eventually reached the village and got back to the path we were supposed to be on. From here the dogs perked up again. I took this to mean they knew the way back, so every fork we hit on the road I simply followed them without hesitation. Once, we even went completely off the main path but I still stuck to my dogs. And bless them, they even made sure I was keeping up with them. I was nervous about where we were but fortunately, we found some woodcutters to ask for directions and they confirmed we were headed the right way.

Eight hours later, on what was supposed to be a four-hour trek, I limped back into the Swiss Guest House. The lady on seeing me again, immediately pulled me into the kitchen (despite me protesting that I was filthy and still had wet mud on my boots), sat me down, and gave me some hot tea with home-made cheese and biscuits. There are these people you meet while travelling sometimes, that you never ever forget. Two years later, I remember her with the same fondness. Her dogs, even more so. They never left me once through that entire madness of a trek. I like to think I took them for a really extreme walk.

My Doggies ❤

She was hosting a travelling monk at the same time who offered to take me to the nearby monastery, through a shorter path back to the village I was staying at. I hugged her in thanks, hugged and kissed each of my doggies goodbye and went along with the monk. He took me to see the evening prayers in session with over a thousand monks chanting and meditating together. Around 9 we parted ways and I headed down to the village. My day wasn’t done yet though. I headed straight to the bus station. My feet were killing me by this point and each step hurt.

Like the last time I was hoping to get an empty seat on the bus onto Mongar and if possible to Trashigang. I reach there and find that all the three buses coming there had been delayed by landslides and were expected to come only around 2 am. SO I headed back to the hotel, filled a bucket with hot water and just soaked my feet for an hour. At 10:00 pm I headed to a restaurant next to the bus station, ate a big dinner and camped there till the buses came. At midnight, closing time, the owner kicked me out and I just sat there freezing my ass off for another two hours. Why do this, you ask? The thing is, there were many people who were looking to get onto those buses. And obviously, that would mean that if seats were available it would be first come-first serve. So just in case the buses came in early, I had to get to the driver first.

Two hours later the buses came in, looking just as pathetic as me after my trek. There were 5 available seats over all three buses that night. I got the last one..

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The Walk of the Day

Pedtsheling Goenpa

My Bhutan trip up till this point.

Part 5 of Bhutan stories... Ok, only two more of Bhutan, I promise! It's my second day in Bhumthang and I suddenly decide that today, I need to see EVERYTHING.

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So picking up from where I left off, I woke up early the next day and headed to the highway just outside of Wangdue. I set myself up just outside the Indian army base set up there hoping that some bus would squeeze me in somewhere.

Seven buses passed me by that morning. Not a single one had space for me. I was genuinely lost about what to do. I spent another two hours there on the road hoping to hitchhike with a truck, car anything! Nothing worked out.. I even made up my mind to head back to Wangdue and try my luck again the next day. Just as I was about to head back,this shared taxi come and stops next to me. There was a delegation of teachers heading back to Trongsa after a sabbatical! There were already 4 of them in the car, plus the driver, but they wholeheartedly agreed to squeeze me in and divide the costs of the trip. Best bloody luck ever! They were an extremely cheerful bunch, almost hippie-like to be honest. It was an epic journey.

There were a few landslides on the way to Trongsa so when I finally reached Trongsa it was almost 9 in the evening. The teachers helped me get a dirt cheap room for Rs. 500 and then we all went out for dinner together at a nearby pub. I was genuinely sorry to part ways that night. I even took a picture of them leaving :/.

The next morning, I quickly nipped down to the Trongsa Dzong for a bit of side seeing and then was again hunting for a ride to the next town called Jakar. This time it was a little easier to find people to share a cab with and Jakar wasn’t that far away, plus no landslides along the way, so I managed to reach pretty early. The cabbie dropped me off at a small village called Chamkhar in the Jakar Valley.

Okay so bit of explanation before I go further: The Bhumthang district is in Central Bhutan and is composed of three major valleys. They are, the Jakar Valley, the Ura Valley and the Tang Valley. Jakar is the most populated and has the second largest airport in Bhutan.

  This time I found this place called Zinthar Tshongkhang. The lady there gave me a 4 star room for 700 bucks a night! There were cheaper places for sure but this was an offer of a lifetime! It was off-season, and apparently that’s the only reason I was getting such a good deal. I hadn’t stayed in a decent room for the past whole week! I whiled away my time in Chamkar, that day and did a bit of shopping, ate at a few local restaurants, chatted up a few locals and basically did a lot of tourist-y stuff.

It was a genuinely chill day. And Bhumthang is an extremely pretty place. I would seriously recommend anyone doing a tour of interior Bhutan, to just take a day or two here to simply relax and breathe in the place. For the first time in my entire trip the monsoon clouds had blown away and I could see the crisp natural beauty of the mountainside. I even walked down to the airport (which is actually more of an airfield) in the evening. It was across the river about 2 km away.

  Just across the road, in a field, there was a bunch of young monks playing football after their evening prayers/meditation. I sat watching them till it was dark and I walked back to the village in the starlight..

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My Bhutan trip till this point.

  Bhutan series.. So picking up from where I left off, I woke up early the next day and headed to the highway just outside of Wangdue.

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…Fortunately I’d set my alarm just before crashing out the previous night. My bus for Punakha left at 6:30 and I made it to the station just in time. I’d managed to pay a little extra and get the last remaining seat on the bus. From everything I’d read online it said that there was an abundance of buses travelling across Bhutan with plenty of empty seats, but from my experience in the last two cities buses were running over capacity all the time. When I asked about it, people just kept saying “University, University!” and wouldn’t explain further..very curious.

I came across an interesting new Bhutanese custom in this bus ride to Punakha. Apparently, police are pretty strict about overloading the buses past their capacity. Therefore at checkpoints, if they see anyone standing they will stop the bus and penalize the operators heavily. So to make sure everyone is seated, they hand out these wooden boards to extra passengers. People on adjacent sides of the aisle would then prop these boards under their buttocks and thus provide a makeshift seat for those standing in the aisle. Though more often than not these planks were used to seat live poultry…

I, fortunately, didn’t have chickens next to me. Instead it was a little girl travelling with her Mum who was seated just behind. It turned out that this little girl was the only one who spoke English on the entire bus. She helped me translate when speaking to th conductor and my fellow passengers! She seemed to take a particular fascination to my phone and got extremely excited when I showed her how to take a selfie. She spent the rest of the trip taking selfies of herself trying to catch her Mom behind her, in the frame. It turned into a game to see how long she could manage it without getting caught. She was adorable. And this coming from someone who doesn’t particularly like children.

I got off at a small village called Sapsokha where I first went and figured out accommodation. I got a brilliant room with a view too for just Rs.600 after walking out of the main marketplace for a bit. The room looked out over paddy fields and in the distance I could see my next destination. Chimi Lakhang. I’d heard a lot about this place from a lot of people as well as read about it online so I definitely had to see it with my own eyes. It is a small monastery in the middle of the fields, but what makes it special is that it is entirely dedicated to PENISES. Yep. You heard me. It’s got penis paintings, penis sculptures, penis everything.

I headed back outside after shower towards the central marketplace where I managed to hitch a ride to the next nearby village of Pajo. From here I trekked through the paddy fields. This trek is absolutely amazing. I was completely alone, the day was clear and the breeze was blowing steadily. It was so quiet. The trek takes you through another small cluster of houses in the mini-village of Teoprongchu. Every house here has a penis painted over its entrance. This monastery has attracted quite a bit of tourism so at every corner there was someone or the other offering me little wooden penis key chains or something of the sort. 

Eventually I left the village behind and made my way through a dirt path boulevard up to the monastery. It was primally placed in isolation. The monastery and all the penises in it were a celebration of fertility in the region. Prayers offered here were known to cure infertility for couples from across the world! All these miracles were documented in a book inside. I entered the central prayer chamber where a monk blessed me with a large wooden penis the size of my arm. I sat outside in the courtyard just taking in the whole calming effect the place had on me. The monastry was also a school for young monks. There were kids of all ages running around either playing or carrying out chores.

(Sorry I don’t have too many pictures of this place. I didn’t want to seem rude photographic a place of worship)

After a while it was time to leave. I hiked through a shortcut path through the fields that would take me back to the main road. I managed to hitch another ride up the valley to the Punakha Dzong with some musicians who didn’t stop singing the whole way. The Punakha Dzong according to the locals, is the King’s favourite palace. It was really pretty too, set on the conjunction of two rivers. Trees with flowers of all colours covered the place.

I spent almost an hour just roaming around the palace before heading back to the nearby taxi stand. I hired a shared taxi up to the biggest town in the area called Wangdue where I was hoping to book seats on a bus up to the next big town of Trongsa.

When I got there it turns out that there was nothing available. All available seats had already been booked from Thimphu. The guys at the bus station told me to go up the highway and try my luck the next day when the buses passed by. They might have a seat or a wooden plank available. Disappointed, I ate a quick lunch and headed back to my room.

It rained that evening, and didn’t stop until I went to bed that night. I spent the whole evening at a local bar sipping Bhutanese beer (a must try by the way) and looking over paddy fields in the fading light. The rain just made the view a whole lot better…

My trip till this point.

[My wordpress plan doesn’t let me upload videos just yet so follow this link to watch the Bhutan One Second a Day Video]

Bhutan Stories Part 3. ...Fortunately I'd set my alarm just before crashing out the previous night. My bus for Punakha left at 6:30 and I made it to the station just in time.

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…The next day turned out to be bright and perfect. I hiked down to the taxi stands in the centre of town and took a shared cab from Thimphu to Paro. It was dirt cheap. The route is well-travelled and has a large amount of traffic along it so I had no problems finding co-passengers this time. It was a 50 km drive and took just over an hour and a half to complete.

The destination of the day was the Tiger’s Nest monastery located just outside Paro. Paro in itself was a quiet little town even though by definition, it was Bhutan’s second largest city. The cab took me right up to the start point of the trek up to the Monastry. It was at the base of a steep mountain where quite a few locals had set up stalls to sell trinkets and to offer walking sticks on rent. There were even ladies offering mules-on-hire to carry you up to a point.

Tiger’s Nest From the Bottom

  I was on a budget so I avoided all of these and started my trek up. The trek up is relatively simple as the route follows a well-worn path. It took me 1.5 hours to get to the 3/4th point which is a cafeteria located on the hillside across from the monastery and gives you your first good look of it. It was picture perfect. I stopped for a bit and accepted tea and biscuits served there sitting right on the edge and just soaking the view in. Turns out the Tea and biscuits alone cost me Rs. 120. My budget went down the drain right there…

The path becomes relatively more difficult and extremely steep. It follows a sequence of steps going downwards to a waterfall and then up again towards the monastery. There’s a gaping chasm right there the entire time. But there is a point right before your descent where you get the best view of the Tiger’s Nest. It has prayer flags tied everywhere and a tiny viewing platform to just look out into the valley.

  The monastery is cut into the side of a cliff. I can’t even begin to imagine how it was constructed. When I reached it I attached myself to a tour group of some British tourists and followed them across the halls and inner chambers of the place. There’s a special cave inside where the founder of Bhutan, Guru Rinpoche landed on his flying tigress, hence the name “Tiger Nest”. It was the second most beautiful trek I’d end up taking in Bhutan.

I took me about an hour to trek back down (avoided the cafeteria this time) and get back to the city centre. I ended up making a deal with a cargo van driver to take me back to Thimphu for a bit of cash. While he loaded up he pointed me to a restaurant that I could go eat some lunch at. Can’t remember the name of the place now but its right across from the taxi stand. Best. Beef. Momos. EVER.

When in Thimphu the previous day, I had noticed a really big Buddha statue overlooking the city from the top of a hill. I really wanted to check it out so on the way back I asked the guy to drop me as close as I could determine on google maps, on his way back into the city. There was a long winding road that led up to the statue but that was meant for vehicles. I didn’t want to take a taxi since again, it would cost too much and I was still recovering from my dip in the cafeteria.

I was fully pumped after my trek and decided to go as the crow flies up the hill. Some people pointed me towards a shortcut path that they supposedly take up the hill. I’m sure I understood their directions wrong because I ended up in the middle of some dense woods. I decided my best way out and to the statue was up and out. I walked for about an hour maybe even two until the trees suddenly opened out onto a dirt track. Thinking this was my salvation I followed it hoping to reach the top of the hill. Another half an hour of walking made me realise the path just led to the next hill. A cyclist pulled up behind me and on asking him for directions he practically laughed at me. I was walking on a cycling track that went around the hills of Thimphu. I couldn’t see the statue over the hill-top above me but the cyclist assured me it was further up and not to far away. So upwards I went again.

In about 10 minutes the statue came into view. It was , to quote Donald Trump, “HUUUGE”. There was a compound wall around the premises so I followed it up to the entrance and take alone took another 15 minutes. I was exhausted by this point but I’d reached and had one of the best views of the Thimphu valley there were! The statue was not only magnificent but also very richly made. I walked to the edge of the podium and just plopped myself there to enjoy the view for a while.  There was a rain cloud relieving itself over the main city down below and you could see the circumference of the rain cloud clearly too!

Thimphu Views

Rain over Thimphu

The next valley from the Cycle Track

For some reason the only picture I have left of the statue

I only got up to leave when the security guards were clearing the premises at closing time. I looked at Google Maps and couldn’t for the life of me, get myself to walk back down. After a couple of failed attempts at getting a ride a really kind man offered me a lift. He had brought his 7-year-old daughter and her friends from school on an excursion. He was driving a pickup where all the girls were enjoying the wind standing at the back, and me and the man sat up front. He dropped me off at the city centre but didn’t leave before giving me his number and email address with promises to call him if I ever needed anything. It made me realise, Bhutanese people are one of the most helpful in the world second maybe only to the Turks..

I walked down the main shopping street of Thimphu and found a slightly lavish but lovely place called Ambient Cafe. I’d skipped out on breakfast so I figured I ‘d splurge on dinner. And after the amount I’d ended up walking I really felt like deserved it. The owner turned out to be a lovely Indian lady who sat down with me after the other customers left and chatted me up for a bit.

At the end of it I just went back to my dingy room and fell asleep before taking my socks off. Not a bad day two…

Bhutan Diaries (2)... I put in more pictures this time :) ...The next day turned out to be bright and perfect. I hiked down to the taxi stands in the centre of town and took a shared cab from Thimphu to Paro.

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Bhutan Diaries (1)

In response to my solo trip to Turkey, my parents decided to ditch me and go do a stint of Bhutan. When I got back from Uni, I was livid! They can’t just go ahead and do that! So, as a countermove, I decided to squeeze in a two week trip to Bhutan myself after my internship that summer. I need to go into Bhutan’s tourism industry a bit first for your understanding. Bhutan is extremely protective…

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This is a shorter excerpt of a much longer trip that my family and I took to Ladakh, India. I’ve been to over 15 countries, but Ladakh still remains one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. It’s a kind of beauty that you can’t really describe, but only gape at when you see it. Its absolutely raw, parts of which probably haven’t been set foot upon by humans in our entire existence. And this is what made this particular story interesting.

A little bit of of an overview for those who don’t know Ladakh. It is one of the most sparsely populated parts of India, right up there at the northern border with China. It’s nestled among the Himalayas and is of extreme strategic importance. That is why you would find a heavy military presence here. To get from Leh (district capital) to Srinagar (capital of the sate of Jammu and Kashmir) there is a single lonely road named National Highway 1D. It is a treacherous road that crosses two of the highest mountain passes in the world: Fotu La and Zojila. This road serves as the lifeline for Ladakh, connecting it to the rest of the country.

My story starts out in Dras, the closest town to the general area of the Kargil War. There is a lovely memorial, built there to remember our matyrs. We reached there early in the morning and just spent a few hours, walking around, paying our respects. There are points where you can hear nothing but a light breeze blowing. Mom cried here, and she never cries. We were so caught up in the serenity and quietness of the place that we paid no heed to our guide’s warnings about leaving early. We found out soon why.

On the route that day was Zojila, the second highest mountain pass on that road. It’s placement was precarious and the road built on it was extremely difficult to maintain. There was a single-lane dirt road, barely wide enough to squeeze two trucks through. It had no barriers along it’s sides and therefore, you started down into a 10,000 ft drop if you looked over the side. As I mentioned earlier, NH 1D was the lifeline of Ladakh. There are hundreds of trucks crossing this pass everyday. Because of the one lane issue, the army allots different time slots for alternate directions of moving traffic. From Dras to Sonmarg (the town on the other end of the pass) the traffic closed at noon.

Top of the Zojila Pass

  This is where we screwed up. We reached the beginning of the 9 km stretch only by 11:00 am. Our flight out of Srinagar left the next day and we couldn’t afford to miss it. We somehow managed to convince the guard to let us through and all was well for a while. About 20 minutes into the pass, our rear left tire went flat. Bad luck right? It happens. We quickly got out the spare from the back and put it on. We were cutting it pretty close. Traffic from the opposite direction would be onto us any minute now and once it reached us, it would be EXTREMELY difficult to make our way further down. We got in and pushed off again. 5 minutes later the same left,newly replaced tire goes flat again! The whole thing was absolutely ridiculous! Somebody had really given us the evil eye. We were now stuck.

That Entire Road is One Way

Our driver parked us onto a partially constructed side road, so as to not impede traffic when it came the other way. Our guide, bless his soul, decided to walk down to Sonmarg almost 10 km away, to get the puncture fixed. That left us and the driver waiting on top of the pass. My dad and I placed ourselves on a bulldozer, nearby. You could see the whole valley from up there. That’s where I have had the most well placed nap of my life.

Sonmarg Valley

Bulldozers Taking a Break

I’ll fast forward to about 10:00 pm that evening. The Dras-Sonmarg traffic was being allowed through after 6:00 pm. Along comes a vehicle carrying it in an IPS officer (Indian Police Services). On seeing our situation as he passed by he stopped to help, eventually offering to give us a ride to Sonmarg with him! Dad decided to stay back with the driver whereas us kids with Mom would go ahead. We thought this was our lucky break!

Turns out, it wasn’t. A truck going the opposite way had gotten stuck in the mud and held up a significant amount of traffic behind it. It hadn’t made it out of the pass in its designated time slot, just like us. Therefore, the single lane road down hill, now had a stream of trucks along its side. We decided to go ahead, slowly. It was slow progress but it was going well, until we came across a truck carrying cylindrical metal beams inside it, right on a bend. Now, these beams were longer than the truck itself, so they stuck out the back by almost 3 meters. There was a flat sharp foundation at the base of these beams that looked like little square plates at the end of the cylinders.

Stupid Stuck Truck

We moved to the outside edge, to allow it to pass us. Just as it was turning around the bend, one of the beams broke in through the window of our jeep and anchored itself to the window pane. I was showered with broken glass. The truck driver hadn’t even noticed and continued moving forward, pulling the whole car along with it. As I’d said, we were right on the edge, so one of our wheels almost immediately went off the edge. We were dangling over the side of the road over the vast chasm of the Sonmarg valley. The guys who were directing the traffic nearby noticed us and started screaming for the truck driver to stop. Fortunately, he heard them and hit the brakes.

With the help of another truck, they pulled our jeep back onto the road. All of us were shocked to our very core. Nobody spoke the rest of the way down, which took another hour or so. We thanked the IAS officer for everything. He seemed in a hurry to get away from us. I wouldn’t blame him. We waited at a nearby restaurant. The electricity to Sonmarg had been cut off due to some weather problems so we ate and fell in and out of sleep in silence under a flickering oil lamp. We were joined by Dad, our driver and guide only by around 3:00 am that morning. The poor man had walked 20 km with that bloody tire!

We reached Srinagar Airport with 15 minutes to spare that day… It was one hell of a ride to catch a stupid plane.

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Live And Almost Die This is a shorter excerpt of a much longer trip that my family and I took to Ladakh, India.

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  It was Day 6 of our drive up from Helsinki to the Lapland. We’d stopped in Rovaniemi for a bit to visit Santa’s village and officially cross the Arctic Circle the previous day. We met Santa Claus too! Today our destination was a tiny village called Kilpisjärvi near the Finnish-Swede-Norwegian border. The main reason we were going there was to see the Northern Lights. The drive up from Muonio was spectacular. Every 10 minutes you’d see something that would mesmerize you. Scattered herds of reindeer were everywhere. It was hard to keep ones eyes on the road with so much going on around.

We arrived pretty late, around 10 pm. We were staying in a log hut (complete with its own sauna and everything!) . The owner told us about a short trek that we could take up a nearby mountain called Saana Fell. She told us to start early, but naturally, us being lazy and all, we woke up only around 10am. We finally left for the Fell around noon. It took us nearly three and a half hours to get to the top! By this time we’d realised that Mum and I were the only two people on the trail. To add to that it was mid-October, which meant it would get dark pretty soon. And we didn’t want to get caught on the trail after dark, because 1) it would be dangerous on the icy slope and 2) we would freeze our underpants off.

Mom and I were arguing as to what time we’d reach back. Mom said 6:00, while I was adamant on 5:00. We decided to bet on it. Loser washed everyone’s socks. So naturally, to not make myself go through that horrible punishment, I set a brisk pace downhill. This is where all the fun began.

Almost an hour into the walk, I hear a blood curling scream. It was Mom; she was sitting on the ground just staring at me. I ran back to her. I remember almost smiling, because I thought she was acting as though she was in trouble just to win the bet. She smacked me on my head and told me it was serious.

Even she doesn’t know how it happened, but somehow she had slipped and fallen so badly, that she couldn’t move her ankle. Every time she tried, she would half scream and whimper in pain. I took off her shoe carefully and put some snow on it as emergency first aid. We were there for almost an hour trying to figure out what to do. I tried everything, from trying to lift her to making a sledge out of a jacket. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, we accepted defeat. Mom told me to go down and get help for her. She would wait there.

I remember half flying-half running downhill. I was still trying to process what had happened and a lot of bad scenarios were playing out in my head. After about 20 minutes of speeding down, I came to my senses and realised that if I slipped, fell and broke something, then we’d really be in trouble. I slowed myself and started looking for landmarks to tell me how far I was from the bottom. Around 5:30, I reached the final 1km stretch left to the village. Just ahead of me, between the trees, I noticed a couple walking together. They had taken another trail up a nearby hill and were walking back home. I hailed them down and between gasps asked if they knew English. The guy was Finnish and his girlfriend Russian. I asked him if I could use his phone to call emergency services.

The operator on the other end of the line heard my story out. Then she put me on hold while she called the local fire department and the nearest ambulance. When she got back on the call with me she told me exactly what was happening. The nearest ambulance was in Muonio, a town nearly 200 km away. It would take it a minimum of two hours to reach us. However, Kilpisjärvi had a fire department/rescue service who would meet me in a couple of minutes at the spot where I was at. I was to take the fireman, up to my Mom. She then gave me a list of first aid instructions that I had to do for Mom when I went back up to her. Once the fireman arrived, the Finnish guy, the fireman and me all started trekking upwards. The Russian girl went down to the trail.

Let me pause and give you a bit of an overview. It was 6:00 pm and nearly completely dark. The temperature (as I checked later) was at a chill -8 degrees celsius. My dad, who hadn’t come along on the trek, was to pick us up at 6:00 at the bottom of the trail. Mom and I didn’t have our phones so he had absolutely no idea what was going on at this point. I was already pretty cold, but my Mom who wasn’t even moving around to generate a bit of heat, would be freezing! We found out later that my Dad had received an anonymous call from someone, who briefed him with what was happening and told him to stay put. We still don’t know who called him or how they got his number.

I almost passed out with exertion on my way back up. This was the second time I was climbing this mountain and the physical strain was getting to me. We reached Mom again only by 7:30 pm. It was really dark by now. Mom had put her jacket, the one she was sitting on, back on. As a result of that, the snow she sat on melted and soaked her clothes too. She was really cold. The fireman and I did the best we could with first aid. He didn’t speak any English so the Finnish chap acted as our translator.

We waited on that hill for almost an hour. I saw my first shooting star that night, followed by the second, then third, fourth… It almost made me forget the situation we were in. Mom was shivering horribly by now. Temperatures had fallen to -13 degrees at this point. The rest of us could get up, jump a bit and warm ourselves, but she couldn’t even do that. When I asked the fireman why we were waiting for so long, he started jabbering away at the Finnish guy. Apparently the fire department, was debating on getting a helicopter to us to airlift her out. The terrain however, was not suitable for it to land. They finally decided on a heavily modified snowmobile.

This machine was a monster. It had eight wheels, four of which had chain mail around them and the other four had on them a tread, like the ones on a tank. We heard it from almost a kilometre away as it made its way up a 60-70 degree incline. Finally around 8:30 the snowmobile reached us. Attached to it, it had a long sledge-boat sort of thing filled with padding and blankets for my mom. We carefully lifted her out of the snow and into the sledge. The fireman told me to sit on top of her and balance the sledge so that it wouldn’t topple on the way down. The two firemen and the Finnish guy got onto the snowmobile and in what seemed like an eternity, made our way down.

The firemen took us to a customs depot ( Kilpisjärvi is just a few kilometres from the border), where the ambulance was already waiting for us. The two paramedics took over at this point and gave us hot chocolate and blankets. They took my mom aside and slowly warmed her up. They tightly wrapped up her foot and made a strong splint to support it with. My Dad turned up at this point. The Finnish dude had called his girlfriend (who had gone down to the bottom of the trail, met my Dad and tried explaining stuff to him, and waited all this time with him) who had in turn told him where to come. We thanked them over and over again, and Dad went and dropped them back at the village before coming back for us.

The paramedics told us that they couldn’t be sure if Mom’s foot was broken or simply dislocated and that they would need an X-Ray to confirm. But again, the nearest place to do so was Muonio, 200km away. We decided to send the ambulance on their way and drive down ourselves to Muonio the next day. Mom said she felt reasonably okay, now that she was warm and the splint was in place. We got back to our log hut around 12:30 in the morning, over-exhausted and almost falling asleep on our feet. I had just changed into my pyjamas and was cosy-ing into bed when Dad, who had been smoking outside came running into the hut. “Come outside! QUICKLY!” He picked up the camera and ran back out. Confused as hell we followed him outside.

The sky was lit with green curtains of light. It was an eerie sight. You could almost hear music playing in the background, perfectly in sync with the lights. It was absolutely beautiful.

  [P.S.: Mom had broken her ankle. The bone was fractured in four different places. The doctors had to put in a metal plate and 6 screws to fix it. Mom had specially asked them to operate on local anesthesia instead of general so that she could watch them do it.]

We Met Santa! It was Day 6 of our drive up from Helsinki to the Lapland. We'd stopped in Rovaniemi for a bit to visit Santa's village and officially cross the Arctic Circle the previous day.

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What Would It Have Been Like?

What Would It Have Been Like?

Today was my first day on the job. Finally eighteen months of training would be put to good use. It was a blessing in disguise when the airline agreed to employ me as a junior First Officer on their A320s. Mom and Dad honestly weren’t too keen on the idea of my ditching college and getting my CPL when I hadn’t even officially become an adult, but with Grandad’s help I finally managed to convince…

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What He Said

A quick assignment from Creative Writing class.

My driver drove slowly, while I stood surveying my men at the back. As I passed, each regiment raised their right hand in a perfect salute. I smiled to myself. This was it. This was perfection to the highest degree. How could anyone hope to beat this invincible force of power? I saluted back forcefully, eager to show the men that I appreciated their loyalty, their dedication to the cause of the…

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  The guy at the campsite had mentioned that there was a brilliant trek one could take along the coast of the beach we were at. It was part of a longer month-long trek along an old Roman trade route. The beach was closed off by cliffs from both sides so one would have to climb them to start the trek. Apparently the trail led to some sea caves and judging by the way the campsite manager described it, it was definitely worth a visit.

Me and Aaya headed out towards the cliffs pretty early around 10 am. Just before the cliffs begin, a small river comes from the mountains behind us and meets the sea. On the banks of this river are the ruins of an old roman town and one had to walk through these to get to the other side of the river. I think it was called Olympos but I can’t remember very well now.

Once we got to the cliffs we started moving away from the beach. The trail was pretty straight forward. Follow the coastline, was what the guy had said. The view was absolutely stunning. It was the perfect Mediterrenean postcard. Soon we couldn’t even see the beach anymore. Our trail led us a bit of a ways in towards a sheer faced cliffside with a scary drop on its side. Keeping in mind what the camp manager had said we kept following the cliff face till eventually the trail sloped downward. It was almost 4 hours into the trek and we couldn’t see the sea caves anywhere. We should’ve reached there a whole half hour earlier according to the directions given, so naturally we assumed we were lost.

We sat down on the cliff looking over the sea and had ourselves a little picnic, until Aaya suddenly decides that she wants to climb down the cliff face to the water. The was a sheltered cove sort of structure where we were sitting. She looked really excited and for some reason my entire yolo attitude came back to me. So i decided to screw my inhibitions and we slowly started climbing down. It was one of the best decisions ever. We sat for what seemed like days with our feet dipped in the water and just chatted away the time. We even got into the sea eventually and swam out to a rock popping out a little ways away.

Almost two hours in there randomly appeared, from on side of the cliffs, a man snorkelling. He hailed at us and we waved him over to our little rock. He was Ukrainian and spoke very little English, but could speak Russian very well. Aaya being Kazakhstani could speak Russian too, so I was out of the conversation for quite a while. It turns out that the guy had come snorkelling from the very sea caves we had been looking for. Aaya turned to me very excitedly, and I’m not sure I liked the glint in her eye. She eventually convinced me to swim out into the sea behind the Ukrainian guy and go to the caves instead of walking to them. I’m not sure why I even agreed, but I went for it!

We left our essentials behind in a small nook in that cliff cove and start doggy-paddling out. Five minutes into the swim Aaya looks back and tells me she can’t swim very well. I remember almost laughing out! The whole situation just seemed so wild. I was on a sparcely inhabited bit of coastline in southern Turkey, swimming in the open sea (which was so clear that day, it was mind numbingly beautiful) to a cave on the side of a cliff, following a Ukrainian guy wearing snorkels, with a girl from Kazakhstan holding on for support. I maintain to this day, her convincing me to go for it was one of the best decisions I have made in my entire life. Why? Because we eventually did reach the cave and I saw for the first time of truly magnificent a cave can be.

The roof of the cave shimmered incessantly with light reflected off from the water below. Stalagmites(-cites?) hung low over our heads and ocassionally sparkled when the light hit them. A single shaft of light came from an opening somehwere above. the cave walls were jagged and sharp and red. There were these weird red, spongy, tube like creatures stuck all over the wet rocks. It was like being inside a dragon’s mouth, but a lot less gross and a lot more awesome. The Ukrainian guy packed up at this point and left via the land route. We lingered, quite obsessed with the cave for a very long time. What we didn’t realise until much later, was that the tide was coming in. If we didn’t make it back to our cove soon, we’d be in trouble. We couldn’t walk back because we’d left our shoes behind and the ground was harsh.

Eventually, we turned away from the cave and started paddling back. This time we didn’t have someone with snorkels to guide us between the rocks and corals, plus the tide kept pushing us towards the cliff. I was pretty terrified to be honest, but I kept it to myself. Couldn’t let the lady see that. Somehow, we got back. I don’t even remember the whole swim now but once we got to that little rock outcrop we just lay there, dazed by the whole experience for a quarter of an hour. It was just so surreal.

After another hour or so (I had lost track of time by now) we managed to pull ourselves away from our little cove. The real pain from the cuts and bruises from our swim finally hit us. Each step hurt because I had a million small cuts on the sole of my foot. A long and painful walk later, we stumbled into Olympos and nursed our aching bodies. The day wasn’t over yet though. We were leaving the next day and we still had to see Mt. Chimera before that. The locals called it Yanartaş, which meant “flaming stone” in Turkish. The Chimera was a great fire-breathing mythical creature from the old greek tales. Keeping up with its namesake, the mountain literally breathes out fire from inside it.

After sunset, we walked up this mountain. Almost near the top we came across small flames coming out from crevices in the rocks. They say that these fires have been burning for almost 2500 years! It was a chilly night, so we huddled near the fires for a bit. Some of the fires were bigger than others. At night it looked like these pockets of flickering light strewn across the ground as far as you could see.

It was nearly 11 by the time we got back to the beach. Without saying a word to each other we practically passed out with exhaustion. Most of that day exists only in memory, since we’d left our stuff behind in that cove. Aaya and I made a pact to go back to that place one day. Alone, if not together. It would remain one of the clearest memories etched in our minds forever.

Türkiye Diaries (2) The guy at the campsite had mentioned that there was a brilliant trek one could take along the coast of the beach we were at.