Solo Trip it is !

LEVEL - 1

CHALLENGE - COMPLETED

EXPERIENCE - 10000XP

STATUS - LEVEL UP!

It is quite surprising that I had to wait so long to make my first solo trip. And it came out of nowhere. After a lot of persuasions ( to be read as - a lot of crying and being adamant), my parents finally agreed to let me make my first solo trip to meet my best friend in another state Gujarat. I was only given a single condition to follow and that was to travel during the day time and keep them updated. One fine morning as India witnessed its Republic Day celebrations, I had packed my bags and set out on a journey that was going to teach me some good old lessons. To begin with, to keep it pocket friendly, I had chosen the very own state transport RSRTC to go to Ahmedabad from Udaipur. Surprisingly the journey was smooth and I reached on time. As I passed through deserts and marble quarries, all I had in mind was to meet my friend and have a splendid weekend.

On my way through this 6 hour long journey, my friend very uncomfortably told me about a competition she was taking part and how it coincidentally had the deadline the next day. To her surprise as well as my surprise, I decided to get on board and take part in the competition. Well, many things will seem unbelievable from here on. 

I can’t put together in words, the excitement and whatever that had overwhelmed me when she said she asked me to send y live location and she was walking towards me. My eyes searched in every direction, all the traffic and the auto guys around me vanished into thin air, I felt happy after quite a long time.

When we met everything went back to normal and we started to quarrel like every other time. It was surreal. We couldn’t actually believe that we were actually meeting and it all seemed strangely good.

The next character I would like to introduce is her roommate. A girl in her early 20’s who did nothing but study. Like study and study. I was taken aback at the sheer number of books on her bed and the neighboring girl’s bird. The shelves had even fatter books. To top it off, she couldn’t take even the slightest whispers. And so we chatted through the night and kept working on our competition.

When somebody is in Ahmedabad, especially someone from the architecture background, they will definitely visit the Gufa. One of the combined projects of Ar. B V Doshi and M F Hussain, it is a half submerged exhibition hall. 

The interiors remained warm in winters and cool in summers. The organic nature of it had attracted me and the fact that you could walk over the roof without climbing any stairs was novel. Moreover, the slopes in the roof were used by kids as slides and that actually showed how a place could transform with its nature of being.

Moving on, we couldn’t roam around much, but I really enjoyed my stay there and I must say it felt like a SPA treatment. ( Hope you noticed the pun there!) 

The next day we met two more of our friends as we took a stroll over the Sabarmati Riverfront and discussed global issues, river pollution and if Kiwi or Mango bar was better. That’s when we noticed a flower show going on with a huge crowd. Expecting something extraordinary to be showcased, we decided to go for it only to be disappointed by some flower beds and topiaries.

The next part of our program was the Law Garden Shopping street. If I say I fell in love with this place, it would be too less to describe. What if I told you I was planning to open a savings account so that I can shop from every single shop here ? That is pretty convincing right? Beautiful jhumkas, bright and pastel shaded lehengas and jhuttis and more and more all at pocket friendly rates. This is what I had been searching for in Udaipur for over a month and failed to find. 

I really wanted to make it to the NIght Food street - Manek Chowk but time was too less in hand. 

We somehow managed to submit before the deadline for the competition and retired to our beds hoping to have a very productive Monday. But as expected, we didn’t wake up and all we did was eat some really good breakfast at Bikanerwala and take a look at the very much hyped about IIM. 

As time ticked by, my urge to stay back multiplied. 

We had decided to take the BRTS Janmarg to go to the station. All I remember is getting on the bus, the doors shutting and there I saw her one last time (for this month)

I really liked the BRTS network, something like that of a metro and I wish we had something like that in Udaipur and Vijayawada.

Now, from here on the story gets really adventurous and god alone knows what.

I reached the Central Bus stand and guess what I found. All the boards and routes were written in Gujarati language which had nothing to do with me. With more than 50 buses moving at a time, I thought I was forever lost in this station without knowing even a single word in Gujarati except for “aavi che” and “dhokla”. With my Hindi and advanced algorithmic skills, I managed to find out that my bus was late by 2 hours. One bus conductor even scolded me for getting a reservation on a bus which has a history of always being late and I being a lady should have thought about it since it would get real dark when I reach. That is when all my senses came to a standstill, it was gonna get so late and in a place like Udaipur you can never find a cab even in day hours forget about the night. After 2 hours, my impatient and clueless wait came to an end. The bus began its journey and everything went fine until the sun began to set. The abandoned roads and deserts on either sides gave me the chills. The horrors and news headlines of women being mishandled and raped in buses during night hours flashed in my brain. That’s when it actually dawned upon me, how unsafe our country was and how terrifying the journey had turned. Thanks to the technology, I kept sharing my live location every 15 minutes with my friends along with the vehicle number I was traveling in. I had imagined scenarios, where all the people got down and it was just me and had to choose a weapon in case of an emergency. Now the weapon had to be such that it can’t be used against me. And guess what I had chosen as my weapon ?

Perfume. Trust me it’s the best. Have you ever sprayed perfume into the eye by mistake while grooming? If not, try and you will find out why I chose it. Since I wear glasses, using it against me was out of question. But thank god and for the little good men that remain in the universe, I reached safely. I had to take a cab home and he too was a good man. But this doesn’t mean the world is full of good people. We really need to be very careful. I swore to not take another solo trip after nightfall, at least not in this century.

This trip had taught me a lot of lessons, never take GSRTC Bhavnagar to Nathdwara route, and how to read Gujarati under 1 hour, and how not to trust any bus timings and how cold it gets during nights in a bus journey, how it is always better to carry water and food in your journey and how beautiful is Ahmedabad and so much more!

Hope you guys had a great weekend! Will meet you soon with some new experiences !

Signing off,

Reshmy

The girl who loves shopping