TRAVEL DIARY : STAY FOOLISH AND STAY CURIOUS

 

 Stay Foolish and Stay Curious …..!

Well, when it comes to flying , I am little ambivalent about the whole thing , a kind of hesitation  , first of all I have to digest the fact that I am  condensed inside a tube , with arms length air exchange with  seated neighbors, second , if I am not getting the window seat and  sand witched between aisle and window , I consider  the whole travel as doomed  , third is the food smell and other odors  specifically during the long travels . That's for the economy class; if it is the business class, I am forced for a compulsive hospitality, obligatory   entertainments and forced sleeps ( people  sleep in the  business class as if they have never slept in their life! or ‘they pay to travel   to sleep’ in air  !)  .

But  all these doubts and inconveniences  will vanish and a sense of   fulfillment will settle ,  if I get the window seat by luck . But getting a window seat is the challenge  , if I request during the check in, they might charge a premium, if  I say no, they will intentionally give me a middle seat as a punishment,, and there is a problem that even after paying a premium you might  get a seat where  your accessibility to the window may be  half, and if the person in the front seat  reclines his seat, your probability of getting that privilege is also lost.

Moreover getting  window seat in an aero plane  is like getting a lower birth in a train in India , that has to be exchanged to an old lady or a pregnant lady or a  man with a knee injury ; you may end up  sacrificing  your window seat  to your friends  who would bother you  for the convenience of resting  his  head on the window shade  while sleeping.

For that matter Sleepers in the plane are different and for the sake of understanding I  classify them into three categories.

1)   Some people go to deep sleep the moment they get into the plane , specifically the frequent flyers , they skip the food and  except for biological breaks they never bother to get up,

2)     Some people specifically  the new flight travelers out of excitement or fear , they never sleep , and

3)   Some do it in installments, and that too in half baked slumber.

 I belong to the third category , most of the time  I refrain from sleeping , sometimes I browse movies’ , but most of the time  I enjoy  watching out of the window and refer  the map and understand the geography of the  earth underneath  thru the flight path .

                                            

Now a days new generation aircrafts have provided a new experience for window seekers . Earlier aircrafts had the shutter for the window, and we have to slide it up and down for opening and closing ,  now it has  changed  to electronic diminishing glasses  …..  , specifically the Boeing which I travelled recently has adjustable light control glasses on the windows   . ….we can adjust the glass to give a cooling effect of the view or complete dark if we wanted to sleep. 

For the People who have the habit of watching outside, it’s really boring, same clouds, same blue sky, but for the patient observers, it is an experience bestowed with surprises.

Some of the sights   are really breath taking, like sighting other planes flying in different altitudes   with their white contrails so closer; From the earth, We would have spotted the contrails as two straight white lines following a moving white dot, on the blue background   from the earth, now you see it at say  at  1000 ft distance .  It gives the feel of watching a live animation game, with planes whisking in lightning speed. Only then we’ll appreciate the speed of the plane with which we are traveling. I wonder how the crew inside that plane serve the food and beverages without spilling at that speed , we can’t imagine how! people can stand inside that plane, it disproves of our understanding of physics. . I really envy the pilot who will get a different perspective of these whole things.

The cumuliform clouds offers you the   mind blowing views … stills like volcanic  explosion or  a monster or like cotton balls and rolls  … sometimes I wonder Angels will fly here  and the Pegasus  galloping with its wings amidst the blanket of  stratiform clouds.

Yellow  blanket with miles and miles of sand folds, streaked with an occasional serpentine road ,with intermittently   moving tiny dots on it, this is what a view above the Arabian desserts has to offer.

Earth  is so good to see it this way ,One of the travels above the Europe,  the bald mountains  sprinkled with  white powder , which quiet shortly  someone down the  valley  will call it a snow capped mountain   .

While flying above the sea closer to Amsterdam , I spotted the sea with different but in  regular thin pattern of lines. on  a closer look I found out that they were floating wind mills .I am really lucky enough to spot  two whales taking sun bath on the ocean  on a low altitude flight above the Indian Ocean…..but , I was denied off the opportunity to show it to my fellow passenger  sleeping next to me ..

Human beings are curious by nature and Nature bestows the curious with rewards of experiences.

As Robin Sharma said “ Never loose your exceptional curiosity:  First watch a child : their eyes sparkle from the wonder they see.

Lose that and you lost it all “ 

Nights are interesting , that too if it is a full moon day.. its not the pulsating moon as you see from the earth , it is a different moon altogether

 It is a treat to watch the full moon with the blanket of clouds in the forefront ..

A different perspective  and different color against what we see from the surface ,a still  yellowish  white ball , with a uniform reflection   on the  underlying cloud in a  slivery white band  extending for  kilometers  , you can  see the textures and the craters pretty clearly. If it is moody and cloudy , a distant  lightening will be a bonus giving some pub lighting effect  .

High above the a city of Iraq , the flaming chimney s of oil fields , I don’t know which city it was , but with the lighting I could make up the circular road of that  beautiful city , inner ring road and the central roundabout  which must be the CBD .  

Any city, it is a treat to see a traffic jam from a low altitude,  with a series  of yellow lights on one side of the road  and a line of red light on the other side  . An illuminated upper deck of a ship is a pleasure to watch .  

How is it!! to see  the  night light of  Delhi city before the landing , pretty bright light spots like a carpet of lights in different colors ..Veiled for Kilometers, alas! Suddenly one fourth of it blacked out …. Because of a power cut.

…Yeah! Stay foolish and stay curious! ….travels  will be interesting .

 -By Rajesh Babu , Most of the pictures were clicked by me on various travels , some are sourced from open source.