Somewhere near Sarchu

What is the best thing about travelling?

That it gives several opportunities to meet new people. People who are amazing, have different cultures, speak different languages and have beautiful stories to tell. People who inspire you, teach something new, make you feel confident, and make your experience unforgettable.

In the past few years, I have travelled a lot and been to so many new wonderful places. During my journey, I have also met such amazing humans who made my travelling experience far better. So I am gonna share few of my experiences through this post. Also, few fellow bloggers are also sharing their experiences.

Below are some of my best experiences.

September 2018, When I was traveling to Spiti Valley

On the second day of the road trip, we started moving towards Nako from Kalpa. We took a halt at Akpa to have lunch and there we stopped at a roadside dhaba which was recommended by our driver. There we met an old man who was managing the dhaba. The way he was serving the food, it showed us his dedication. He was so humble and polite and he was continuously smiling. The best thing about him was the way of his serving. He used to say “kadhi di seva“, “roti di seva“, etc while serving. The food was also amazing and so was his services.

He taught me that no work is big or small. Its not always “do what you love”. Sometimes, you should love what you do. Just give your 100% and you will always be happy.

While on a Spiti Valley Road Trip
While on a Spiti Valley Road Trip

March 2019, During my Tirthan Valley trip

In this trip, I and my friends were coming back from Rolla trek in Great Himalayan National Park. We were already late as we got lost our way on the trek and also crossed a few landslides. Hence, we reached Gushaini by 9:30 pm and the mild rain transformed into a heavy one. We didn’t have a hotel and there was no shop which was opened in the market of Gushaini. After searching for half an hour, we found a hotel and there I met a man who was the owner and was like a blessing in disguise. Though he refused to give us room because he didn’t have. Instead, he took me to his neighbour’s hotel and asked for the rooms on behalf of me. They also said no. In that rain, he was helping me to search for hotels. Finally, we got a decent hotel but there was no food. So the person asked me to come at his hotel to have dinner. Then we had our dinner and thanked that man who helped us in the bad weather conditions.

While on a tirthan valley road trip
While on a tirthan valley road trip

Here are some of the fellow bloggers sharing their travelling experiences.

Nidhi Srivastava from Nidhantrika

Nidhi Srivastava from Nidhantrika
Nidhi Srivastava from Nidhantrika

I have always travelled with friends and never had the guts to make it alone to any place. I sucked badly at my first ever solo trip where I was too shy to interact with people. Yes, I am selectively extrovert kind of a person. Well, I did pretty well when I went for my first ever travel blogger FAM trip this February. It took a lot of guts to trust travel with a bunch of strangers and share the life details with them. Trust me it was greater than I expected it to be.

In my trip to Jammu, I met this amazing person who is a travel blogger – Sahil Singh. He is the owner of Ghoomakad.in and has been in the travel business as a travel content curator for a while quitting his full-time job. I had never given a thought about my posts or content going on social media platforms. But, being with Sahil, I came to know various things about management of your social media profiles, how to generate traffic for your content and how important it is to interact with people. Being an amateur, I was just more curious about how to make it big someday in the travel business. There are various travel bloggers who have quit their full-time, well-paying jobs and moved to the mountains exploring their passion for travel.

Sahil is a person who is filled with energy and passion for travelling. I remember our late night walks around the hotel in the cold night when I would ask him silly questions and he would patiently reply to that with an experience of his own. He has been an inspiration for me, giving me a constant vibe to travel more. We chatted all the time when we were on the wheels and he never failed to go low on energy. He is the one who can dance till the music drops and click cliche pictures for you, giving you some of the best moments of your life. I am looking forward to my next trip with Sahil, for there is a lot which I have to learn and imbibe as a travel blogger, quite amateur one. “Traveling is about experiences and people we meet”

Rahul Sharma from Inside Out with Rahul Yuvi

Inside out with Rahul Yuvi
Inside out with Rahul Yuvi

A famous quote reads, β€˜Travel far enough & you will meet yourself’ but there is no denying the fact that while on the move, you sometime happen to meet a few people who, unknowingly, enhance your travel experience with their sheer humanness. I too happened to meet one such person during Nepal exploration who changed my perception towards looking at things.

Let’s meet the guy himself: Mr. Prem (with his trademark sunshades on)

During our 4 days Nepal expedition, Prem drove us through the streets of Nepal, touching Kathmandu, Pokhara, Bhaktapur & Nagarkot. We had a number of conversations with him while on the way and prima-facie it appeared that he is a super cool & a happy go lucky guy who is simply enjoying his life, without any issues at all.

However, as the talks went on, I eventually realized that my judgement about him was only partially correct. He indeed was a good human being but what I didn’t know about were the personal hardships ( lots of rather) he was going through in his life, which he hesitantly shared with us on the 3rd day. However, it won’t be fair on my part to disclose them here.

But despite all odds, he was smiling all 24*7. Despite all the anxieties that he might be going through inside, he was totally composed & very true to his duty.  In fact, he went all out to make sure that we are able to cover maximum tourist spots (some were not even included in the original itinerary). It was Dashain time (one of the biggest festivals of Nepal) & so all the food outlets/shops -big or small – were closed while we were on our way to Pokhara from Kathmandu. We were little worried for the kid but Prem arranged the best snacks that he could under those circumstances.

Besides a wonderful travel guide & a perfect driver, Prem was a living example of what I had only read so far- anxieties can be best dealt with calmness & patience. When things are not going your way, you got to put your best foot forward, rather than getting irritated. Secondly, I learnt from him that irrespective of what all is going around, one is supposed to perform his/her duty with full sincerity & with a smile because – β€˜The show must go on!’

Arpita Agnihotri from Desi Travelers

Arpita from Desi Travelers
Arpita from Desi Travelers

I have been Travel blogging since past few years now. This is an incident from one of my trips from college days. While coming from a backpacking trip to Lohgad fort situated in Malavli near Pune, I had only 15 rupees left with me. So I took the 7:45 PM train back to Shivaji Nagar, without worrying about what will happen afterwards. Soon I realized that my last bus to college leaves at 9 PM and I had no money to reach to the bus.

The person sitting just opposite to me saw me

Sweating and asked what happened? I told him that I have no money left for the last college bus and I will be stranded for the night if I couldn’t get there on time. He was no more than 17 years old and wasn’t quite rich either. Just as I stopped talking he flicked out Rs 100 note from his pocket and said “please return the favour to someone else”.

I saw that he had only Rs 10 note left with him after he gave Rs 100 note to me. The person that day taught me there’s no dearth of kindness in the world and less amount of money can never stop me from travelling.

πŸ™‚ Happy Travelling πŸ™‚

Written by

Manu Khandelwal

An engineer and a travel blogger. Loves trekking and doing bike road trips. Burger lover (want to try every burger in the world). Clinomaniac. Sports fanatic. Likes technology but not a technology addict.