Every outstation trip creates many aspect of learning. It begins with learning about travel and its adventure as it unfolds.
Traveling in different weather. Every time we want comfort of shade or hot it is not available. We need to work without fans/AC when we are on road.
We do not get always what food we want, sometime it is a treat while sometimes its just basic, sometimes it is hours of wait, before we reach a place to eat.
All kinds of discomfort ranging from bus seats (front or back, window or aisle), clothes (whatever we pack we manage – sometimes we pack tight clothes in hot weather, sometimes sleeveless for cold weather). Each one has a preference of kind of toilets – we donot necessarily get toilets of our choices :).
Extended timings – Always the timings do not follow our comfort – sometimes we are completely off our schedule, sometimes in time, sometimes in hurry, sometimes at leisure.
Organizing – We reach new place with some expectations and always they are not the same as we imagined sitting at campus while planning. Instead we are welcome by all kinds of surprises.
This trip was not any different. We began 4hrs late, as the bus had some issue. We shifted from AC to non AC bus. We estimated 4hrs journey, we traveled for nine hours. We hunted for places, first place was very suffocating, finally we settled for a clean room and forgot about AC room in that humid weather. Searching for place in Vellore was even more adventurous – some felt exhausted and wanted to come back, while some were determined.
Next day we were wiser, calculated kilometers and average speed and planned accordingly.We lost one day, so next day was ‘hurry, fast, quick’. We couldn’t spend as much time we wanted to spend in different places.
Third day started late and we reached Vellore fort, all we could see was the fort wall and some ruins, nothing like ‘fort’ existed, Most buildings have public office and in the midst of all this we found temple with magnificent carvings and a museum which housed preserved animals.
Last part of the visit was extensive documentation by each one of us. For many it was first time experience of writing travelogue. They were excited to first play with words and then photographs and re-live the visit.