Travelling Travails...

I have a love-hate relationship with travelling...

I hate thinking of it, I hate waiting for it. I love travelling, I love planning for it. Confused? :)

Well, the deal is that I have a great life, and I love the routine. Travelling disrupts my routine, and that's why I hate thinking about it. The waiting is the worst part - it's like you are neither here nor there!

But I love planning. I am a good planner. From my hotels to my flights, to the dates - fitting everything in the best way possible, extracting the max out of each trip - that's something I think I am very good at! Getting the best connections, including the best weekend itenaries, finding the right hotels - and fitting in maximum leisure time without bloating your trip is a skill I am proud of :) Packing also requires planning, especially when you are as finicky and particular about things the way I am. Clothes, food items, office stuff, tickets and money, medicines - you cannot afford to forget when you are going on a long trip. I have everything sorted out - more than a dozen trips later, all my packing is now a planned affair - an Excel sheet that not only lists every single item (including extra specs and French translation guide for Europe trips), but also suggests the best way to carry these - so that you have sufficient backups of all important documents, in the right place, so that a lost piece of luggage does not mean having to make a distress trip to the consulate!

Once packed and planned, the waiting is the worst part. You disrupt not just your life, but that of all your loved and near and dear ones, who cannot go about their own lives and routines as long as are still here waiting for your trip to start! All those farewells turn me off, and make me edgy, and all I want then is for my bus to come so I can switch to my "on travel" mode!

The moment I say that last good bye and get on the bus or taxi, I am a transformed person. Focussed on the travel, on the journey ahead, and the meetings coming up! My posture changes, which is basically because of the heavy suit I am wearing and the laptop I am carrying! :)

I used to be very scared of all the immigration and stuff - and always worried about losing passports and tickets. At times, it made me stop and open my bags in the middle of the airport hall, checking everything a second and third time! I have grown over it now with a simple tweak to my packing style - as long as my tickets and passport are safe, I am happy - and these things now sit in my cargo pockets. Nothing else matters, and I travel much happier.

I have grown immune to those long flights now, though being in business class makes it much easier! I tend to go on a partial shut down - my thoughts are blunted, I get into a sleepy-all-the-time mode. A typical leg of 8 hours gets broken down into: 1 hour settling dowwn after takeoff, 1 hour of food (usually in 2 batches of 30 mins), 1-3 hours of movie watching, an hour on the laptop, and the rest in a head-lolling slumber. Used to take a lot of photos earlier, but now they all look the same.

The best part of the trip though, is the return flight - seeing the aircraft that will take you home... getting into it, and seeing the first Times Of India after 2 weeks, eating cold samosas for snacks, and the palak paneer with roti, and then, as the plane crosses the Arabian sea and the Indian coast, the first sight of land - your heart sings... Yeh jo desh hai mera, swades hai mera... and then, touchdown in Mumbai! The walk to immigration, the cell phone beeping with welcome back messages, and the step out into the warm, humid, smoky Mumbai air - and you know, you are home!