How I got treated by me and the world as a first time solo traveller!

At The Ganges, Rishikesh - First city while Backpacking Uttarakhand

This post is a result of highly curious people asking me in all 3 tenses (you will be going all alone? you have come all alone? you went all alone?) added with infinite amount of surprise motivating me enough to write up my experience to answer all once and for all and for future reference as well! - Why don't people along with assuming a trip can be made only with friends or family also consider making a trip with thy self? There should be a norm - are you going with your friends/your family/your “self”? Why isn't it? Cos it's risky? Yes travelling solo is risky...as once you have lived in a new place all by yourself with such immense level of liberty, a new place where you are never bored of your own company, you are forced to trust strangers, find comfort in the discomfort...your priorities from the mundane changes to getting used to the everyday novelty, towards the likes of the seas and the skies, the mountains and the forests, all that is eternally blissful...something that we never imagined before but deep down we know it exists... you cannot just stop yourself to repeat it again, making it difficult to adjust back as what you sought comfort in becomes discomfort.

Nature and its patterns at its best!

There's a craving for the complex rather than the simple life you were adapted to, since traveling made you adaptable to a new place every day, experiencing things for the first time, every moment is lived and not taken for granted. Being in the present is taken totally to a whole new level. I always have traveled alone since the age of 13, but there was always someone in the city to receive me. For the first time in my life, I was in an unfamiliar place, living with unfamiliar people for the entire trip and the only thing I was constantly with was myself. 

The best part about travelling solo is the pinch of lostness always in your stomach, where you find yourself in the middle of a puzzle to be solved and once your destination is arrived, the achievement which only you are aware of knows no bounds! I have created my own place in Uttarakhand, wherever I foot stepped.

“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharlal Nehru

I did not only enjoys the sights, but the idea of living in another state, as lived by the locals was an experience. Living in the same city for years becomes such a  routine and so narrowing, that we forget the infinite number of ways to live life. The travel bug has bitten me...and I don't want any antidote for it, for I shall be gladly infected by it until the end of my life – Michael Palin. Once you come home, you are not the same anymore cos u have just unleashed a hidden side of yourself and you find yourself going all Adele (there's a side to me that I never knew, never knew). The world is a book, and those who don't travel live on the same page.

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu and I have already climbed mountains

The farther I went into my journey, an equal distance I covered within. adventure brings out all the qualities supposed to bought out...qualities like your self-determination, patience, confidence, motivation, intuition, reasoning, logic...After all, experience is the best learning as you are the sole witness. You will be thrown towards the bottomless cruelty and limitless kindness of humans and slowly realize that, both these exist in your as well. Two things are the hardest, saying goodbye to the known and welcoming the unknown, but the more often this is practiced, the more untouched and profound you become, blossoming to your natural self to the fullest...anyways being unpretentious is the new trend isn't it?!

  

The surreal turquoise Ganges

Yoga and meditation by the Ganges 

I’d rather be sitting in the mountains and meditating, rather than thinking about the mountains while meditating! Travelling is nothing but having a control over your mind for a change, which needs a change in backdrop, and you realise that once things are in your control, your ability to believe increases along with the manifestations. Travelling is like being in a polygamy relation. You are in love with so many places and you need to do justice to so many more new places, that you would rather stay and love but it's time to prep and reach your next to be love!

 

 “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark.

The unfolding of the unplanned travel plans makes you believe in the planner of this universe. The feeling of booking tickets and just leaving is so amazing, so so amazing that I can't wait to book my next tickets.

Mushrooms without any rooms! Honey! we've been stuffed!

Time: 

Depends on your speed...Me took 15 to 20 mins(Frankly speaking, I don't remember :P)

Ingredients: ( I depend a lot on hand to eye coordination, so don't depend on my proportions :))

1 packet mushroom ( stems cut and diced)
Handful of spinach (finely chopped)
1⁄2 cup cottage cheese
1⁄2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, diced
salt and pepper
1⁄2 teaspoon fresh minced parsley(optional)

Stuffing:
Heat a little oil, when hot - add onions, garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add spinach, salt, pepper, parsley and further cook for 3 minutes, stirring till wilted. Add the diced mushroom stems followed by cottage cheese to the spinach and toss till blended.
Remove from pan and transfer on a cool plate. Mix some shredded cheese to the stuffing.

Sauteing mushrooms:
Wipe clean mushrooms.
Fill mushrooms with spinach/cottage/cheese mixture.
Heat a pan with little oil in it and when hot, saute the mushrooms, turning them carefully towards each side, care to be taken to not spill out the cheese and get it stuck all over the pan.

Variation - Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Place caps on a greased pan and top with shredded cheese.
Bake mushrooms 20 minutes.

Place mushroom on a platter and serve.

Note: A very dear chef once told me that mushrooms are never ever to be wetted...they are made by 90% water and they are nothing but clean sponges...Still if are not satisfied without wetting( like me!), you can smudge some dry fine flour(yes it remains dry) sprinkle little water and rub off the flour...or go ahead and peel a thin layer.