Lust list
tucked in to our heart’s content. It was the best meal of the
trip, and that too for free!
In Brahmpur, Orissa, we smelled chicken being barbecued
somewhere on the street. We followed our nose into a street
shop serving cheap chicken tikkas. But one bite and my
appetite died—it was chicken fat and not meat!
amount and tried to dump us in a hotel that paid him a cut.
Then we got scammed at Konark Temple. We went in without
a guide, and bumped into a guard who seemed happy to
share what he knew about the architecture, encouraging us
to ask questions. At the end of it, he demanded a fee for his
“services.” Curiosity killed our budget for that day.
A heart-in-the-mouth moment from the trip?
Prakhar, you did the last leg of the trip almost
by yourself.
Yes, I was alone on the last leg and it felt different; I had gotten
used to sharing the experience with Kanaad and Alshaar. But
solitude has its own lessons. One of the people I will always
remember from this leg of the journey is the Idli vendor at the
Ratnagiri Railway station--I spent three nights at the nearby
bench (mainly because it was protected from wind and
mosquitoes) and kept my bags at his shop. I even got free
fresh Idlis.
Alshaar: The funniest part of this adventure was that none
of us knew how to swim despite being in and around water
for almost the entire trip. I was pretty terrified during the ride
from Kanyakumari to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial. We had
a smooth sail while approaching the memorial but it started
raining as we sailed back. I kept my fingers crossed as the
vessel rode the crests and troughs.
“In Puri, do the opposite of what the autowallah
suggests, and never let anyone guide you in the Sun
Temple at Konark.” Elaborate.
Kanaad: To reach Dhanushkodi, the ghost town of Tamil Nadu,
you have to get on a bus which takes you along the beach
right into the town. For a considerable stretch, you are right on
the edge of the ocean with the waves kissing the wheels. For
the sort of bus we were on, I was just glad that it didn’t flip into
the ocean.
Kanaad: I wish I had known this earlier. First, the
autowallahdrove us for nearly two hours, charged thrice the
If you were confined to a single place you covered
during the trip for an entire year, no exits allowed,
travelsecretsmag.com monsoon issue 2016 Travel Secrets 49