A Trip to Falling in Love with Traveling

by Pujha R (India)

I didn't expect to find India

This was a trip I wanted to skip. My mental health was not at its best. I was at one of my lowest, I felt depressed, and I hadn’t gone traveling in almost two years. My chaotic and tumultuous life was wearing me down, kill my spirits, little by little. All I wanted to do was shut myself in loneliness like I always did. However, I ended up packing all my travel essentials grudgingly for I only decided to go for it because my friends wanted me to. This was my first trip by train after nearly five years and this was the only consolation for I've always loved traveling by train. As soon as we got into the train, I got myself seated next to a window that could keep me company with the view outside, the wild, the beautiful, the natural. All through the night, I switched between sleeping and lying awake, while looking out at the landscapes that moved along with me. The darkness, a few gloomy rays of light amongst it, the rickety feel of the journey, all these reminded me of how much I missed traveling by trains. The next morning, we arrived at a small station, from where we took a bus to reach our destination, Coorg. I found a cozy spot next to the window which let the soft, chill breeze cut through my skin. The best part about this bus journey was the view to rows of bougainvilleas that wildly arranged themselves all along the sides of the road. The bright pink, orange, and purple flowers in full bloom were such a sight to watch. Finally, we reached our cottages, where we stayed for the night. talk about the diversity of culture within one town. The following day, we started our journey to Coorg, one of most the famous and bustling tourist towns in India. Our first stop in Coorg was a waterfall. It was my first time to a falls and it was only after I had seen the magnificence of the falls that I realized how distant I was from nature, how removed I was from the grand narrative of something that was an essential part of my existence. The experience was truly therapeutic, the fresh freezing waters rejuvenated me from within. After having played with the waters like little children, we returned to our cottages where we spent the night singing and dancing. The final destination on our itinerary was a Buddhist monastery. This was another one of my firsts. The world inside the monastery was something I had never experienced. The moment I stepped inside, I could feel a sense of calmness inside of me. The culture inside was so drastically different from what the people outside practice. Despite this being so new to me, I could feel myself connecting to it deeply, I was connecting to the sense of peace it gave me. My favorite site inside the monastery was the actual shrine, where people went to worship. The shrine was unlike anything I had ever seen. The architecture was a melange of bright colors with detailed rows of roofs that had paintings of the Pali stories. The walls narrated tales better than any humans I knew. The prayer rituals were deeply meditative and mystical the sounds of chants and bells created a sense of higher contemplation that almost transcended me to a different realm just for a few seconds. Finally, our journey had come to an end and we all got back to our homes. I realized the change this travel had brought in me after I'd returned home. During my entire travel for three days, I had, not for once, thought about my problems. Not once, was I troubled by my depression, stress, or anxiety. All of it stayed at bay, while I became part of my travel. I did not expect to fall so deeply in love with traveling and that was the moment I realized how important it was for me to travel again, to rejuvenate myself, to set myself free, to not limit myself to the walls of my room, but to go into the wild space out there and explore it.