In my case traveling is always unplanned

by Alpa Mange (India)

A leap into the unknown India

Never thought I could step to this side of mine !! This was one of my spectacular and the most memorable journey in my life to date. I am a motor scooter riding freak personality and always figure out to ride out to unique places every time I step out of my apartment. For now, I wanted to share the very first experience of my bike riding journey with you guys which was from Mumbai to Mahabaleshwar. I never thought of riding a motor scooter until this day. I used to hang out with one of my old friends regularly. He came up with small planning about a trip to Mahabaleshwar. The planning was just to travel to Mahabaleshwar by motor scooter that too he was supposed to go with his office friends. I was unaware of his plans. He didn't know how to ride a motor scooter at that time. And here was a turning point for my life's new face. Stay Tuned..... The one amongst his office friends who was supposed to ride for him was not able to show up due to some reasons. Six people were about to travel to Mahabaleshwar wherein four fetched two bikes and here my friend was left out. He ringed me up that very afternoon. He asked me if I can come to Mahabaleshwar with them. I took permission from my parents for traveling to Mahabaleshwar for two days. I was totally unaware of the mode of transportation to travel to Mahabaleshwar. I was just informed that " We are going to Mahabaleshwar for two days with other four people (my friends' office colleagues) apart from us and we would be traveling by car." My parents agreed to allow me to visit Mahabaleshwar and here I was very much excited and a body full of enthusiasm. It was mid winters and pretty much cold in Mumbai. We were supposed to gather in a place called Thane (Mumbai-India) at 11:00 in the night. And so did I. I reached Thane, I saw my friend waiting for me and waving. He then took me to meet his office friends and there I was able to see two bikes standing in front of me and one motor scooter. I was absolutely blank on viewing this picture. My friend described to me everything about this is how he planned to travel to Mahabaleshwar. I was a little bit disappointed about my friend not speaking truth to me before heading for a trip. But I was excited at the same time. With no time I was all set with my helmet, jacket, and hand gloves which my friend bought it for me. Without wasting any time, we started with our road trip or you can say for me is the motor scooter trip to Mahabaleshwar from Mumbai in the winters with the huge highways and the cold breeze in bulk crashing my face. We started our ride and the first stop we took was in Vashi itself because I wanted to adjust and warm myself with the leather jacket and hand gloves and a cloth tied on my face. The next stop was Lonavla. Luckily they pre-booked this hotel in Lonavla because we were supposed to reach Lonavla around 2 in mid-night. The hotel was quite good and we left from Lonavla the next day in the morning. Started to head towards Panchgani in Mahabaleshwar, I was feeling so energetic and so filled up that I was all into my riding, the locals around me, and the feel of thrill on the mountains curves. The view from the top of the mountain was mesmerizing and pulling me towards itself, again and again, asking me to just stop everything and sit on the tip of it enjoying the view, feel the nature, feel the cold, and think about the capacity you had for traveling to such a long distance on your first ride... This was just one way of my traveling, I would have loved to share the return way too if this was not limited to 700 words.....