Living a lot is seeing a lot

by Mohamed Farahani (Tanzania)

A leap into the unknown India

Living a lot is seeing a lot is a story that tells of my first experience of traveling out of African continent through airway toward India subcontinent. It was on May 5th, 2014 where I had the opportunity to fly for approximately 10 hours from Dar es Salaam-Tanzania to Mumbai-India. In fact it was an exciting trip with lots of fun things in the sky and even when I got to India as it was my first time traveling overseas again in a long-haul. The journey started at 11 pm, The weather was cloudy which led to spectacular view at the sky. Personally I didn't expect to see the ambiance and beauty that is in the wide body aircraft and what surprised me the most was when we were cruising about 40,000 feet above sea level I was able to see through the window, a rainbow that was in a round shape around the aircraft's shadow which was clearly visible on a large white cloud. Throughout the flight I was fortunate sitting at back at the tail section, I was actually able to enjoy the taste of flying when the aircraft started climbing toward its altitude, there were a certain condition that I felt physically that might cause one to get some emotionals. Personally my toes blossomed due to the excitement I was getting. The other thing that I will never forget is when the flight attendant offered me a juice, because of the strangeness I didn't ask what kind of juice it was. So I took a deep sip on it .... Lol! it was tomato juice and I had never drunk since I was born. Its taste was so strange to me I wanted to spit it but it wouldn't be easy to spill on the floor of the plane. So I tried to swallow it by force while showing a false smile in order to show that I was comfortable with a drink, though things were not like that. When I landed in India, I started to feel that I was out of the African continent because the environment, people, languages had completely changed. The food contained a lot of peppers, something that I was not used to before but its people were so hospitable and great friends as they were able to take me to various sightseeings such as; Taj Mahal, Collaba, Narima Point Beach, Bollywood and at the hanging garden where I enjoyed a lot. It was truly a wonderful journey that has left many memories in my life. That is why the saying of " Living a lot is seeing a lot" has made such an impact on me