Tag Archives: TRAVEL

LIFE, TRAVEL

Mumbai: Stuck in the Middle

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When you step off the plane at Mumbai’s sleek international airport, a few things immediately happen:

One, you’re instantly overwhelmed by the city’s scale. Before stepping out of the terminal, you get a sense for just how massive the experience that awaits you is. After all, this is a megacity of 25 million people crammed into a space that’s half the size of London. If you’re used to the New York minute, the Mumbai minute will take you by storm.

Two, the coexistence of massive wealth and massive poverty. The flashy logos of Gucci and Louis Vuitton live alongside children begging for scraps of food. Walking through Bandra, you can book an ultra-luxurious hotel room at the world-class Taj Land’s End Hotel only to see families living in tin shacks not half a block away.

Three, Mumbai stimulates the five senses and doesn’t let go. The smells of freshly fried street food, the purring of rickshaws weaving through otherworldly traffic jams, and the vibrant colors seem to echo into all parts of this global city.

For me, I was hit by one more thing– the notion that I was arriving in a city where I was neither a tourist or a local. As I observed my surroundings, I thought back to comedian Aziz Ansari’s piece in The New York Times where he describes a trip to his ancestral home city of Trivandrum. He recalls being stuck in the middle of two cultures. The India he identifies with is a country he’s never lived in, only one he hears about through stories, relatives, and artifacts.

I, like Ansari, grew up with an Indian name, with Indian parents, in a household where Indian languages were regularly spoken and Indian food was regularly consumed. But there I was in a coffee shop in central Mumbai, in India’s most cosmopolitan city, and I felt lost. I wasn’t an outside observer with no knowledge of the country and its customs but I was in no way a Mumbaikar.

“Sure, I appear Indian, but my clothes and sneakers were clearly American. Even in India, I was kind of an outsider.”

Aziz Ansari, The New York Times

I was stuck in the middle.

A whirlwind of thoughts flooded my brain. Just because I have Indian heritage, does that allow me to critique the country’s practices? Since I stuck out as an American simply by the way I walk, does that mean I don’t belong here? That I’ll never truly fit in? That even if I dive deep into my roots, staying in flats and eating the cuisine I grew up on, I would still be viewed as a foreigner?

I wrestled with these questions on my flight home and I continue to do so to this day. It’s bizarre to see New York on one side of your boarding card, Mumbai on the other, and knowing that home lies somewhere in the middle.

TRAVEL

Are all oases this stunning?

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We got lost.  Not once, not twice, but multiple times on our quest to get to experience an oasis for the first time.  Our family who lives in Oman had told us this was a must do on our trip.  Magazines, newspapers, and travel bloggers concurred.  However, Wadi Bani Khalid seemed to be playing a game of cat and mouse with us.  Each person who we stopped to ask for directions, appeared to send us on yet another path.  We saw multiple signs and yet the target proved elusive.  I could not be more grateful to our relative who patiently persisted and finally got us to this absolutely breathtaking location situated about 200 kilometers away from Muscat.

So, call me naive, but when I heard the word “oasis”, I was envisioning a bunch of palm trees surrounding a body of water.  That’s what I had read in books and seen in paintings.  But what I saw is really hard to put into words.

Nestled among the magnificent Eastern Hajar mountains, with majestic rock formations and boulders, Wadi Bani Khalid has the clearest, most gorgeous oasis where at any given time, the water appears to cover the entire spectrum of green and blue hues.  It is not an easy hike to traverse the wadi, your leg muscles get a workout for sure, but what you end up seeing and absorbing will stay with you for a lifetime.  We saw tourists come, spend just a tad bit of time, take pictures and leave.  Please don’t do that.  Plan to spend a half a day, hiking the area, swimming and just sitting back, enjoying a nice lunch al fresco before heading back to city life.  I’ve tried to capture our adventure in pictures below.

Since we had family living in Oman, we chose to drive here from Muscat.  You could rent a car and drive out on your own or take one of the tours offered by the many local tour companies.  The only risk, as we discovered with driving, is that the mountains interfere with the GPS signal and you need to allocate plenty of time to get here.

If you choose to take a tour, here’s a link to one from Viator:

Visit Wadi Bani Khalid

TRAVEL

Walking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco; A Photoessay

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She is an undisputed beauty, one that has been a constant presence in welcoming me with her outstretched arms from up in the air and down on land, during my many visits to San Francisco.  So, it was just a matter of time before I showed my respect and gratitude by arriving at her doorstep.

With family ensconsed in the area and more frequent visits, it was time to propel this iconic visit to the top of my bucket list.  So on a beautiful August morning, armed with just the right amount of Golden Gate Bridge tips, we ubered it over to the South End of the bridge.

She is a beauty up close for sure.  Yes, all those jaw dropping pictures of her, omnipresent across social media are real! And she is indeed proof of being one of those perfect places where the marvels of engineering meet the gifts of nature.

The books and websites caution you to keep aside several hours to traverse her length and to turn back halfway if you don’t have enough time.  My personal take? Please don’t turn around.  Please take the time to walk the entire length of the Golden Gate bridge.  As you can see from the pictures below, this is “THE” way in which you can marvel at the wonder and beauty created by the juxtaposition of one of the most beautiful man-made objects set against the jaw dropping beauty of the city of San Francisco.  There are some beautiful pictures to capture here, but if you are not carrying a spare battery for your phone, you may want to space your picture-taking along the walk.

We took our time, pausing to admire the views, staring intently at the power of the cables holding the bridge and of course soaking in the conversations and energy from families, intense joggers and laid back bikers sharing our walk.  It was a beautiful experience, almost surreal, and I hope I was able to transmit the feelings of contentment and gratitude to the icon who has been a constant on my visits to the area.

We’d love to hear about your most memorable bridge crossings on foot, bike and beyond!