To the unknown we belong…

There is a certain level of confidence, nay, arrogance that comes when you have been through a lot on your travels and almost nothing scares you before a trip. You feel confident that you will do what you wished to do and you will be able to do it with utmost confidence and go with the flow if the need be. Yes situations do crop up at times which make you feel nervous during a trip, but never throughout or at least not in the beginning.

You might take it as a good thing, so that at least travel can be stress free. But I now see it as something that I need to break out of, something I need to challenge and something I need to smash with a hammer and feel the nervousness in my stomach.

I need to feel that nervousness of not knowing whether I will be able to do what I set out to do.

I need to feel that excitement of not knowing how I am going to get to a particular place or whether I can get there at all!

I need to feel that uncertainty of not knowing where I am going to stay and whether I will find any accommodation at all.

And most of all I need to go out there with just an advance point and shoot (Canon G1X Mark II) with limited battery capacity and no spare battery, not knowing when the battery is going to run out and not knowing whether I will be able to even get the charger for it before the trip (silly me, didn’t check the box for charger while picking it up.) And yet hope and pray that the battery lasts long enough for me to create some art.

All I know is, I have time starting tomorrow afternoon and ending at Monday morning to complete this trip, which is likely to involve 45-50 hours of bus journey in the span of 2 and a half days.

This is the scenario I am looking at, as I plan to pack a small day pack with just couple of cloths and not much else and leave for a trip to Kumaon on my first backpacking trip tomorrow and that too alone.

This trip for me is spiritual at many levels, since the supposed destination is Hat Kalika Temple in Gangolihat and more than that this is a trip about rediscovering that spark in me, that I have seemed to have lost.

This is a leap of faith and a submission to the almighty, whom I have not seen, just prayed and felt as an unknown force at times, bailing me out before it is too late. It is a journey to leave the known and travel to the unknown, because to the unknown we belong…