Around the World with the Most Travelled Indian
By NITIN GAIROLA
Most people today travel after seeing dozens of videos especially when it comes to international travel. I can understand why since a decent amount of money would have been spent and we all want to make sure we get our money’s worth and don’t miss out on any ‘bucket list’ landmarks. I also do this and that’s why over the past 2 decades I have sort of become an expert itinerary planner (chat GPT can’t replace real on-ground experience, frankly). This skill comes to the fore especially when time or money is limited since if you have both of these, you don’t really need to plan much unless health and safety is a concern too. During my own world travels, I have always had to balance time & money and that’s why logistical planning comes naturally to me now.
their everyday lives
But in this over-planning too there is a trick in case you want to ensure that there is some element of serendipity left in your travels which is really the big idea of stepping out of the door and into the real world. And that trick is to read more than to see, since the written word can take you far away and yet leave a lot to the imagination. It is sort of like storytelling around a fire the way our ancestors did, just that in this case you have to make the effort to read the story than to only hear. With a video, I feel too much is revealed visually, and at the same time there isn’t much depth or width since the scope of a travel video is also very limited. How much can you cover in 5-6 episodes of 10 minutes each as you have on YouTube. So besides taking away the element of surprise it doesn’t give you much in terms of pre-travel logistical preparation and planning either.
Now after yet another case for books over videos, I will get to the story which was all about the excitement that comes from unplanned experiences. We were in Nizwa – an ‘ancient’ town in North-Central Oman on which there is tons of content online. For me it was a big family travel destination, an ancient place decked up by lights, signboards, fancy restaurants and a ridiculous amount of restoration. So much so that the city appeared like a medieval Disneyland. I was really disappointed to see Nizwa, a much-hyped UNESCO site. All through the first evening in Nizwa I dragged my feet around the spotless streets of this ‘modern-ancient town’. There was no sense of wonderment at all. I have seen this destruction of ancient towns in many places around the world, and I know it will continue as it does make a lot of business sense. Why have a limited number of deep & immersive travellers when you can attract hordes into a place complete with swanky restaurants and ice cream parlours. That’s just the price of commerce & trade and that’s what the majority wants.
But instead of cribbing about the good old days, know that there is always a completely different reality just around the corner should you wish to peep and then step out. That night I thought there must be something else to this illusion. They may have decked up Nizwa but the area around is still ancient, I said to myself. So, I contacted a few drivers and finally got connected to a driver who knew a bit of English and someone who sounded very pleasant. His name was Sultan.
our travels take us
We met Sultan the next morning and requested him to just drive off to the first village that I had read a bit about. The village was called Misfat Al Abriyeen and it was some distance away from Nizwa on top of a hillock (they called it a mountain but since we in Uttarakhand we live in the shadows of the world’s tallest mountains, for me it was a hillock). And because for a change I had read nothing about this village, it turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. Its narrow canals & walkway and lush palm trees gave it the appearance of a desert oasis. And it being perched on a hillside overlooking red rocks was pure magic. No surprise that it was a lot cooler than Nizwa with the slightly higher altitude and the greenery.
After that Sultan took us to a living museum called Al-Hamra and the reason why it’s called a living museum is that people actually live there almost as they did years ago, save the mobile phones. There is also the fact that Al-Hamra doesn’t have many actual museums to speak of. You don’t need one since almost the whole town is living in the past and I was just stunned that such a place existed in a country that doesn’t often come to mind when we want to see the fabled version of West Asia. How wrong I was in thinking so as well. Oman is actually the jewel of West Asia, and it is completely safe which a lot of other parts in this larger region aren’t. We also made a visit to some ruins that I can’t remember the name of (nor do I want to Google search it) and then finally concluded in a place called Birkat Al Mawz, which made us feel like we had re-entered Morocco. It had at least a 100 or more tightly packed and deserted mud houses on a slope with palm trees growing all around them. It was just brown & green with a backdrop of blue and let me assure you that it makes for quite a striking vision of a past paradise.
None of these places were researched of beforehand and I got to know that some tourists do come here but most stay back in Nizwa. I thought to myself that it is such a pity when the over-sanitised town of Nizwa is a loud tourist magnet and the others sit silently on the fringes. So what if we missed the bucket list UNESCO sites since in return we got such a rewarding experience elsewhere. It made me think we need to strip off the labels and burn the bucket list (at times) so that we can finally start appreciating the serendipity that comes with travel. Of course, I can’t let the bucket lists go away completely since I am so obsessed about seeing ‘everything’ on Earth, however that everything is at a macro planning level only. And that’s why when the plane touches down and I feel the terra firma beneath me, I sometimes (just sometimes) let the local guides take me to their special place. I am glad we did that in Oman and it gave us so much back in return. Besides, in Sultan we had a stranger who was just a friend that we hadn’t met yet.
(Nitin Gairola is from Dehradun and is an extreme world traveller who has seen the natural world extensively and is often referred to as the ‘Most Travelled Indian’. He is on a quest to become the first person to travel to every major desert, forest, grassland, tundra & ice biome on Earth, besides every country. Nitin has set world travel records certified by India Book of Records, has written for Lonely Planet, holds National Geographic conservation certifications and loves Bio-Geography. He is also a senior corporate executive in an MNC and in his early days, used to be a published poet as well. Join him @ www.instagram.com/ MostTravelledIndian/)
