fly free
traveling solo to our own destinations, arriving in UAE, the latest not-so-happy war updates, and beautiful travel pictures
Dear Reader,
Thank you for being here.
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I am not in Calcutta anymore. After five months, this Monday, I took a flight to Abu Dhabi (UAE), and my partner, Sagar, flew to the Andaman Islands. We both had been wanting to travel to places very different from what we know. I chose out of India, and he chose the Indian islands he had been dreaming of visiting for years.
Abu Dhabi wasn’t the plan, though. The plan was to fly to Turkey, a country I have been craving to see for a decade. My destinations are mostly decided by how exotic the name of the place sounds. As unknown and unheard the country is, the more unaware I was that it even existed, the better it is. Istanbul, a word, a place, a phenomenon, has resided in a corner of my mind for years. The city’s name filled my eyes with pictures of cobbled streets lit with colorful oil lamps, men and women dancing in traditional beautiful clothes, and sufi music soothing the air. I don’t know how I got this image. But it has persisted. My apologies to all Turkish citizens reading this newsletter. I am sure I am not even one percent close to a correct representation of Istanbul, but you can create sand castles for free.
The first step is to dream of a place, and the second is to see it.
Sagar was clear about his destination. Visiting Andaman, the group of islands about 1400 km from the coast of India, has been his long-time dream, and he was about to make it happen.
I started preparing for the journey in mid-January. In my task list Excel sheet, I wrote down “travel planning” on certain days in some slots for that week. Around January 23, I searched for flights from Calcutta to Istanbul. A flight on 5th February was the cheapest. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was in my budget, was not too soon or distant, and the timing suited me.
Meanwhile, Sagar and I (but mostly Sagar) migrated my website, On My Canvas, from an unstable server to a strong one. He insisted on rebuilding the website from scratch to avoid bringing in the garbage and broken code from the existing server. The blog was undergoing a complete dry cleaning, not just a wash.
The task started right after I had found the flight and continued for two weeks. In between, I watched the Geography Now videos of Georgia, Turkey, and so on. I shamelessly played a never-ending Turkish drama series for hours, while I should have been doing other more important things.
The next time I looked up from the blog migration and at the flights, we were a few days away from the 5th. I couldn’t fly so soon. Some basic things would have to be done in preparation for the journey: finish a few more work tasks, book flights, look at visas, clean up the house we were in, manage travel money, eat the ingredients we had bought with love and that awaited us on the shelves, and packing. But there were no other flights in that price range.
Oh no!
I remembered that I had flown to Chile via Dubai and that Dubai is a major connecting airport. Istanbul, too. A quick Google search showed many flights from Calcutta to Dubai every day at an average price range. And the flights from Dubai to Istanbul were also not bad. hmm. This is an idea.
I searched for visas to Dubai for Indians. I had a hunch that I could fly to the UAE on a valid US visa. My search confirmed my intuition. I added up the flight costs, and it was turning out to be a little more than what a direct flight from Calcutta to Istanbul would have cost me. The prices that day looked great, and so a plan formed in my head. For Turkey, I could get an e-visa, given my US travel visa (a travel friend and a dear reader had confirmed).
I know a lot of you who are not from India are wondering: “You have to take a visa to Turkey and UEA?” Yes, that’s true. That’s my passport. But Indians can travel to many countries on a valid US, Schengen, UK, Canada, Australia visa, etc.
By the time I was ready to book, the flight prices had changed, and they were not that cost-effective anymore. But I was getting to explore one more country for a few extra thousand. It was a win-win. Late at night, while Sagar built my blog, I booked my flights, and then his. We chose the same day to fly out of Calcutta. We would lock the house, return the keys, and travel to the airport together.
Then everything happened quickly. The 23rd of February came before we had thought, and we were on our way to the airport in a taxi, both our backpacks and laptop bags dancing in the boot of the car. We knew we would miss each other, but we also knew that we needed this time of travel and fun of our own. His slow journey in the Andaman Islands would give him enough time to work and see without rushing. I could go at my speed as I don’t have time constraints regarding work. He also doesn’t have a US travel visa, and it would have been hard for him to hop countries as I am planning to do.
Feeling sad and missing someone is also a choice. On most travel days, you are so busy that you don’t get time to think about anything. In the past, on my solo travels without Sagar, I had started missing him, only to remind myself that we are apart because we chose to be apart and that we should enjoy and make use of this opportunity rather than being sad. If I had to be sad, I should have stayed home or right next to him. But I am tired of moving slowly, thinking of work days, and looking for good places to stay with a work desk and functional things, because we need to spend time indoors, too.
A few days ago, I met a traveler in Abu Dhabi (UAE) who, after listening to my travel story, said: So basically you both were annoying each other?
I justified. “No. I mean if two people live together, they will always argue a bit. They would have to work things out, always talk about if it was okay or if they could do this that way.” I gave the reasoning of work. But a doubt lingered in my mind.
An unsettling part inside me asks: Were you just trying to get rid of Sagar (he would never want to get rid of me) because you both had been fighting? That some days have been hard, and you wanted to make it easy for yourself?
Relationships are hard. It’s true that we both need to understand each other a lot more, respect each other more, and be more patient. More, more, more. But being better together is an ongoing process and can’t happen in a blink. We will take the time we will take. Meanwhile, we also need to grow individually, do things we like, and learn from a distance.
If Sagar were free from work, we would have traveled together, forming a route that was doable, given that I have a US travel visa and he doesn’t. I wasn’t trying to get rid of him; I was trying to get rid of the need to follow a schedule. I have been craving to run free, devoid of routines, writing deadlines, a need for a nice place to stay, travel plans, etc. And I am free now, at least it is starting to feel that way. (I have been asking Sagar to get a US visa for himself, and I think, finally, he will apply for one soon. In 2018, we both applied for the US travel visa, and while I got it, his visa was rejected for unknown reasons.)
It’s all good. Now Sagar sends me photos all blue (remember he is on an island), and I tell him about the places I am visiting and the people I am meeting. When one of us is in doubt, the other encourages to take the leap. Just ten minutes ago, over a phone call, as Sagar went on describing his scuba dive, I told him that I would call him back at night, but only after I had heard part of his story to absorb the excitement oozing out of him, and not for long enough that I get distracted from creating this letter.
Balancing everything together isn’t easy, but it isn’t hard either, as long as one has respect, love, and prudence in their heart.
Back to my travels.
I knew nothing about the United Arab Emirates (UAE) before flying here. Many friends have visited the UAE, some worked here, and travelers often took flights via Dubai. I had no idea what was the hype about the place. So many Indian cinema professionals are invited to Dubai to launch a diamond store or inaugurate yet another villa estate. Some rich Indians have houses in Burj Khalifa, the 828-meter-high building, the tallest in the world.
To me, Dubai and the UAE sounded as strange as a touchscreen might sound to a fish. I was extremely excited to come here and go onwards to Turkey.
The thrilling feeling that I was heading into something completely unknown and into a world I have no idea about has been spot on.
I landed in Abu Dhabi, one of the seven Emirates/kingdoms/districts of the UAE. Even at four am, when I took a bus from the airport to the house of a host who had kindly offered me his place to stay (more on that later), street lights were on, buildings were shining, and many people boarded the bus. On that fifty-minute ride, I dozed off.
The next afternoon I saw Abu Dhabi in full glory.
Glass buildings glinted everywhere, Ferraris were parked on the roadside, and beautiful one-story beige mosques fit into the whole scene as naturally as an alphabet on a page. Pristine shining buses ran alongside bikes, cars, and vans. Many Indians roamed around. At 11:30 am, I was turning around in the streets next to my place, looking for breakfast and coffee. The sun glowered down on me.
As I stood waiting at a zebra crossing for a car to go by, the bright vehicle stopped for me. I bowed my head and hurried across. Later, I would walk down the zebra crossings, the cars waiting for the pedestrians to pass, as if I had been doing that for years. At the traffic signals, we waited for the hand for walkers to turn green. Sometimes people pressed a button to tell the signal to give them a way.
I remembered my days on the island of Chiloé in Chile where cars stopped for pedestrians at any place on the road to let them pass. There, too, the pedestrian was the king, as my college friend living in Dubai puts it. (After I spent two days in Abu Dhabi, my friend picked me up and brought me to his house in Dubai.)
I went inside a small bakery with two tables. They had grilled fish with vegetables, some meats I couldn’t understand, fried fish, and many other steel containers full of food. I was in the mood for a sandwich, but they had none, and the tables looked crammed and occupied. I walked out again. My stomach grumbled.
Soon, I was inside a small cool shawarma place where they had a vegetarian sandwich. I ordered one and an orange juice. Meanwhile, a man approached the owner, asking for the change for fifty dirhams in Hindi. I was surprised. The owner, who had been taking my order, told him yes in Hindi. My host would later tell me that about 4.5 million Indians live in the UAE. They have resident visas, and they work here.
My confusion about Indians had started at the airport. The flight was full of Indians, a group of male friends sitting next to me and in the seat ahead of me. Not more than five women were on that flight. And these men were not travelers. They were in regular, everyday clothes, and it became obvious to me that I was on a flight with people going to Dubai to work. Some were probably returning after a regular visit back home, and others were perhaps heading to the UAE for the first time, with only their dreams in their pockets.
I say they were not travelers because most of them were not aware of the regular norms of airline travel. The young man next to me poked his elbow into me many times, he sat with his legs open and knees so wide that I had to request him to take his leg into his area, and when the flight landed, he immediately asked me to get up and then stood in my seat. I had to ask him to either go to his seat or get into the aisle because I wanted to sit. No one on that flight seemed to know that the escalators take a while to be attached to the plane, or, as always, they were just rushing as Indians do. I know I am generalizing, but this happens on every flight I have ever been. It’s in our blood to hurry when we don’t really need to.
The men didn’t look that excited either. My doubt was somewhat confirmed when their phones started buzzing and ringing as soon as the flight landed.
At the airport, the burqa-clad employee asked me to go to the automatic immigration glass stall where I stood on the two yellow footmarks, put my passport where they said put your passport, and looked into the camera. The screen showed an error and requested me to head to immigration. I waited in line at the immigration in between a group of old men from Spain who instructed each other to stand there and pass their fingers onto the scanner that way. Their maroon passports were stamped immediately, the immigration officer smiling at their jokes. At my turn, finally, he flipped my passport pages quickly and demanded my resident visa. I said, “I have a US visa.” He, with a straight face, asked me to go to Counter No.1. I was at the 40th or something.
At Counter No.3 (1 and 2 were empty), I was again asked for a resident visa with an even sharper look. I repeated myself. He asked for 100 dirhams. I had forgotten about the payment part. I quickly looked into my bag for my Wise travel card and handed the fluorescent green thing to him. All done, I walked to the baggage area where my blue backpack was taking turns on the baggage belt, waiting to be collected. The yoga mat I had tied to it was almost untied by now. (Wise card deserves a blog post. It is a travel card that allows you to load local currency and pay in local currency without any fees except the small amount you pay while topping up the card.)
Yes, my experience could have been smoother. They could have checked my passport or asked for my visa status and sent me to the correct counter. But when thousands of Indians fly in every day, who cares! After five minutes, I had been able to switch on my eSIM activated with a Dubai data plan, then I walked to find the bus, and after some back and forth and asking a few questions, I was at the bus stop outside the arrival, waiting for the N2 bus, ready to hit the bed.
At the host’s house, I took the keys from the reception, entered the house quietly, and slept on the couch, which my French host had prepared for me in the living room. I had found the host on the Couchsurfing website, a platform where hosts and travelers connect, and if a host agrees, the traveler can stay in their house for as many days as discussed. I had chosen a host on the basis of the good references he had been given by previous travelers. It was my first experience on Couchsurfing, and my stay turned out to be comfortable and safe. More on Couchsurfing in individual posts.
I had lain down at 5:45 am or so, woken up at 9, and now I was looking for breakfast after a few good hours of rest.
At the shawarma place, too, they only had two tables; I plonked down onto the empty one. The male cooks, who looked Indian and Pakistani, peeked at me from the half-open kitchen door. The vegetable sandwich was bad, but the juice was fresh. And thus began my UAE adventure.
During the day, I would hear not only Hindi but other Indian languages too, especially South Indian tongues. Being scorched under the harsh sun, I decided to take up the host’s recommendation and head to the Louvre museum, where, by chance, the works of Picasso were being displayed temporarily. I was at the museum for three and a half hours, after which I decided to go outside, have a coffee, and sit at the promenade, staring at the cerulean Gulf of Arabia. Yes, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi is right at the shore. I saw a hundred kind of people with varied skin tones, hair styles, clothes, cameras, glasses, and purses. I couldn’t guess who could have been from where, and for the nth time, I felt how little we know of our own planet.
Questions like why so many Arabic people are so fair and white when it is so hot and sunny here have still not been resolved. I have not understood from where the young man who looked Asian but wore a long traditional ankle-length white robe, locally known as kandura, could be. But, I think, answers come in as questions do, and all my doubts will hopefully be resolved by the time I leave, which is in a few days.
As I close this letter, I message Sagar to get some sleep, to rest. He replies, “Yeah, I am on the bed, exhausted, lying down for a bit.” When I say that I am working and might not get time to roam today, he tells me that work is important too, it’s good that I am working, and that he is proud of me.
Even when we fly free, we perch, too, and that’s just how life is.
PS: While writing this letter, the situation turned around completely. The ongoing Iran-US conflict has started to wreck the world. Iran has attacked the US military bases in the Middle East, and the sky here in Dubai is filled with the smoke clouds from the Iranian missiles that are being intercepted by the UAE. The air has been ringing with countless loud blasts from the interceptions.
Iran has confirmed that their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been killed.
As of now, Dubai Airport has shut down. I can’t believe it. I just flew in on Tuesday morning, and the day before, I was in Abu Dhabi where the missile debris has killed a Pakistani. I am completely safe, and for now, at the friend’s house.
Would I be able to board my flight to Istanbul in a few days? Who knows! I hope people stay safe and that harmony can be restored.
Sharing some credible links that have helped me understand the current situation:
Here are the latest updates on BBC, though similar to CNN and WSJ
Do you think a family should sometimes travel individually too?
My 1st book, a travel memoir, Journeys Beyond and Within… is available in all bookstores in India and on Amazon globally. Journeys is a pure, honest travel memoir in which I peel down the emotional, physical, and social challenges to their unbreakable elements. It’s a true account of me making my own path despite all the odds.
I’d love for you to read the book :)
Sikkim Express: “Simple, free-flowing, but immensely evocative.”
The Telegraph Online: “An introspective as well as an adventurous read.”
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All Amazon links are here, or just search for the title.
A few links for easy access,
Amazon India — Amazon USA — Amazon UK
Amazon Germany — Amazon Australia — Amazon Canada
An independent bookshop that do doorstep delivery globally: Midland Book Shop, Delhi
***
Here’s a latest review on Amazon USA:
“This was a truly special book. Not just because it tells the story of a woman defying social and cultural norms, but because of its pureness and honesty!”
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The 59-second book trailer that is a good introduction to Journeys Beyond and Within...
For this week’s letter,
Past writing,
quotes I love,
things to read,
things to watch,
and
a few travel moments.
Past Articles
My 11 Best Blogging Tips for Beginner Bloggers
This is the blogging advice I wish I had eight years ago. If you are a new blogger, don’t make the same mistakes.
Get to the guide now. Or Pocket it for the week.
Relishing Crunchy and Soft South Indian Dosas in India
I grew up eating rotis (chapatis) but I’ve converted to dosas now (that’s right).
Here’s my delicious guide to South Indian dosas, including, what is a dosa, eating dosas around India, kinds of dosas, and a simple Indian dosa recipe.
It’s also a cultural guide, introducing you to how different, or similar, the dosas are around India. Enjoy the read :)
Get to the dosas now. Or Pocket them for later.
Quotes I Love
In three words, I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life; it goes on.
Robert Frost
The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.
Bill Cosby
“Sometimes hope is all you have.”
Yours Truly
What I’ve Been Reading
While I will be traveling, I think the Reading Section will stay short. But not to worry, as I will keep telling you stories and writing about the current travel experiences on the blog as I go along. Hope you will enjoy reading about my journey as much as I am cherishing living it :)
For now, I have been reading The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy and Billy Budd by Herman Melville. Though enjoyable, the books are not easy to read. First, I got secondhand copies from the Calcutta book market, so the pages are yellowed, and second, the font is small, and the writing is old-style. But I will make it through these books.
Billy Budd is a classic and has said to change the literature as we know it. The Return of The Native is known to be Hardy’s best work. You can pick up the books if you like, and I would have more to say about them later.
What I’ve Been Watching/Listening
that’s worth mentioning
Birds, people, landscapes, skies, museums, streets, markets, vehicles. I haven’t got any screen time, and I don’t think I would any time soon. I am happy.
And pictures for all adventure lovers!
Just a couple more photos from my travels.
Before You Go
I have been writing this newsletter for eight years now. Initially, I used to send a letter a week; while writing my book I didn’t send it for years; and now, I send two letters a month. I don’t intend to stop anytime soon as so many of you wait for this letter.
I devote hours and days to the newsletter, even while traveling, and share my most personal insights, reads, and travel experiences in it. It’s free for everyone, and I intend to keep it that way.
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Yours,
Priyanka
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