Traveling is something I have always fancied. It is a long standing dream of mine to travel the world. So when someone once asked my why I love traveling, the question sounded strange in a very big way. It was something I had so wanted for so long that I never questioned why I wanted it... ;)
Strange as it may sound, this question really made me ponder and every time i read a travelogue or wanted to visit a place, I tried questioning myself. At the end of nearly a month, I realized that every time I read about a place or a person, I wanted to see that place or person with my own eyes. I wanted to watch the world that groomed him and the world that he shaped. I was never happy with these second hand accounts of people and their places, of the food they had and of the experiences they had. The vignettes of the world only whetted my appetite for travel more than ever.
I never wanted to accept it when someone said that Venice is beautiful with its inland waterways that connect the city like the roads that do here. I wanted to experience the magic, the history and the romance of that city before I decide whether or not to like it.
I realized that i will never be happy with people and their experiences. I want to travel by the Gondolas, see the Venetians going about their business, traveling on boats. I want to experience the local history and the local cuisine. I want to live first hand everything that I have read and heard about this charming city.
I want to see and feel the pulse of the town which in someways is a depiction of man's victory over nature, of mankind's strength and intellect and perhaps mankind's eventual downfall (Venice is a rapidly sinking city and the recent green house effect is only hastening its demise).
Imagine a group of fleeing citizens deciding to build a new city on water to defend themselves and their property. Imagine them becoming a huge enterprising society of traders as they built a whole new city in the marshes by making wooden stilts all the way through. That is amazing ingenuity! Who at that time would have predicted that a group of people, escaping the raiders would end up becoming one of the richest states, supplying luxury goods to the whole of Europe and leaving their mark on world history for decades to come !! That is Venice, which is today called the romantic capital of the world. With its modest beginnings, Venice reached its peaks of glory and then succumbed to the vicissitudes of pleasure as it became the pleasure capital of the world and then disappeared of the world stage. Today it stands as a popular tourist destination due to its inland water ways... but people rarely find out about the beginnings of this city and its growth.
But this is the history that fascinates me.
The progress of a city from its birth on water through nothing but human skill and labor to its becoming the pleasure capital of the world and ultimately its slipping into oblivion (I mean Venice is not really a hot tourist destination... its popular but this popularity is nothing compared to its life in the last century!) .
I want to travel the world but not just to experience the Eiffel tower at night or the Swiss Alps in snow, but to live the world and to become one with the world. I want to travel through the streets of Morocco, through the ruins of Machu Pichchu and Mohenjodaro, through the wilderness of african grasslands to the present day bustling cities of New York and Manhattan. I want to see the world and the people that make it, in light of their past and their history.
I want to see the mountains and the hills, the seas and the oceans, the deserts and the oases, the grasslands and the forests... I want to make them all a part of me and I want to become a part of them.
Now, this question only left me wondering about how someone cannot want to see the world and know about all its peoples and cultures... But, i know people are different and this is just one of the many differences that can possibly be...
I guess, I am a traveler who revels in the learning and whose passion for photography only adds to the wanderlust. I guess, I am a little footloose in wanting to explore the world but it at least gives me a whole lot to look forward to. It gives me a dream and It makes the means worth the end... :-)
Strange as it may sound, this question really made me ponder and every time i read a travelogue or wanted to visit a place, I tried questioning myself. At the end of nearly a month, I realized that every time I read about a place or a person, I wanted to see that place or person with my own eyes. I wanted to watch the world that groomed him and the world that he shaped. I was never happy with these second hand accounts of people and their places, of the food they had and of the experiences they had. The vignettes of the world only whetted my appetite for travel more than ever.
I never wanted to accept it when someone said that Venice is beautiful with its inland waterways that connect the city like the roads that do here. I wanted to experience the magic, the history and the romance of that city before I decide whether or not to like it.
I realized that i will never be happy with people and their experiences. I want to travel by the Gondolas, see the Venetians going about their business, traveling on boats. I want to experience the local history and the local cuisine. I want to live first hand everything that I have read and heard about this charming city.
I want to see and feel the pulse of the town which in someways is a depiction of man's victory over nature, of mankind's strength and intellect and perhaps mankind's eventual downfall (Venice is a rapidly sinking city and the recent green house effect is only hastening its demise).
Imagine a group of fleeing citizens deciding to build a new city on water to defend themselves and their property. Imagine them becoming a huge enterprising society of traders as they built a whole new city in the marshes by making wooden stilts all the way through. That is amazing ingenuity! Who at that time would have predicted that a group of people, escaping the raiders would end up becoming one of the richest states, supplying luxury goods to the whole of Europe and leaving their mark on world history for decades to come !! That is Venice, which is today called the romantic capital of the world. With its modest beginnings, Venice reached its peaks of glory and then succumbed to the vicissitudes of pleasure as it became the pleasure capital of the world and then disappeared of the world stage. Today it stands as a popular tourist destination due to its inland water ways... but people rarely find out about the beginnings of this city and its growth.
But this is the history that fascinates me.
The progress of a city from its birth on water through nothing but human skill and labor to its becoming the pleasure capital of the world and ultimately its slipping into oblivion (I mean Venice is not really a hot tourist destination... its popular but this popularity is nothing compared to its life in the last century!) .
I want to travel the world but not just to experience the Eiffel tower at night or the Swiss Alps in snow, but to live the world and to become one with the world. I want to travel through the streets of Morocco, through the ruins of Machu Pichchu and Mohenjodaro, through the wilderness of african grasslands to the present day bustling cities of New York and Manhattan. I want to see the world and the people that make it, in light of their past and their history.
I want to see the mountains and the hills, the seas and the oceans, the deserts and the oases, the grasslands and the forests... I want to make them all a part of me and I want to become a part of them.
Now, this question only left me wondering about how someone cannot want to see the world and know about all its peoples and cultures... But, i know people are different and this is just one of the many differences that can possibly be...
I guess, I am a traveler who revels in the learning and whose passion for photography only adds to the wanderlust. I guess, I am a little footloose in wanting to explore the world but it at least gives me a whole lot to look forward to. It gives me a dream and It makes the means worth the end... :-)
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