Traveler Interview — Bambaiya Ghumakkad
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Nikita and Vishal is the duo that makes Bambaiya Ghumakkad. Exploring and appreciating nature and finding offbeat places for hiking and trekking is their passion. “I think we always loved to travel but the travel fever actually picked up after we got married and got to spend time with each other! Nikita and I found a common love in traveling”, says Vishal. Traveling makes them feel peaceful and rejuvenated, he says. Vishal thinks that travel has become a need today and is no longer a luxury. Sharing their travel experiences with fellow travel lovers is another reason this duo keeps traveling to new places. They share their experiences on their youtube channel.
Please describe one of your recent trips. And tell us why did you choose that destination?
A few months ago we experienced a wonderful monsoon getaway to Jawhar. Situated in the Western Ghats, Jawhar is known for its picturesque setting and a vibrant cultural heritage. Very few people have heard of Jawhar despite its proximity to Mumbai. This is one of the prime reasons why we chose this destination.
We spent a weekend there — 1 night 2 days to be precise. There is a lot to explore in and around Jawhar. It’s a quiet place, famous for its Warli paintings. There are not many hotels or home-stays there, but we were lucky to get one on short notice. An interesting piece of historical trivia — the Great Maratha Ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji stayed at Jawhar on his way to plundering Surat!
We visited lots of places there — 300-ft gushing Dabhosa waterfall, majestic Jai Vilas Palace, peaceful Katya Maruti temple, scenic sunset point, huge Khad Khad Dam and historic Shirpamal. It was an amazing experience amidst nature and torrential rainfall! Here is our HopBucket photo story.
What has been your best trip so far? And why?
All the trips have been unique in some or the other way. But two stand out among these.
One is our honeymoon, which we spent in Thailand. It wasn’t a typical ‘Honeymoon’ trip. We traveled cheap, stayed cheap and invested more of our time and money in adventure and local experiences. We did kayaking, snorkeling, bungee jumping, full-moon party, among other things. This was indeed a great start to our upcoming travels together as Bambaiya Ghumakkad!
Next in the list of best trips would be our travel to Agra-Delhi-Manali, followed by a thrilling Himalayan Trek! We saw the historic Fatehpur Sikri — abandoned by Mughal Emperor Akbar shortly after it was built due to paucity of water. We also saw the world famous Taj Mahal. The small joys of traveling in India’s second-fastest train and one of the best expressways cannot be expressed in words. As we inched closer to Manali, there were mixed feelings of fear and excitement. Fear of whether we would be able to successfully complete the Himalayan trek, and excitement of the same! The feeling of completing this trek — trekking from green Manali all the way to rocky, barren Spiti valley, reaching a height of 14,000 ft., battering rains, fog, tiredness — is indescribable. So amazing was this trek that we have taken a vow of doing more of Himalayan treks in the near future. You can read more about this trek on HopBucket here.
Do you visit all the places on your list or are you a more spur-of-the-moment traveler?
We make sure we visit all the places that we have on our list, especially, on long distance trips. This helps us understand the place’s culture, history, nature, etc. in detail and hence, appreciate it. And this is not tiring at all for us. In fact, this gives us more energy and excitement!
Our weekend trips are more spur-of-the-moment. This is primarily because planning for travel, accommodation, and places to see does not require much efforts.
Can you describe in short what all things you consider when planning a trip?
When it involves weekend travel, we speak to few of our friends who have been to that place. A little online research/guide seals the deal. The overall process is very quick.
However, when it involves long-distance travel, there is little more research involved. We rely more on user reviews (Google reviews, TripAdvisor reviews) of that place before including it in our list. There are lot of apps these days that provide real-time, quick support in case travelers need any assistance. We take their help too. YouTube is another great resource for knowing traveler reviews of that place.
How do you manage expenses when traveling? Do you have any hacks for finding the cheapest tickets or hotels?
World has become so competitive that there are discounts everywhere all the time. You can save a lot if you book in advance. We use Yatra, Make My Trip, or Goibibo for flight bookings. If direct flights are expensive, we don’t mind taking connecting flights provided the layover is short. We don’t mind odd-hour flights as well because we plan our trip accordingly.
So, based on the places we want to cover, we look for stay options that would be not very far from, say, a railway station or a bus terminal. This saves our time and energy. Agoda is the best when looking for hotels outside India and Goibibo for hotels in India. We also check Airbnb to see if there are any offbeat stay options available. When we know that we’ll be out of the hotel room most of the time, we ensure we do not spend much on this.
What is your favorite travel accessory — one that you can’t go without?
Our favorite travel accessory is our GoPro with its mounts. It is handy and works best for videography, photography, and timelapses. Next important in our list of accessories are the iPhone, selfie stick and, of course, a mighty power bank!
What are the destinations on your list for 2018?
There is no list as such. But, in 2018, we wish to cover Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, few offbeat destinations of Maharashtra & Gujarat. Anything else would be spur-of-the-moment!
Do you have any advice for our readers?
Here’s a quick list for them:
- Plan your long-distance trips well in advance, you’ll save lot of money.
- Interact with locals more to know their perspectives and more things about that place.
- Travel cheap, use local transport. Invest more in experiences.
- Walk as much as you can to explore a place.
- Travel light, carry only necessary things in your bag.
- Travel with an open mind, if it doesn’t go as per plan, there may be lots of other things to do.
- Pen down your most memorable moments of the trip in a book or on the phone.
Where can our readers connect with you?
We post all our travel stories on our Youtube Channel Bambaiya Ghumakkad. Readers can contact us for any questions, suggestions on anything related to travel, we will try our best to be of help! Wishing all travelers good luck for their travel — see you on the road! (Vishal posts on HopBucket here.)
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