Travel Companions

You been with your school friends, junior college mates, college guys. You begin to think that you’ve figured them all out. Go out for a trip together. You’ll see them in different colours. The ones they are actually made of!!

Being a frequent traveler and traveling with different group everytime is fun. Every journey has led to meeting people of different taste. These are some prominent types of travelers I’ve come across.

1. The loner - This person, even if in a large group, likes to be alone for most of the time. He seldom talks to other people, sits alone in a corner. At tourist places he/she likes to wander alone. He never really is a part of the group. During journeys, he’s stuck with I-pod/ Music Player/ FM radio into his ears. Likes to be lonely thinking something on the beach when all the group is playing beach football.

2. The Boss—He’s the type of person who’s always busy in issuing commands to people. Usually when I go for trips, normally I’m the one taking all the initiative, getting all hotel bookings done, tour bookings, cab rental and stuff. These people just give orders. Sanket bring me tea. I take the initiative so what. I am not a tour guide whose traveling free on your money. Go get it yourself. Probably this could be a better answer to this people but why spoil the trip mood.

3. The initiator—These are the people at the heart of everything. They are the best kind of travelers you’ll ever meet. Always ready for work. Ready to find a hotel in an unknown city when rest of the group is feeling tired. Ready to walk an extra mile to see another visit point. Ready to bump out of the hotel room earliest and plan the day tours.

4. The entertainers—Very essential part of the traveling group. These are the guitarists, flute players, people making Donald duck voices and other such talents. Without them the fun quotient is not quite upto the mark. They keep the liveliness intact even amongst the most boring parts of the journey.

5. Camera Lovers---Two kind of people come into this category. The first ones are the one who like clicking photographs of almost anything. Always busy at clicking something or the other or Video shooting. They like to keep memories I see. Sometimes, in search of these memories, they actually fail to enjoy the moment. Memories are fine, but temme the last time when you saw the 2 GB photographs of the last tour you went. You would rather enjoy the calm and cool sunset instead of being worried about capturing the exact moment of sunset on your cam. That’s again a personal opinion. The second kind of people here are those who love to be clicked themselves. At every spot, he/she asks someone, 'meri yahan pe photo nikal na'. These people need not be photogenic either. And yes, they have to be in every group photo.

6.The Chatterbox---You sit next to this person in long train or flight journeys. They have lots and lots of stories to tell, lot of topics to discuss. I’m sure you wouldn’t get bored. The chatterbox would find someone who listens to him and he’ll be happy and your friend for rest of the trip(Some people like listeners, just as this blog would like readers).

7. The Critic--- Some people derive immense pleasure in finding faults in most of the things and speaking them out. In a perfectly well organized trip, they’ll keep finding little shortcomings. One more thing that these people love is to compare this trip with the previous ones and say how that one was better and things have worsened. That Simla is not the same that it used to be.

8. Late latif---Always late. Tell them to wake up at 7, they’ll be in bed till 8. Every tourist spot, they are late. They never really value time. Without doubt they are the worst travelers to be with. You need to be with the group, not ahead, not behind. That’s the idea of a good travel group.

9. The crybabies---They’ll always cry to get what they want. Cry for the window seat. The ‘I don’t want to go to this place’—Cry. “This food I can’t do with, I want proper restaurant food”. Basically they don’t really adjust to the situation and try to turn things to their favour.

10. The everpraiser--- They’ll see the place. Praise the place. Then praise the organizer for showing them such a beautiful place. Then thank the crowd for accompanying them to such a beautiful place. They’ll praise the food even if it’s average. Trust me, there are people like this who still exist in this world. I remember in one of the tours, a person would call me ‘Sirjee’ for the entire tour. I initially liked that but was pissed off at the end of the tour.

And if you are not one of the above, you are the aam-aadmi who’s forgotten at the end of the trip. Try to acquire one of the above characteristics so that you are remembered by everyone on the trip. Maybe for the good reasons….-:)