2024: A year in review

When I had created this blog over 6 years ago, I had a very specific vision. I wanted to write about all the quirky and niche places I had travelled to, on my bike. 18 trips, 5 years and a pandemic later, my blog barely has 4 posts.

Now, I could attribute this to life, but in essence, it is just me being incredibly lazy.

I remember back in 2019 when I did that monsoon ride across the Western Ghats in Maharashtra. Malshej Ghat, with those beautiful waterfalls you ride through, Matheran with those amazing views. It was 5 days of riding through picturesque villages and farms with rains so incessant, they seeped through layers of protective gear, visibility so poor, one could barely see 5 meters ahead, and the roads so bad, they might as well have not been there. None of these circumstances made for an easy ride.

But once you get past the weather, the roads and the poor visibility, you realised how beautiful everything around you is.

It made me realise, I had never seen green that green before. I had never ridden my bike directly underneath a waterfall before. These experiences were unprecedented, and at that point of time in my life, unparalleled.

I wish now that I could have braved past my procrastinating tendencies to exclusively write about my monsoon ride from 2019. 6 years down the line, I barely have any pictures from this time period, and the memories that were once defining of 2019, are now a haze of jumbled words, images, and fleeting feelings that cannot be accurately described.

I could use these lines to describe every single trip I have taken since, and it would be a fairly accurate representation, but I will spare myself the cliche writer blushes, and skip past straight to 2024.

While I do not know when I first heard a Coldplay song, I am fairly confident it was circa 2005. I had just about started to navigate the wonders of the Internet. I distinctly remember those days. Those were the days of downloading songs on a dial-up internet connection, hoping no phone call comes through. Because if it did, it ended up disconnecting your network and cancelling the download. If I had a penny for every time a download failed at a painfully close 98%, I would be quite rich.

Those days are long gone by, and I feel sad that no one from the generation after us can relate to the euphoria of a successful download that took a painstaking 6.5 hours.

Going back to the time I had discovered Coldplay as a 12 year old kid, I had never in my wildest dreams, thought I would have the privilege of seeing them live.

It was unthinkable. Beyond imagination.

This is the reason why 2024 had a pretty remarkable start. My first trip outside the subcontinent, and a bucket-list live Coldplay experience.

Thailand made me realise how much I was missing out on, by being a vegetarian. The street food, the shacks, the Michelin starred restaurants, all of which had a large variety of sea food and meat items I did not have the palate to try. Thank God for 7/11’s cheese toasts and chocolate milk though. Sustenance never tasted so good.

I can’t talk about Thailand without specifying the views by the beach. Have you ever woken up at 6 AM, to pristine waters, white sand, and weather that is just about perfect.

I sometimes still dream about living in a place like this. I have never felt more at peace than that morning at a beach in Koh Pha Ngan. The calm, serene sound of waves gently crashing to shore, the sound of leaves rustling in the wind; not too forceful, not too silent.

Journaling weather, I would call it.

I remember I wrote poetry that day. I was sat on the sand, thinking about life, about how nothing else mattered but the present.
It is a feeling I still dream about and wish I could save like a digital memory in my head.

Have you ever seen something so beautiful, that you realise no medium exists that could accurately capture or depict the essence of such marvel? How could such beauty exist in a world with such pain and suffering? It was unthinkable. If only everyone could see what I see. If only I could share this feeling of contentment and peace with every person in the world, would things change?

I stayed put on that beach in Koh Pha Ngan for a couple of hours that morning. Having to move only for the rising temperatures and the early morning munchies. I try and relive that moment when I have bad days.

It is my happy place.

What people generally do not know, and what I myself discovered in Thailand, was the many facets to this country.
You have the beaches, the parties, the booze and the drugs. What you don’t quite realise is that this country’s music and footballing culture is the stuff every fan’s dreams are made of. Every pub, club, disco, bar, and cafe have one thing in common – Multiple large screens playing football matches from around the world. Their indie music scene is also nothing to scoff at.

There are probably very few places in the world that would give you that feeling, and Thailand definitely had this going for it – It felt like I belonged.

To summarize, 2024 has been a blur. I have made great friends, ones I consider family. Manchester United are still shitty (No news there). I have stopped going on bike rides and prefer the comfort and ease of use of a car (I am getting older and my girlfriend does not seem to like the bike as much as I would like her to). I have found it extremely difficult to read or write anything lately and it has been an ongoing struggle to get past that block.

So here we are, 2025. I wanted to give writing a go again.

No matter how unstructured and trite this blog may seem, I realise actions speak louder than words and words louder than unfulfilled intention. 2025 is going to be a year of growth. I am going to start reading again, I am going to write more often, and more importantly, I will be travelling more.

Here’s to a great year ahead. May you find the strength to make those difficult choices, may you win those 50/50s you had been losing, and may we all travel more.

Happy New Year!