We like to talk to travellers who inspire,
and Ruchika Shankar is one of them.
Ruchika and her husband sold their apartment
and embarked on a trip around the world in 2015.
They haven’t looked back ever since.
Trippin Traveller caught up with Ruchika to find out,
how life has been before and after.
Firstly, wow!
We have come across Indians who leave jobs to travel across India
but going across the world is a whole new game given visa restrictions.
We saw that you have just embarked on this trip recently?
So far it doesn’t feel real,
the feeling still has to sink in!
We gave up our apartment,
and sold all our stuff in November,
but only started travelling in March 2016 due to
various visa and insurance related obstacles!
We just got back from Taiwan after spending a month there.
We’ll spend 2 weeks in India before we take off again!
This time on a longer leg of travel.
Visa is something that does get in the way of our spontaneous travel plans,
but we are figuring that out on the go.
Getting a US visa before we started this trip helps a lot.
For example,
Taiwan is visa waived if you have a valid US visa.
The Philippines is Visa on Arrival is you have a valid US visa.
One of the things to do,
for you before travelling was to get an international driving license.
How do you go about that?
Is it more procedure oriented and do they actually make you take,
a lot of driving tests as per international standards?
They should be making us take a lot of driving tests,
because if we drove like we do in India,
I think they would bar us from entering their country!
But getting an international license is a very simple 2 day process.
You need a medical certificate if you wear spectacles/have power.
There is a simple form you have to fill along with documents,
copy of your passport,
visa and flight tickets.
After submission you get the license the next day.
You can also opt for an agent,
who will take care of all the paperwork and legwork!
We found this extremely interesting and well,
it fired our imagination –
“I’ve lived in a bunch of cities all over the country,
and as a child (and once as a grown-up) have accidentally
set fires in some of them.” Do elaborate.
Haha.
I will most certainly not elaborate.
😀 But don’t ask my dad to answer this question,
he loves telling this story! ☺
Why the name Second Breakfast?
I really love breakfast food,
to the point that I can eat breakfast foods for dinner.
I loved the reference from the movie Lord of the Rings,
where the hobbits are going on a long adventure;
they eat breakfast and ask for a second one!
A flaky croissant or a lush tropical fruit smoothie or
a spicy bao bun at 11 am after,
you’ve already had breakfast does sounds perfect, doesn’t it?
I also love exploring
what breakfast food is eaten in different countries and cultures.
Fun fact:
In Thailand,
a lot of families eat leftovers of dinner
(rice, noodles, vegetable and meat dishes),
with a boiled or fried egg for breakfast as they believe
it is not right to burden the women of the house,
to make fresh hot food for the family early in the morning.
What does it feel like to compress your life to 2 bags
(or was it 3 finally?)?
Name the 3 or 4 things you sorely miss and wish you had packed.
For the past 2 years,
we planned not to accumulate stuff:
both personal:
like clothes and household stuff because,
we knew we would need to clear them out.
Everything else was easy to get rid of,
but I honestly struggled to narrow down all,
my clothes to the ones that would finally make it in the suitcase.
We finally got it down to 2 suitcases and 2 laptop backpacks;
I got the bigger suitcase of course!
It feels really freeing to be without stuff,
we tie ourselves to so many material things without realizing it.
I’m also reducing more stuff for the next leg of the trip!
There’s nothing I can think of that I miss,
because when you travel you realize you can do without it anyway.
And if you simply cannot do without,
you can just buy it.
My list would include owning some tech gear
that could help me with my blog and YouTube like extra memory cards,
lenses, rechargeable batteries;
this looks more like a list of things I wish I could buy!
Maybe one thing I miss owning is a fridge.
I love grocery shopping and a fridge stocked with goodies on the inside
and all the fridge magnets from our travels on the outside. :
D Another little thing I missed in Taiwan, was regular Indian black tea,
Assam tea is so expensive there.
I wish I had packed a box of tea bags!
We are big time vegetarian foodies too.
What would be the one dish you are –
a) craving to try
b) wishing you could carry with you everywhere from back home
c) really not looking forward to eating again
My husband is a vegetarian and I can eat everything!
So it’s a bit of a process to find things that he can eat.
We’ve seen that it’s not at all a hassle to find good vegetarian food
while travelling and everyone from the restaurants
and cafes to street food vendors are willing to customize the food if you ask.
Although sometimes
we have to eat at two different places
if there are no vegetarian options available.
One dish I’m craving to try is Mexican food:
tacos and Vietnamese food: banh mi.
The things I could carry around with me everywhere
from home would be Indian snacks like bread pakoras,
mirchi bajjis,
the green chili and mint chutney,
biryani and banana chips!
Definitely lots and lots of chips!
I tried a pig blood cake and chicken feet in Taipei,
it’s supposed to be a delicacy but I don’t ever want to eat that again.
We are Bangaloreans
and we love the accessibility to various places
for day or weekend trips that the city offers.
Name one place
that is not really known to the touristy crowds that you discovered and loved.
Bangalore is perfectly located for quick weekend jaunts.
I don’t think these are undiscovered because,
I came to know of them through some of friends in Bangalore
who love exploring: Chunchi falls,
Antargange,
Mancharabelle,
and lots of scenic spots if you head down to Kerala.
What is the one thing you look forward to on your travels
and one thing you don’t look forward to?
One thing I look forward to is the food of course,
and generally exploring,
meeting new people and looking for the best way
to showcase that place to others in a way that makes them want to go there.
I like being surprised,
so I don’t over plan.
I simply just look forward to being in a new place,
and soaking in the vibes of the new place.
The one thing I don’t look forward to is packing for the journey back.
That’s just not the fun part.
What is your travel motto/personal travel quote?
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley
If you were not a traveller or a lawyer, what would you pick?
Lately I have been learning photography and filmmaking
and I’m very excited to see what I can do with video,
so I guess I would pick that.
But I know I will make sure travel is a part of my life no matter what I choose.
Thanks for the interview Ruchika,
and we wish you happy travels!
All pictures courtesy Ruchika Shankar at Second Breakfast
You can visit Ruchika on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
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