My Bucket List
Last night, I saw "The Bucket List" once again. Its a film starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, each of them playing terminally ill cancer patients with just a few months to live. The film portrays how they spent the last days of their lives, fulfilling the dreams that they had but never had the opportunity to think about them in their normal lives. Nicholson is Edward Cole (a millionaire) while Freeman is Carter Chambers (auto mechanic) in the film. Ed's dream was as he said, "Don't you want to go out with balls, guns blazing!" (typical of a ruthless money-maker), while Carter's dreams were "deeper" - like "Help a complete stranger", "Laugh till I cry" and my favorite one "Witness something majestic". The film begins and end with a narrative by Morgan Freeman - the baritone that I heard for the first time at the Kolkata Science City Space Theatre. I've been a fan of this voice ever since. But recently, I have become a great fan of his movies. The Dark Knight, Bruce Almighty, Seven being a few of them.
I started thinking, what if I was in a similar situation. What if I had just a few more days to live? What would I want to do in those days? I have always been fascinated by the prospect of travel and this movie made me draw up my own Bucket list or at least the travel version of it. Here it goes:
1. Drive on the Karakoram Highway - from Islamabad to all the way to Kashgar in China.
2. Tibet - not the commercialised Lhasa but some hidden valley (Shangri La maybe! :) ) still hidden from the view of the world and the grips of tourism. The guns blazing version would be an illegal entry through Mustang in Nepal, on horseback with Khampa bandits !!!
3. The Hidden Falls of Tsangpo Canyon.
4. Kanchenjunga from the Nepal side (I fell in love with this mountain 3 years ago and it is associated with many good and bad memories, many triumphs and a failure! I wanna settle the score before it ends.)
So far it was confined to just the Himalayas - if I were given just one wish, it would be something among these four. Now looking towards other places in the world.
5. Jerusalem - An intriguing city with a really long history. Though I'm not a religious person, I would consider the trip to the Dome of Rock, as some kind of pilgrimage.
6. Istanbul - The gates between Asia and Europe. Fond memories from the history lessons in school and later in numerous films, AOE and on flights to Europe.
7. Luxor and the Karnak temples.
8. Serengeti from a hot-air balloon (sounds touristy!)
9. Gibraltar.
10. Living and riding with nomads in Mongolia.
11. Northern Hokkaido at the peak of winter!
12. The Nazca planes in Peru.
13. Mayan Temples in the Yucatan Peninsula.
14. Watching Aurora from Fairbanks, Alaska.
15. The Iguazu falls in Brazil and Argentina.
16. Horse back safari in New Zealand on white horse :) - the LOTR dream!
17. Visit Rome and Florence once again.
18. The Angkor Vat.