This story is about a rare breed of Indians in the United States, who work for organizations, which bestow on them lots of travelling perks, like an airlines company,for example. These Indians take upon themselves to make the maximum use of such benifits and make sure that no weekend is ever spent at home. In fact, every Monday they regale their collaegues, friends and other such ilk by their travelogues, with statements like, 'At this time of the year, it is great fun to explore caves in Chile', and leave their audience gasping for breath in amazemnt and jealousy.

This story is about Rani and Raja, a couple who have made their name in world travel. Rani works for a major airlines company and together with her husband, has explored every nook and corner of this little planet. This story is told just as Rani would have narrated her latest travelling experience to any of her friends.

Gentle reader, this story is not meant to offend anybody, but it sure intends to provoke thought. :-)

Hi there! Here I am yet again, with one more of our travelogues. But this one sure beats the rest in terms of thrills, excitement and adventure!

Well, as some of you might know, we weren't sure anymore, if we would be retaining the same travel benifits we enjoyed all these years. (Our company was changing its policy.) So we decided to make one last use of our travel perks. I guess, after this, our weekends are going to be as boring as everybody else's, with nothing else to do but dirty laundry and nowhere else to go but those stupid Pot Luck parties. Oops, sorry folks! Didn't mean to offend all you non-travelling guys out there!!

Where to go was the question. As you people might know, we have covered quite a few ground in our travels and wanted to do something different. Then it struck me. Why not go to Timbuktu? People always keep saying that, even Timbuktu will have this, even Timbuktu will have that, and so on and so forth. It sounded like an interesting place.

I rushed into our 'stocks' room. (Yeah, you know, after we bought this big palatial house, we have assigned a name to every room depending on the activity associated with it. Like there was this 'Raja busy thinking' room, which was needless to say always empty. Surprisingly, 'Raja with his foot in his mouth' room was generally always occupied. You get the idea, right? )

As I was saying, I rushed into our stocks room and didn't find Raja there. Hmm what could be wrong? Then I stared at the monitor and immediately found out what was happening. Raja was again checking on the 'WebVan' stock. For those of you not in the know, Raja had invested heavily in WebVan, firmly believing that it would make him the millionaire he always wanted. Poor baby! So now, I knew where to find him. I found the nearest rest room and there he was, just coming out of it with red eyes. Apparently he was doing his crying thing inside, with the flush turned on. ( "A man can not bear to be seen or even heard crying, Rani," he head told me once. So when Raja needed to bawl his lungs out, he disappeared into the nearest restroom.) At this rate we probably will rename this rest room to 'Raja is crying here' room. Hmmmm..

Before he could say anything, I told him excitedly about my idea. Raja immediately brightened up. Raja always loved these little trips. Firstly, he didn't he have to put up with me asking him to help me with the household chores during the weekend, if we weren't travelling , and secondly he seemed more comfortable in an airplane than on the ground.

After Raja grunted his approval, I got back to doing some research on 'Timbuktu'. Fortunately, I knew all the right things to do. Years of travelling around the world has endowed me with enough experience. I got busy with laying out our travel plans....

Well, the D-day finally arrived. And we set out on our long journey to 'Mali', a country in West Africa. You see, that's where Timbuktu is. I guess a little history of the place is in order now.

Mali is a beautiful country. (but then did you ever catch us visiting a 'non-beautiful' place?) . Mali is officially REPUBLIC OF MALI, a landlocked state in central western Africa. Bounded on the north by Algeria, on the east by Niger and Burkina Faso, on the south by Guinea, and on the west by Senegal and Mauritania, it covers an area of 478,841 square miles (1,240,192 square kilometres). Bamako is the national capital. As a part of French West Africa from 1898 to its independence in 1960, it was known as the French Sudan. Its current name, taken at the time of independence, is derived from the Mali empire of the upper and middle Niger, which was ruled by the Malinke (Mandingo) from the 13th to the 16th century. So there!

We landed at the 'Bamako' airport. (We flew there from Paris.) And then we had to take the connecting flight to 'Timbuktu'. It was a small plane, which coughed and sputtered as it struggled to take off. The pilot announced proudly that it was one of the first airplanes purchased when Mali became an independent country. We swelled with pride, greatful to be assoicated, albeit temporarily, with Mali's history. When we echoed those sentiments to one of the passengers, who appeared to be a local, he grinned broadly and said he hoped none of the people on the plane became 'history' along with it. Though Raja laughed heartily at the joke, I didn't find it very amusing.

Timbuktu arrived. As we finished the formalities and stepped out of the airport, the fresh air outside was invigorating. I could sense the rush of the traveler's blood inside me. Here we are, in a place, where nature is at its purest. The lush green vegitation only affirmed my views further. Raja meanwhile shouted, "Oh shit!" as he seemed to have stepped on something that suspicously looked like, what else, shit, and was trying to find a restroom around. The incident of course didn't diminish my enthusiasm. I was sure that it was the bloody tourists who committed such a sacrilege. The sweet looking innocent natives didn't quite seem up to that task. Anyway, I was sure that as we got further into the territory, the pristine nature would soon overtake this unpleasantness.

All this was happening while we were waiting for our transport service, which was supposed to be arriving from the hotel where we were going to stay. It finally arrived in the form of a tiny cab. Our driver, Rasool, turned out to be a 'Bambara'. Bambaras are the biggest ethnic group in Mali, and they speak the language of, what else, Bambara. The cab was very small and we had no option but to keep our suitcases on our laps and our handbags on our heads, as we fit ourselves inside. Luckily the cab had no top and so we could manage those handbags on our heads quite comfortably.

On the way to the hotel though, we were considerably cheered up by all the local Bambaras on the road shouting, "jee lei le, jee di pappu leyi," and waving their hands at us. As experienced world travelers, we immediately recognized it as some sort of local greeting and waved back at them. "jee lei le, jee di pappu ley to you too," Raja shouted back. The locals burst out into laughter. What pleasant folks! We reached our hotel meanwhile.

The hotel manager was one Mr. Mohammad who welcomed us warmly, with a big smile on his face. "Welcome to the best hotel in Timbuktu!" he thundered. I swelled with pride again. I knew I picked the right hotel for us. All those years of world travelling. "What's the second best hotel, in Timbuktu?" I asked him. "Ze same one, madam, ze same one," he said, with that big smile on his face still. I was confused. What did he mean by that? Then Raja chipped in helpfully. "What's the third best hotel in Timbuktu?" he asked. "Ze same one sir, ze same one," replied Mr. Mohammad ever-so-enthusiastically. Then it dawned on me. "You mean, this is the ONLY hotel in Timbuktu?" I said. "So right, Madam, so right, you are!!" he nodded approvingly and led us to our room. We told him we would be staying for four days at the hotel.

We got up the next day, fresh as daisies. It was going to be a bus tour of Timbuktu today. How nice! We went to the lobby and found the bus waiting for us there. There were 10 more tourists waiting too. It was the same Bambara driver who picked us the day before, at the airport. "Rasool, so you drive this bus too. Why didn't you use this to pick us up yesterday! This is so much more spacious!" I exclaimed. "I don't drive the bus unless zere are enough people, Madam," he replied. Though I didn't quite get what he said, I nodded understandingly. As an experienced world traveler I knew that one should not appear ignorant as much as one could help it.

As the bus entered the busy lanes of Timbuktu, the sense of adventurousness overtook us again. Timbuktu, here we come, I said to myself. Suddenly, the bus coughed ominously and stopped. "What happened?" cried all the passengers in chorus. "Ze bus gives me problem all ze time. You guys would have to get down and push it from behind," said Rasool nonchalantly. "And what would you do?" questioned one of the passengers. "Somebody has to control ze steering," answered Rasool. "Bhai, I will control the steering," offered Raja helpfully. Rasool politely turned down the offer.

It turned out that the bus was in no mood to get better any sooner and we continued pushing it along. We were briefed about all the landmarks in the city, by Rasool as we proceeded. "If you Sirs and Madams could wipe that sweat out of your brows and care to look up, zis is one of the oldest Mosques in Mali, Sankore Mosque!" he proclaimed. Of course, we were in no position to appreciate the beauty of the mosque as we were using every iota of our energy to keep up with others who seemed to be pretty good at this bus-pushing thing. As more landmarks passed along, my more than chubby husband, Raja, muttered under his breath, "I bet following the progress of WebVan's stock is better than this any day!" I tried to click away with our camera as many snaps as I could. We could see all these beautiful places, once we develop them.

We finally got back to our hotel, the same way of course, pushing the bus along, late into the night. It then struck me why Rasool didn't drive the bus if there weren't enough people. If only he told us what we meant. Or if only I asked him to clarify.. But I was too dog tired to think about it any more and we greatfully hit the bed for the night.

Surprisingly, we got up at 5 in the morning! I couldn't belive it. We never got up this early. Then I understood. With all that hard work we did yesterday, we had a real sound sleep. Since it was high quality sleep, we didn't really need too many hours of it. We showered and went to have our breakfast. We were ravenous and we ate what was offered without even bothering to find out the name of the dish we were eating. Mr. Mohammad strolled by. "So, how is your stay in Timbuktu, so far?" he asked us. "Great! We are ready for our second day here," bellowed Raja. "You mean, you are ready for the third day, no, Sir?" offered Mr. Mohammad helpfully. We were confused again. It took around 5 minutes of Mr. Mohammad's patient explanation and a checking of our Palm Pilots to dawn on us that we slept through the entire second day! No wonder we got up at 5 AM. Hrrrmph!

We decided there was no point in going back to the city, since we already 'visited it'. Plus, I captured most of the stuff in our camera. So we decided to do a bit of 'nature exploring'. Mr. Mohammad told us there was this great safari park kind of a thing where we could go. We wisely took the horse carriage this time.

Now, this was a great place. We were told the best things here were elephant rides and horse rides. We opted for the horse ride. Riding into the nature on a horse back. What can be more fun than that? However, the only two horses they had there, took one look at Raja's 220 pound frame, neighed wildly and bolted. Their keeper went after them in hot pursuit. Not before, he said, 'jee lei le yi, jee di pappu leyi', to us as he took off. By now, we were used to that de-facto greeting. People here are so friendly!

Raja insisted that we should try the elephant ride now. I declined though. A pair of horses running away to avoid Raja is one thing, but a herd of elephants causing a stampede here just didn't seem right. Though I could always hide behind Raja, if they did something like that, I didn't want any of the friendly local people to die.

We decided to take a stroll in the park. We ambled along, sinking in the beauty of the nature. There was no doubt this was God's special country. Such beauty, such peace! Though the whole park was filled with different sorts of wildlife, there were a few unpleasant sights as well. Like this mud pond which had some ugly insect like creatures wallowing in it. I couldn't understand for my life, what purpose those ugly creatures served in God's nature. We will ask Mr. Mohammad, we decided.

We were less tired this time as we made our way back to our hotel. After we finished our dinner, which was much like the breakfast we had, we found overselves talking with Mr. Mohammad about this and that. I brought up the mud pond and the filthy creatures which filled it. "Why is that pond even allowed to be there?" I demanded. Mr. Mohammad seemed puzzled. "Well, they are necessary. Did you not enjoy them today, when they were cooked up for both your breakfast and dinner?" he asked us, with a little pained expression on his face.

After we took an hour to throw up, hopefully, all the food we consumed that day, we went to sleep again. As we got up the next morning, the first thing we did was to check our palm pilots. Luckily we didn't sleep through the entire day like we did last time. Good!

"So, what places could we visit today?" we asked Mr. Mohammad, after we had a breakfast which consisted only of local fruits. "None Madam. You have covered all of Timbuktu. It takes only two days to go thru this place," said Mr. Mohammad pleasantly. That left us with no option but to stay put at the hotel. Raja and me talked the whole day and it suddenly occured to us that this has been the first time we spent so much time conversing. All these years, it has been more like, packing the bags, rushing to the airport, and so on. The Timbuktu trip was turning out to be great, after all.

We were supposed to take the flight that night back to 'Bamako'. We would be taking the red-eye flight to Paris from there, of course. Before we left, Raja made Mr. Mohammad accept a wager with him. The bet was, that Raja would lose 30 pounds in 6 months. If Mr. Mohammad won, Raja would transfer his entire 'WebVan' stock to him. If Raja won, Mr. Mohammad would pay Raja, 1703430 Communaute Financiere Africaine francs (which was the local currency ), an amount equivalent to 3000 US dollars. "Zere is no way, I could lose in this deal!" exclaimed Mr. Mohammed happily. Raja gave me a sly look, and I smiled back. May be there are going to be no more, 'getting into the restroom, turning on the flush and crying the heart out' days, after all.

It was time for us to leave to the airport. Rasool offered us a bus ride, which we hastily turned down. Between Raja and me, we could push the cab along, if needed. The bus was a different monster altogether.

After we reached the airport, Raja immediately began his strenuous program of weight loss. He would drop a dime, bend and pick it up and say, "Rani, I have lost 3 calories just now." At this rate, Mr. Mohammad seemed destined to get that WebVan stock.

After we got onto the Paris flight at Bamako, and were airborne, I asked a stewardess, what 'jee lei leyi, jee di pappu le' meant. She, would know; she was a Bambara. "Goodness, who said that to you?" she frowned. "It means, 'Go back, you Damn tourists', Madam," she said. "I hope nobody in Mali ever said that to you, Madam!" she added helpfully. "No, no!" I cut in hastily. "Just some graffiti, which I happened to see."

I suddenly felt happy that we were on our way back eventually. There is nothing like home, sweet home, you know!

More articles by Murali Chari

1. The Importance of Law and Order...
2. Do we need a movie on Bhagat Singh?
3. Raja and Rani visit Timbuktu!
4. Worshipping False Heroes
5. The English Media bites the dust
6. "Where We Indians Got it Wrong...."
7. "All this for the rest of us!"
8. Do we deserve the movies we get?
9. The 'friends' you need to dump
10. Raja and Rani visit Timbuktu!
11. "Where we Indians got it wrong….."
12. "When 98 is greater than hundred"
13. "How Easy It is...."