Travelling light. Going solo. Holidays with friends. Ibiza. Carcassonne. Colombo. London.... Jisshu Sengupta, Parno Mittra, Gaurav Chakrabarty and Neha Panda did get to pack their bags and take off last year — like two of the characters in Anjan Dutt’s The Bongs Again, played by Parno and Neha. t2 was all ears as The Bongs Again cast members shared their travel tales at Smoke Shack, Park Plaza...
Do you like to travel alone?
Neha: Yeah. You can approach people, they can approach you... hang out with them. You can just go with the flow. When you are travelling with friends, you are stuck with them. You don’t get to mix with other people. Solo travel is the best. I have been living alone for 13 years now. Away from home, family. And I travelled extensively last year. I did eight countries, 21 cities... in Europe and India. Travelling really opens you up. It’s the most important thing for me right now... to travel, to see everything possible right now.
Parno: You get to soak in a lot more when you are travelling solo. I like my own space. Travelling with friends is a different kind of fun. I am not much of a museum-touristy-places kind of a person.
Jisshu: I am not much of the travelling kind. If I get free time, I’d rather sleep. If I go for a holiday also, I want to eat, sleep, drink. Repeat! That’s the kind of holiday I want. I love to shop. So I’ll probably go shopping, come back to the hotel, have good food, have a good single malt and go to sleep. My honeymoon happened six years after my marriage. We went to Bangkok, for two days. So you can imagine where I stand. Gaurav is actually a traveller.
Gaurav: I’ve doing family trips since childhood. Now I go out with friends. In recent times one of my faves has been a trip from Bombay to Rajasthan and back by car. That was fantastic. I have never travelled solo. I don’t like it. I like to share the experience.
Jisshu: I have been to Gopalpur alone! Twice. The sea is beautiful. Recently I went to Konarak with two friends, Rahul and Prantik, and we made a short film. It was a 10-hour drive. There was no script or dialogue, and the film actually happened on the road. It was really fun.
What is the craziest thing you have done on vacation?
Parno: I don’t have to do anything, crazy things happen on their own.
Gaurav: I have done a lot of crazy stuff. Amake dekhe mone hoy na! But I can’t reveal any.
Neha: I was in Budapest with my friends. There I met a couple of people. They invited me to Paris. My friends weren’t too keen on travelling, so I flew to Paris. There I met some Americans who were going on a road trip to Spain. So I just joined them, and travelled from France to Barcelona. I had that confidence… of meeting people and then taking off with them. Also, I lost my luggage during one of these trips. Once I reached Madrid, I realised my luggage had gone to Chicago. And then for 15 days I was begging and borrowing clothes. It was the craziest Europe trip possible. But I am really happy about it.
Jisshu: For trips, Nilanjanaa (wife) plans out everything meticulously. Where to stay, where to eat. We were in Sri Lanka for 10 days last year. I was told Colombo is one of the best shopping destinations. My entire motivation hinged on that one thing! I was waiting patiently since I wanted to shop. And then when I finally land up at the place called Odel, I see that you only get clothes for women.
Neha: Nilanjanaa planned it perfectly.
Parno: I love her!
What are the things to remember on solo trips?
Parno: Make sure your passport is with you all the time. Travel light.
Neha: Keep your passport and money safe. For a one-month trip across Europe, I was carrying 9kg and that too got lost. I bought beach clothes in Ibiza... and I went to Amsterdam after that and it was freezing. So cold. People in the hostel gave me their sweaters. Later I bought clothes.
Arindam Chatterjee
Pictures: Rashbehari Das