BENGALURU : Travelling can be an enriching experience. While we able-bodied people look at ensuring we get the right facilities, visit the best spots and are carrying the right luggage with us when we travel, those who are differently-abled might find difficulty doing the little things while on a trip that we tend to overlook. In spite of their disabilities, these courageous people have travelled to multiple places across the globe. At a recent event called ‘Travel Tales’ in the city, City Express chatted with a few people with disabilities on the challenges and triumphs while going on holiday.
Mrinamayi Abroal, who also has a blog documenting her travel tales, says she has been to a lot of places in India and abroad. Being a wheelchair user, she claims travelling in Rajasthan has been her best experience so far. “I found a lot of places that were accessible there. The gardens of most of the tourist spots were accessible, however, the palaces that require some movement cannot be made accessible, and that’s fair.”
“I haven’t travelled too much, but my trip to Pondicherry was a great experience. I saw the sea and the ocean after a long time. I have also travelled to a couple of places in Karnataka. It was a good experience and now I plan to travel on my own. I plan to travel to Jaipur and Kerala this year, “ says Jyothishree SP.
Ajmal Mohammad is hearing-impaired, and has engaged himself in training people on how to use sign language, having recently stepped out of his home, he says, “I’m basically from Kerala.
I have travelled by bike with my friends. I would wonder how it would be possible to travel and communicate with people. Somehow I figured that acting would do, and via acting, I made it possible to communicate. Language is not important; it is about how efficiently you communicate. With the help of that, he first travelled to and from Bengaluru on his birthday.”
What is interesting to note about these anecdotes is that out of the many places that claim to be accessible, there are only a few that actually are. Disability rights activist Virali Modi shares her travel experiences, and claims the accessibility in Thailand is a notch higher than most tourist spots, she says, “My trip to Thailand was one of the best I’ve had so far. Most places there are made accessible.”
Enable Travels works towards making travel accessible for people with disabilities. Urvashi Kamat from Enable Travel, says, “We try and provide travel and leisure experiences to people who are in wheelchairs, visually-impaired and those who are deaf. We also started this for senior citizens. We have a panel of disable experts. We have three wheelchair experts, two visually-impaired experts, and we also have a deaf expert. We tell them to have a look at all our tools and tell us how accessible they are, or how accessible they are not.”