I Lost My Way In The Tube One Day But That's How I Discovered The Real London

I have often gotten lost. My geographic survival instincts have always been poor.

And I never learned left from right. It would have been a delight if the Google Maps lady¡¯s voice said: ¡°Take the turn to your other left."

I don¡¯t understand the compass either. But being lost has been good for me. I doubt a career in writing would have happened without my getting lost. Here is a list of places in which I have been hopelessly disoriented: London, Singapore, Pondicherry, Udaipur, Mumbai, Delhi, Srilanka, Paris, New York City, Jaipur, Chennai.

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The best cup of coffee you¡¯ll find in London is getting brewed in this small, quaint cafe located under a bridge. The best fish curry you¡¯ll ever taste is getting made in this fisherman¡¯s small house located off Serenity Beach in Pondicherry.

If you end up on the wrong side of Sentosa Island in Singapore you might miss the fireworks on New Year¡¯s Eve but you would have made friends of a lifetime because you found yourself seated in the middle of a group of travellers from all over the world, giving me a night to remember.

But the only way to discover these off-the radar experiences is by getting lost.

Back-track to the summer of 2015, it was another rainy morning in London and I was tired of just sitting at home because of the miserable, cold showers. I decided to wrap myself up in the warmest clothes (yes it was summer in London but I was still freezing), picked up my umbrella, my credit card and a bottle of water and decided to finally get out of my house.

Instead of taking the tube from the ever busy King¡¯s Cross Station, I decided to walk to Bond Street with the help of Google Maps, obviously. But my prepaid package expired which meant I had no internet connection on my phone. Instead of finding the closest store to get my phone number re-charged, I stuffed my phone in my jacket and continued walking.

I had no plan. I did not have any modern navigation device telling me where to go. I just walked and walked in the pouring rain. I don¡¯t know which street I was on but the rain started to pour down a little harder so I had no option but to turn into this tunnel for protection.

A typical dark, scary looking tunnel but I don¡¯t know what encouraged me to continue going deeper and so I did. Just as the tunnel ended, it gave way to the most beautiful hidden lake I had ever seen.

A single boat was docked and not a soul in sight. I sat on the wet gravel floor of the tunnel with the umbrella perked on my head taking in the serenity and calmness of a hidden lake in the center of Central London. I spent two hours just sitting in the cold rain- no coffee, no Wi-Fi, no phone calls.

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Can you be lost, and, at the same time, know exactly where you are?

That¡¯s how I felt when I found myself sitting in front of this rare, hidden, unknown lake. After this experience, ditching the map and taking the road less traveled became my travel mantra. And that¡¯s my favorite way to travel- without expectations and without a destination.

Getting lost is getting harder. The world has been mapped and re-mapped to the extent that we no longer travel to destinations but rather to a set of preset coordinates. Our smartphones and smartwatches are bursting with information.

It is possible to take a walk in London¡¯s Oxford Street, knowing which waffle place is the best, which tube train to get on, which malls to visit and which neighborhood houses famous art galleries. But to stumble upon a rare and out of sight lake in the middle of one of the most famous cities in the world, you need to brace yourself to get lost first.