Steph and I traveled to India; we didn't take a vacation. While the thoughts of balmy beaches and sun tans seemed so enviable while we were enduring a painful train ride or shooing an unrelenting tout, I had an amazing time. India kept me on my toes, and I always wondered, "what's next" each passing minute. We tasted India's serenity and chaos for a brief two weeks and experienced a perpetual pendulum swinging between many extremes. We saw beauty, ugliness, happiness, desperation, wealth, poverty, kindness and apathy.
India took our breath away--sometimes literally. From crossing the streets of Kolkata which can be a near death experience, smelling the stench of the streets, navigating the anarchic trains stations, to seeing the amazing view from the hills of Darjeeling, eating the best cuisine in the world, marveling at the incredible moving sight of the ghats-- India took our breath away.
In the few quiet moments I had, either when looking at an awesome view or observing a Purja ceremony, I experienced these transient moments of brief suspension, of fleeting detachment from the present, and encountered this unbelievable ecstasy only ever afforded to travelers, of pure awe and wonderment, and I just couldn't stop thinking to myself, "I can't believe I'm in India."
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