Since I’ve become a digital nomad, I have lived in lots of beautiful places and I have been able to appreciate life in a completely different way. Sometimes though, it can feel like living two lives at the same time – being available for my clients and delivering on my projects, and hanging out with mostly tourists engaging in typical tourist activities. This sometimes makes me feel as if I’m rushing from the one to the other and can get a bit exhausting at times. So it is nice to actually take time off work sometimes!

When I planned my 2 weeks in India, I knew this was going to be one of these holiday periods. The plan was to finally meet up with Kesh again and to also spend some time with his family at a wedding. So I wanted to make sure to have enough time to enjoy and not having to keep work tasks in my head. So, India. First stop: Delhi. I had been here about five years ago and ticked off all the main tourist sights of the city. So this time, we took it slow and just walked around Chandni Chowk and Old Delhi a lot, soaking up the chaos around us taking in the full sensory overload that India provides you with. It was so much fun to get lost in the chaos of the little streets with anything and everything imaginable (and unimaginable) happening around you. Loved Delhi first time around, and still do!

From Delhi, we hopped onto a flight to Varanasi, where the wedding took place. It was interesting to participate in all the different elements and ceremonies of the wedding and I wore a saree for the first time! My favourite outfit was the lengha though, that I bought in Delhi. Everything is so beautifully colourful at Indian weddings, I love it!

Next to the wedding, we actually had lots of free time to explore Varanasi, which for us meant mainly walking along the ghats and taking in the special atmosphere along the river Ganges. I had wanted to visit Varanasi for such a long time, so it was incredible to finally be walking long the river and to witness all sorts of different ceremonies and the cremation of dead bodies (I will forever be haunted by that image of feet sticking out of a fire…) – an equally fascinating, shocking and kind of repulsive thing to observe. One of those moments that I will forever remember.

For the rest, our days were filled with me trying to practice Hindi with random chai vendors, drinking lots of chai and eating lots of delicious food. Varanasi was much more relaxed and cleaner than I had expected – I really liked the city!

After Varanasi, our next stop was Mumbai. As we both felt a bit sick though, we didn’t end up seeing a lot which was fine by me as again I had been to Mumbai before and seen all the main attractions. So after some more family time, we hopped onto another flight – destination: Amritsar. Amritsar… the city of the Sikh, located in the Northwest of India, close to the boarder of Pakistan. Another one that had been on my „India bucket list“ for a while, and so it had been on Kesh’s. Originally, we had planned to travel to a climbing place for a bit, however, trains were fully booked. The decision for an alternative stop was easy though and we did not regret it!

*The* main attraction of Amritsar is the Golden Temple, which we visited on multiple occasions and at different times of the day so that we got to see the temple at night in all its shiny golden glory, but also in the morning and day time hours. We also went for a free meal in the temple (the „langar“) twice, which was really nice food. It is crazy that it is provided every day for so many people. I’d love to get insight into the planning and logistics behind that!

The other thing to do when in Amritsar, is to visit the Wagah border between India and Pakistan where every afternoon a border ceremony takes place. I didn’t read up a lot on it beforehand, so didn’t exactly know what to expect. It ended up being one big party with the guys from the military acting as MCs, getting the crowd fired up and a little marching up and down of the military. The best part of the whole ceremony was when all women were invited to get into the „arena“. I didn’t really know why and what was going to happen next, but decided to join nonetheless. I was the only tourist and what happened next was dancing! Basically just randomly partying with all the Indian women around me. No clue why this was part of the border ceremony, but it was so much fun! So…who cares.

And that was it! We returned to Delhi for one last night before parting ways again. My next stop: Fuvahmulah, Maldives. But before that, here are some more photos of our time in India.