And it really was… if you were in the right place.

I mention the hype because it can’t be ignored how popular this island has become. It seems everyone is either planning or just back from a dreamy Sri Lankan holiday. Of all the destinations on our 6-month itinerary, this one elicited the most jealousy.

This means some crowds and, of course, lots of new development. The sleepy, backpacker beaches of yesterday are rapidly transforming into bustling resort towns. I’d never been before, so I can’t speak to the changes myself, but even from my research I could see how quickly the landscape was evolving.

For that reason, where you base yourself makes all the difference. I stayed in three towns along the South Coast as we made our way East, so I thought I’d round them up in a little guide.

Ahangama

If you’re looking for: a flourishing surf scene and don’t mind some local hustle and bustle

We decided to stay just west of Ahangama town near Kabalana Beach. This was after hearing from a local tour guide that Ahangama was unrecognisable from a couple of years ago. I can’t speak to what it was, but I can say that now, the main strip near Ahangama Beach feels surprisingly urban, and not quite the laid-back surfer vibe I’d expected. The constant, fast flow of traffic along the main road doesn’t help.

That said, we didn’t explore this whole stretch, and there are more peaceful parts and plenty of great cafés and restaurants to explore here.

Kabalana is less developed but has several good places to eat and mooch around. The beach is also longer and wider than Ahangama, and renowned for its surfing. We still found it crowded, but more relaxed, with rows of rustic sun loungers run by locals. We found ourselves drifting back to the same corner of the beach every day, where we’d pay an old woman for a shaded hut, then watch as she hawked her sarongs, bossed her grandson around, and gossiped with the ice cream man, who gave her free cones in exchange for some shade.

As this area draws in developers, locals are wary. According to our host in Fort Galle, there’s been an influx of Russian and Israeli-owned businesses along the coast. Foreigners are starting their own surf schools or promoting private surf lessons where locals already teach. “It’s one thing to hire locals and support the community”, he explained, “but some of these new businesses aren’t giving back at all, or worse, they’re taking work away from locals who depend on it.”

We desperately wanted to support local businesses, but we also wanted to sample some of the exciting new restaurants this area is becoming known for.

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So we relaxed into it and enjoyed sunset views from Thilenis with cocktails and scrumptious small bites, a light brunch in the quiet garden of Sisters Cafe, and surprisingly authentic pizza at Vertigo. Our favourite find by far was Beach Cafe Sunset, a small bar hidden inconspicuously off the main road. It’s balanced on the rocks at the far end of Kabalana Beach, and so new that they were still building and painting tables when we found it. Run by a local man and his daughter, you couldn’t find a friendlier place to sip cocktails and watch the sunset.

We stayed at a little B&B down the road from Kabalana Beach called Ivy Cottage, which felt delightfully remote though it was conveniently close, and they served up traditional Sri Lankan breakfasts every morning.

Hiriketiya

If you’re looking for: a trendy backpacker aesthetic in a lively, social hub

When our taxi first wound its way through the leafy streets of Hiriketya, all I could think was, this was it: this was the Sri Lankan coast I’d been dreaming of.

That feeling quickly faded when we arrived at the beach itself. Towels and bodies covered the soft sand, and the water was so densely crowded with surfers, each wave sent a flurry of boards and limbs flying into the air. As we walked along, a large crowd gathered, bikini-clad girls squealing, around what turned out to be a bucket of sea turtle hatchlings. Through a forest of bare legs, I watched them slowly wriggle their way through the sand, hoping beyond hope that they fared better than the surfers being pummelled just a few feet away.

I read a piece recently that said that the term ‘backpacker’ now describes an aesthetic more than a budget. (I really wish I could link the piece but I lost it – if anyone knows, please drop it in the comments!) Anyway, this couldn’t be more true in Hiriketiya. Trendy coffee shops, boutique clothing stores, bars pumping out loud music and bright lights. It’s still youthful, hip, bohemian, but it feels on the perilous edge of Bali.

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That said, some of the best food we had on the island was here in Hiriketiya, and there are plenty of places to stay outside of the fray. (We stayed at Wilson’s Place.) It’s also worth mentioning that, while the beach wasn’t my favourite, and the water seemed treacherously crowded at times, I understood how it would be an appealing nucleus for young travellers looking to meet new friends.

Smoke & Bitters helped put this area on the map, and I was fully prepared for it to fall short of my expectations. On the contrary, it far exceeded them. Rocking up early without a booking meant we were given a picnic blanket on the grass, which suited us just fine, because soon we had ridiculously good cocktails in hand and food rolling in. The Pork Belly was especially memorable, falling apart in buttery, decadent forkfuls, and the Cherry Cherry Cola ruined all cocktails forever.

Well, maybe not the cocktails at their sister restaurant, Raa. The food here is more closely aligned with traditional Sri Lankan cooking, but with a fresh and playful twist. Their drinks feature arrack and toddy that’s tapped from the palm trees swinging above your head. We still dream about the fish curry we had during a long leisurely lunch watching the pro surfers zipping across the nearby reef break. As a storm rolled in across the bay, we took the excuse to find cover… and order another cocktail.

Kingsley Hot Kitchen is so local, you’re basically eating in a family’s living room, and it’s all the more delicious for that reason. It’s so local, in fact, that when the owner heard that we were staying at Wilson’s Place, he insisted that his son drive us home for free in their tuk tuk.

And to our surprise, Dots Bay House had one of the best Kotthus of the trip – so cheesy, so rich, so flavourful. We also loved Slow Down for iced coffees and thick slices of banana bread while we caught up on work.

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Tangalle

If you’re looking for: a peaceful enclave of natural beauty and secluded beaches

I don’t like to play favourites, but the beaches in Tangalle were something special. Even the backroads winding between them felt sleepy and serene, with local restaurants tucked between modest houses. We stayed at a B&B near Unakuruwa Beach, a sheltered bay with a small reef break for surfers and a gentle tide to paddle around in. A treehouse beach bar stocked beers and fresh coconuts, and an understated resort set back behind the fishing boats served up decent food with views of the sea.

While I laid back watching Adam paddle out for a surf lesson, a couple spread their things out on the beds next to me. “What a beautiful spot, eh?” The man said, shaking his curly blonde hair out of his eyes. “One of the most beautiful, I think. We went to Hiriketiya yesterday to surf, and–” he whistled. I laughed. “Too crowded?” “It’s dangerous!” He said, “Nobody knows what they’re doing – there are no rules, so many people. This–” he opened his arms toward the nearly empty waves, “is much better”. Then he bounded off to borrow a board, and his wife and I chatted into the afternoon. They were from the Netherlands, had been travelling for six months, and were nearing the end of their trip. “Unless we just go back to New Zealand,” she said, “which we might do.”

And then it struck me, what I’d been feeling on this part of the coast – nostalgia. Travel has changed so much, even over the past ten years, but here it still felt slow, present, raw. A level of disconnection that facilitated much deeper connection. Tangalle was the kind of place where these conversations still happened. Where travellers shared stories and swapped recommendations, then shook out their sandy blankets and said, maybe we’ll see you around! And you didn’t know if you would, but it didn’t really matter.

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Along a path through the village and down into lush jungle, Silent Beach was much longer, with soft white sand dipping down into raucous turquoise waves. The tide can be strong here, and it’s not good for surfing, but with a row of beds and plenty of space to lay out a towel under the palm trees, you could easily spend the day lounging in the shade.

There are several other areas to explore here (we didn’t even visit Tangalle Beach) but the hideaway bays we did find were paradise. There’s no nightlife here, aside from the beach bars playing reggae and hosting bonfires, and there isn’t much of a scene for young backpackers (that I saw), but for us tired millennials looking to kick back old-school style, it’s heaven.

If you have a week to spend on Sri Lanka’s South Coast, and don’t mind hopping around, I’d recommend a couple of nights in each of these areas. Though not all were big hits for me, they all had their highlights, and I loved the variety we experienced along the way.

If you’re going anytime soon, be warned the fuel crisis has hit Sri Lanka hard and it could impact your ability to get around. It also means motorbike hire will be much more costly. It might be worth planning your transportation in advance (I’d recommend booking a driver between each spot) and relying less on quick day trips.

As always, thanks so much for reading and please feel free to share any recommendations of your own in the comments!

We’d met back on the platform, after an announcement in Sinhala (the predominant language spoken in Sri Lanka) sent everyone rushing off of the train we’d been about to board. In our panic, we’d hardly heard someone ask if we were getting the train to Galle. With thinning white hair, cargo shorts, tennis trainers and a button down shirt, I’d assumed he was just another tourist and nodded distractedly. “They’ve changed the platform,” he said, “it’s coming in over here now.”

I was surprised he understood Sinhala, and intrigued to know more, but after his initial greeting, he became withdrawn. Who can blame him for not wanting to be stuck with desperate clingers-on hoping for a translator and guide? But while the train huffed in, I asked how long he’d been in Sri Lanka. “Eight years,” he replied tersely.

That I’d been allocated the seat next to him was a complete coincidence, and he didn’t seem all that happy to be stuck with me, so I opened my book to make clear we didn’t have to be friends. But then he leaned over and quietly asked if we’d done this, if we’d seen that. He was an art-lover, and passionate about architecture, it turned out, with a long string of recommendations that showed he had good taste and plenty of money. I finally asked what brought him to Sri Lanka.

“A mental breakdown, I guess.” He said matter-of-factly, then chuckled, seeming taken aback by his own honesty. “Really?” I laughed, “Us too!” He eyed me warily, then blinked, in the slow, gentle way a cat blinks when it trusts you, and smiled. He’d be divulging no more, and neither would I, but so much had already been said – a world of revelation in just a few words.

He disembarked at Bentota, and we rattled on to Galle.

Galle usually comes at the end of the typical Sri Lankan loop, after the South Coast beaches, the Hill Country and Cultural Triangle, but after five weeks in India, we couldn’t wait that long to decompress on a sun lounger. So we planned the classic itinerary in reverse, heading straight down on the coastal train from Colombo.

Our first night in the area was a splurge hidden away in the twisting backstreets outside of the city. With just six rooms spread across a cluster of bungalows, Ginganga Lodge is a quiet, boutique affair – with open-air everything and a stylish mix of traditional, vintage and modern design. While the other guests got dolled up and hopped in tuk-tuks for dinner, we swanned around our enormous suite, revelling in the space after days cooped up in budget rooms. We had a zingy and delicious prawn curry with the resident dogs curled up at our feet, then crashed out under clouds of duvet and mosquito nets.

The next day, after some clever procrastination in the hotel pool, we checked out and made our way to Galle Fort.

Built by the Portuguese in 1588, fortified by the Dutch in the 17th century, passed over to the British, then reclaimed by Sri Lankan independence in 1948, Galle Fort is a living museum of art and history.

I expected this area to be touristy – it is, after all, a UNESCO World Heritage site – I’ll admit I was even looking forward to a bit of comfort and convenience. Our one night stay in a plush hotel had given me notions, and I had hankerings for a flat white and a cold glass of wine.

I was in luck: Galle Fort had all the offerings of a well-established resort town. But I found myself lamenting my wishes. If I’m completely honest, the sheer number of tourists was overwhelming, and muddled the charm of an otherwise fascinating little town.

I know how obnoxious that sounds – just another tourist moaning, “What are all these other tourists doing here?” Tourism is an essential lifeline for Sri Lankans, and I wouldn’t dream of discouraging it. I also know better than to seek out ‘authenticity’ – a concept rooted in colonialism that has no real definition – and I don’t expect a place to be frozen in time or untouched by Western influence. In fact, I really do try to leave all my expectations at the door.

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The one thing I hope for when I’m travelling is the sense that I’m in that place – whatever that place is at that time.

I want to feel its unique rhythm, hear the sounds on its streets, close my eyes and know I’m there.

Unfortunately, in Fort Galle, the sounds on the street were mostly loudly spoken English and the shuffle of sunburnt tourists brandishing selfie sticks and ice cream cones. Again, these are my people, and I expected them to be there. There were also French, German, Russian, Indian, Japanese and Chinese tourists. It’s not that there wasn’t diversity, but when the only locals you spot are waiting tables or driving tuk-tuks, you begin to wonder what it is you’re actually experiencing.

The rare glimpse of an old woman in traditional dress was met by a chorus of shutter clicks, and she’d scurry off. The street food carts stood empty: living props for adding ‘local colour’ to Instagram shots, while the queue at the Italian gelato shop was everlasting. That’s not to say it was unpleasant. In fact, amongst the old colonial homes and winding streets, or up on the ramparts looking over the maze of terracotta roofs, it was undeniably beautiful. But Disney’s Epcot came to mind on more than one occasion.

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You could argue that Fort Galle was never really, truly Sri Lankan. It was built for colonists, and now it serves their descendants.

I don’t think I would have had quite the same shock if we hadn’t just come from Kerala, where many of the tourists had been Indian. This meant that wherever you went, no matter how touristy it was, you were never at a loss for where you were in the world. The language you were surrounded by was Hindi or Bengali or Malayalam. Even in the trendiest cafés and restaurants, at least half of the tables would be filled by domestic tourists. That was not the case here.

That said, in speaking to the owner of our guesthouse, an artist and architect originally from Colombo named Sandeepa, we learned that domestic tourists usually visit later in the season. So I’d imagine visiting at a different time could have completely different results.

This was just my experience, and I hope it doesn’t put people off or get any backs up. It really was a pretty spot, and ended up being perfect for what we needed, which was a little comfort and ease. So we leaned into it.

We spent two days wandering the cobblestone streets, popping into galleries and cafés, sipping cocktails at sunset and hunting for live music and fresh seafood as darkness fell. It could have been a holiday in Amalfi or the South of France, but for the fact that we were eating curries and drinking Lion beer in what felt like 100% humidity.

Kaffi was one of my favourite spots for coffee. It’s set in an old colonial building with a quiet sunlit courtyard, down a side road away from the crowds. I went back a second time for their soft, honeyed Cardamom Bun and a mooch around the little textiles shop at the back.

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Our friend on the train recommended Charlie’s Bar & Bistro for cocktails, a swanky art deco hotel bar with a view over the ramparts, and it didn’t disappoint. The drinks are inventive and well-balanced, but what stood out the most was the service – our first taste of the trademark Sri Lankan curiosity and gentle humour.

Stick No Bills is worth joining the crowds for, with retro travel posters lining the walls of an airy colonial townhouse. A few doors down, Lanka Living is another art gallery in a similar setting, but with a more highbrow, serene feel.

We stayed at ArtNEST Gallery Stay, a handful of guestrooms tucked behind Art’o’San Gallery on Pedlar Street. Sandeepa and his artwork helped give me a deeper understanding and appreciation for Galle’s architecture and history, and he was such a warm, gracious host.

If we went back, I’d be first in line for The Bungalow, which was fully booked with an hour’s wait both nights we tried.

When we packed our bags into a taxi and said goodbye to Fort Galle, I was ready to leave the crowds behind and find a more laid-back, local side of the island. (Spoiler, this wasn’t as easy to find on the coast as I’d hoped.) Look out for my honest guide to the beaches on Sri Lanka’s South Coast – I hope to get that published soon.

As always, thanks so much for reading and supporting my work! If you had a different experience in Fort Galle or any more recommendations for places off the main drag, please share it in the comments.

At the start of March, we were just finishing up our time on Sri Lanka’s South Coast…

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Of course, I also loved comfort – cosying up to rewatch movies, gathering for family traditions that never changed, an after-school routine to nestle into at the end of the day.

Yes, ritual was important, but novelty fed my soul.

A haircut, fresh paint, a change of scenery. Novelty energised and inspired me, gave me perspective and purpose. The urge only intensified as I got older. It could be as small as rearranging my furniture or as big as moving to a city I’ve never been to before – a subtle shift or total reinvention. The rush is indescribable – wriggling, giddy, joyful, powerful yet fleeting – it sustains me, fills me up, feeds me, and then, gradually, I deflate.

I learned about high reward sensitivity in Susan Cain’s book, Quiet (which is brilliant and everyone should read) and the concept stuck with me. Those with high reward sensitivity are often so strongly motivated by the anticipation of reward that they are more likely to experience addiction and impulsivity. They can be known as thrill-seekers, gamblers, throwing caution to the wind in the name of short wins.

Now, I wouldn’t say this describes me per se. The dopamine kick I get from ‘rewards’ like money or thrill is moderate at best, I’ve never been addicted to anything (okay, other than caffeine), and I think those who know me would agree, the only risks I take are relatively measured.

But when it comes to novelty – that’s a reward I seem to have a very high sensitivity to.

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When someone gets back from holiday and says with a shrug, “It was nice.” I balk, confounded. It was nice? To be in a new place, with new flavours, sounds, language, maybe landscape at your fingertips? Surely ‘nice’ couldn’t possibly describe the way this new stimuli burrows into your soul and sets it alight. Does it not douse the memories you have with a new radiance? Or expand your existing perceptions with shimmering threads of new ones?

Travel is the ultimate feedbag for a novelty-seeker like me.

But I assumed this was a phase – an immature streak I’d grow out of. ‘Real adults’ seek out permanence and thrive on routine. They grow attached, put down roots, become great big unmoving trees. There’s a way to live, we’re taught from a young age, even for artists – maybe especially for artists, whose frivolous pursuits must be balanced out by strict discipline. Teachers will tell you that the best, most successful creatives adhere to unbreakable uniformity: wake up early, close doors, remove all distractions. A dear friend once told me, “I know that one day when you find your place and sit at your own desk, that’s when you’ll write your book.”

I believed the same. I thought that if I just kicked this habit of scampering around, running away, if I could sit still and focus, in a place that was my own, my creativity would blossom into real, tangible, consistent work.

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So I sought out permanence – and found the sweetest little spot in the English countryside, a renovated old pub, in a quaint village, peaceful and pastoral, and I had all the free time in the world to sit at my desk and write.

When I did, nothing came. The well was dry.

I’d found contentment, peace, stillness, I was genuinely happy, yet I still yearned for movement. What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be satisfied? Was I doomed to live like this forever – a human version of The Hungry Caterpillar?

“On Monday, she ate through one adventure of a lifetime, but she was still hungry.”

Another question haunted me: what was I running away from? By the time I turned thirty, I’d moved countless times, lived all over the world, travelled for months on end, and I still hadn’t gotten it ‘out of my system’. I was generally very happy with my lot, so why did I yearn for more? What was it that I couldn’t sit comfortably with?

This hung over my head as we packed our bags again, rented our home out to strangers, and charted a course through Asia. It nipped at my heels through the airports and train stations, admonishing me for the giddy lightness in my step. I was refusing to ‘grow up’, it whispered as I fell asleep, resisting ‘real life’.

All the while I was working, of course, but that still didn’t help shake the feeling that I was dodging something – enacting an escape clause most people didn’t get.

Then my grandmother left a comment on one of my articles – a habit of hers I’ve begun to count on. (No pressure, Nana.) The piece explores my guilt for writing about something as frivolous as traveling while the world burns. She responded: “I recently focused on the idea that curiosity is at the basis of my creativity. Not a novel idea, but it explained a lot about me. So curiosity is part of travel. Travel is part of your creativity for sure. It’s what is unique to you, so why would you deprive yourself of that joy?”

Travel as a part of my creativity… I had never considered such a thing before. That my love of change, novelty, movement was not hindering my work, but feeding it. Not a malfunction, as I’d believed for so long, but the function. Curiosity as a foundation for my creative process – this was a revelation.

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But it shouldn’t have been. I’ve always been more creative in motion, my best ideas present themselves on trains, planes, boats, even long walks. As the world skims by, my mind finds focus, as if the speed is pulling along my twisted trails of thought, stretching out one coherent thread after another.

This isn’t to say I don’t also benefit from stillness, solitude and ritual. That’s often where I can tie all these threads together into words, paragraphs, stories. My most tangible, consistent work comes from striking a balance between the two: motion and rest, calm and chaos. I might just require more of one than the other at times.

So by seeking out change, I’m not ‘running away’ from anything, because I’m not leaving anything behind – I’m taking it all with me, weaving it into my writing, my art, my humanity. Indulging my craving for change doesn’t make me flaky, flighty, unserious. Now I realise it may be the only way I’ve been giving weight to my artistic self.

Taking that part of myself seriously feels like a profound act of love. The way a painter would bring her easel into the garden, I’m simply seeking out my inspiration, feeding my wonder. Is this not also artistic discipline?

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I worried that I was writing this as a way of over-explaining myself, an old habit I’m trying to kick. But then I figured I can’t be the only one carrying around this outdated idea that there is only one way to be a responsible adult. There must be others out there wondering why they can’t ‘settle’, why they continue to move their furniture around, repaint the bedroom, restyle their wardrobe – change comes in all shapes and forms. If this sounds like you, I’m donning my most convincing self-help hat to suggest that you’re not lost or lacking, you’re an artist with an unquenchable curiosity, and surely that’s something that should be celebrated not quashed.

Accepting this part of ourselves can be difficult, especially when we’re made to feel whimsical and ridiculous in a world ruled by conformity and safe choices. You can carry on waiting to grow out of it, and lose yourself in the meantime.

But accepting it is a beautiful thing. Giving it space, room to be and breathe, is such a relief. And the thought of building a life around it is genuinely exciting.

Are you someone who craves change? Or maybe you’re inspired more my stillness at the moment? Is there anything else you’ve realised is a core part of your creativity? I’d love to hear – let me know in the comments. As always, thanks so much for reading and please, if it resonates, like, share, etc.

I woke up feeling guilty about getting a taxi all the way from Kochi to Marayoor. “It’s not real travel,” I whined to Adam, “we need to get a local bus - we’re not getting an authentic experience.” “We’re stopping at the hospital,” he reminded me, “that’s quite an authentic experience.”

For those who haven’t been following along, I’d gotten a tiny cat scratch in Goa which meant I had three more post-exposure injections to get over the next few weeks.

The taxi pulled up and a man got out with a big smile and introduced himself as Stephen, popping the trunk and reaching for our bags, but we hesitated. “For Marayoor?” I asked. He nodded, “Yes, Marayoor but first, the hospital.” This was our guy, but then – we both looked again – why was there a child in the backseat? The little boy gave a toothy grin and a wave through the window. “I brought my son with me,” our driver explained, “It’s okay?” Of course, we insisted it was, but as I slid in next to him, he fell silent and looked straight ahead, his eyes wide under his bowl cut.

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I love children, but they make me nervous. I’m always afraid I’ll say the wrong thing or do something to lose their trust. The truth is, I’m desperate for them to like me, and I’m convinced they can tell.

Asking his name would be a good start, I thought, but when I did, he just kicked his feet against the back of the driver’s seat. His name was Reuben, his father told us, he was five years old, the second of his four children. It being a weekend, his wife had been overwhelmed with the prospect of taking care of the whole brood at home with no help. (Who could blame her?) I looked down and tried to give Reuben a reassuring smile, but he glanced away, clinking together the single coins he held in each hand. “He doesn’t speak much English”, his father explained. “He goes to an English school, but the teachers all speak the local language so he doesn’t get much practice.” At a loss for what else to do, I pointed to his coins. He smiled and held up one coin at a time, “One – two!” He whispered, then held up two little fingers. “Yes,” I said enthusiastically, “Two!” “YES!” He replied.

“ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, FIVE, SEVEN-” he counted excitedly. Then he pointed at the treetops. “GREEN. BLUE!” This went on until we reached the hospital, where he fell quiet again.

Visiting a hospital in a different country is always an experience. We’d suggested the city hospital, assuming it would offer the best care, but Stephen said he’d called ahead to make sure the local clinic had what we needed, assuring us it would be much quieter. He led us through, got us a ticket at the window, then led us into the waiting area, a large, shining white room lined with metal chairs. “When the doctor comes, you have to get in the line,” he explained. “They won’t call me?” I asked. Why, I wondered, did they have a ticketing system if the numbers meant nothing? This is when Adam realised he’d nicked the room key from our homestay and Stephen offered to run it back while we waited.

At ten past nine, the doctor’s door opened, and I tried to gently shoulder into the crowd forming, but an elderly woman took me by the elbows and lifted me out of her way like a doll. Within a couple of seconds, I was last in line.

A woman at the front seemed to be taking charge, making sure a boy with his arm in a sling and a bad limp went first. Then she turned and beckoned to me. I shook my head, not wanting to abuse my Western privilege more than I already had, but she reached back and pulled me up, holding me next to her with a maternal grip.

The doctor looked at me with surprise, frowned at my papers, but scribbled a note and sent me to the next room. Stephen and Reuben had rejoined us by now, and the whole gang gathered to watch as the nurse prepared my injections. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt,” she whispered as she dabbed my arm with disinfectant, and I tried to smile down at Reuben, who was watching my face with saucepan eyes. We left having spent five rupees (a few pence) for our entry ticket, marvelling at a healthcare system that doesn’t charge hundreds for a lifesaving vaccine.

The road to Munnar is winding and hilly, passing through miles of dense, verdant tea trees, cropped waist-high and bunched together like an undulating jigsaw puzzle. Reuben had slipped his father’s phone into the backseat and was scrolling through YouTube videos at high volume, Adam was snoring, and I was smiling out at the view because I’ve heard that helps with car sickness.

The town of Munnar itself was crowded and thick with exhaust fumes. Reuben was pleading with his dad about something, and finally, laughing, Stephen pulled over and asked us to wait. Ten minutes later they returned, Reuben striding gleefully, holding a shiny pink box above his head.

I wish I could have captured it, but no photo ever could: father and son hand in hand, Reuben holding the box aloft with a wide smile, and all of us reliving the gleeful triumph of getting a new toy. He laid it out on the backseat, chattering away happily. It was a doctor’s kit.

As we set off again, he ripped apart the packaging and ‘filled’ the plastic syringe. The road had become so narrow we had to slow for oncoming cars, and the stopping and starting was making me woozy. He held it to my arm, gently pushing in the plunger, his face puckered in focus. I might have hugged him if I wasn’t so afraid of vomiting all over him. Then he ripped the stethoscope from the cardboard backing and held it to my chest and stomach, babbling excitedly. Stephen laughed, “he says, nothing to worry about, you just have a slight fever.”

Reuben looked up at me, with his round earnest face and long lashed eyes, this little boy who had chosen, as his prize for being so well behaved, to take care of a total stranger.

Then my stomach lurched, I felt the familiar rush of saliva coat my mouth. “I have to sit up front,” I blurted. Stephen pulled over, sensing the urgency, and Adam, ever the good sport, climbed into the back singing, “new patient!”

Stephen assured me he’d drive slowly, which only seemed to make it worse, but with gritted teeth, I made it through one crawling second at a time. Stephen was telling me about the many cures for motion sickness, how I needed to be careful on trains and boats because I might fall off, but I’d filled my head with static to soften each turn. The car fell eerily quiet as the swirls of tea bushes rolled by. After fifteen minutes or so, Adam broke the silence with a little gasp.

Reuben had been sick down the front of his t-shirt without making a peep.

We pulled up to a shed at the side of the road selling snacks and Stephen pulled Reuben gingerly out of the car, presenting him to the shopkeeper with a grimace. She threw up her hands, her teal sari shimmering in the sun, then lifted a jug of water and beckoned them to the back.

Adam and I sat on the low cement wall admiring the view. We couldn’t have picked a more picturesque place to stop, the tea hills panned around us on all sides, stretching out like a lime green, mottled canvas. A spotted cow and her calf slowly picked their way along the rows, their pink tongues lapping at their shiny black noses. When I looked over, Stephen was tenderly wiping his son’s bare stomach with a wet cloth, saying something that was making them both giggle.

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There have been so many moments along this trip that have made me feel all warm and tingly – small, seemingly unexceptional examples of human decency, empathy, compassion. But maybe the thing that’s brought me the most joy has been observing these fathers. Throughout India, I have noticed this, and I know these are just snapshots, and I’m sure I am romanticising, and of course there are good and bad parents everywhere. But the fathers I’ve seen seem to take real pleasure in being with their children. I’ve seen so many men holding them when they’re walking as a family, entertaining them, speaking to them with gentle affection, calming their tantrums. I’ve seen fathers twirling their daughters, chasing their sons, holding their toys, their bags, pushing their prams. A lot of the dads I know in the UK and the US are wonderful and present and attentive, and this isn’t to disparage them, but in India I’ve seen a noticeable number of men walking their children to school, bringing them out with buddies, feeding them in restaurants on their own. In much of the UK, what Stephen was doing would be called “Daddy Day Care”, and I know plenty of men who would be utterly lost at having to clean up and comfort their child on their own.

Reuben was chipper and chatty again in no time. We sipped salty lemon sodas together by the roadside and watched the cows graze before piling back into the car. As buses whipped by, honking then disappearing around turns, I was so glad we’d chosen a taxi. It turned out to be exactly what I needed.

As always, thank you so much for reading. Please like, share, comment, give me stories of your own – I’d love to keep growing this community.

Stepping off the train, Kerala (soon to be Keralam) welcomed us with a leafy, pleasant sigh. Accustomed to the chaotic frenzy of arrival, it felt almost eerie as we followed the orderly crowd out of the station and waited for our Uber on a clean, quiet street. This was a different side of India.

Kerala has the second highest literacy rates in the country, the lowest poverty rates and boasts public access to healthcare and comparatively progressive policies. Interestingly, Kerala has had the world’s first democratically elected communist government since 1957. Once a matrilineal state, they’re also far further ahead when it comes to gender equality, and quickly becoming known as a safe haven for female travellers.

Before I knew this, I felt it. The streets were bustling with local women, which, compared to Delhi’s streets, felt revolutionary. Gaggles of girls walked home from school in crisp uniforms, young women stopped to chat and solo female travellers wandered happily without turning heads or attracting stares.

We spent two weeks in Kerala, pushing our flight to Sri Lanka day by day to buy us more time. It never felt like enough, and we never tired of it. Here are the experiences I wish I could relive again for the first time.

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The world is going to hell in a handcart and every minute there’s more terrifying news, so here’s a light-hearted list of 6 packing tips that no one needs right now.

Several years ago, I embarked on my first trip to Thailand. It was my first time in Asia, actually, and island hopping took up most of the itinerary, so I packed accordingly – mostly colourful beachwear and cut-off shorts. I think I flew in a pair of skinny jeans (this was a different time) which sat at the bottom of my bag for the rest of the trip.

Nothing loose, nothing cotton or even linen, just polyester and denim for weeks on end. Before long, I was lamenting my choices – sweating in my synthetic fibres and constricting waistbands. I saw how conservatively the locals dressed, felt disrespectful and out of place, but also realised the rationale went beyond religion. The sun is unforgiving, the mosquitos are vicious – and I had nothing to cover my arms but a cropped hoodie that only suited air conditioned buses.

I was also put to shame by the other travellers, who seemed to look effortlessly cool in everything they pulled out of their backpacks. I took note of what I missed from my wardrobe back home, and what I envied on others, and returned to the UK determined to do better next time.

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Yet, just a couple of months later, we went backpacking through Indonesia and Vietnam, and I made the same mistakes all over again… along with some new ones. The denim shorts featured, plus a bundle of t-shirts so cheap they were almost translucent. Fortunately, I’d learned enough to pack one pair of trousers and a loose shirt, which I wore almost every day for two months.

Since then, I’ve been determined to learn from my mistakes, only to find that I make the same ones again and again. In writing this, I hope to break that cycle and give everyone else the packing advice I’ve (repeatedly) learned the hard way.

1. Forgetting my style

Almost every time I travel, I arrive, open my bag, and find someone else’s wardrobe inside. No, the airline hasn’t made a mistake, nothing has been swapped or lost – I packed these clothes. In most cases, I bought these clothes for this trip – and therein lies the issue.

I realised a few years back, I don’t pack for myself, I pack for the person I’ll become once I get wherever I’m going. The sporty backpacker, the overdressed influencer, or, my favourite, the retired art teacher (which isn’t too far off from my personal style, to be fair).

With every new destination comes the potential for reinvention, and there’s nothing that excites me more (I am a Gemini rising, after all). But while travel can be a great opportunity to try new things and peel back new layers of yourself, you’re still the same you, with (in my case) the same love of muted colours and simple silhouettes.

My advice? Bring what feels easy, comfortable – the clothes, makeup and jewelry you find yourself throwing on again and again – what you’d wear for a coffee with pals (taking into account weather and terrain).

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2. Putting too much stock in other people’s packing lists

I can’t be the only one to obsessively scour the internet for packing lists – eager to forgo my own common sense for a stranger’s experienced take. If someone tells me I’ll need Tevas, I don’t question it. If they say you only need one pair of trousers, I’ll believe them. I’ll regretfully forgo my favourite trainers for all-terrain boots, my favourite jeans for stretchy chinos, only to arrive and realise that I have everything I ‘need’, but nothing I actually want to wear.

Athleisure wear is typically the specific trap I fall into, often at the guidance of some well-intentioned backpacker. The truth is, I don’t walk around in leggings and a sports bra at home, so why would I fill my backpack with lycra and spandex?

3. Going rogue

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made the classic misstep of packing things I’ve never worn before, because “I’ve never had the occasion’ or ‘I haven’t been brave enough’. Chances are, if you’ve had it for more than a year and never had an occasion, you’re never going to wear it. And if an article of clothing requires bravery, it’s too big a risk. It’ll be shoved to the bottom of your bag, underneath the pair of dressy sandals that give you blisters, and there they will remain – a constant reminder of the ‘you’ that failed to materialise when you crossed country lines.

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Speaking of shoes that give you blisters, beware of the things that would be perfect, but don’t quite fit. I’ve been travelling through India and Sri Lanka with a pair of wide-leg trousers that are absolutely ideal – except they’re several inches too long. They’re one of the two pairs of trousers I have, so I have no choice but to wear them, and I’m getting tired of dragging around these dirty hems.

4. Underpacking because “I’ll buy things there”

I love to travel as lightly as possible, and this is usually the excuse I use. “I don’t need to pack that. If I need it, I can just buy something there.” No I won’t, and I should know this by now. I’ll search and search, looking for just the right thing, then I’ll give up and spend too much on something that I think I love until I get home and realise I was wearing rose-tinted tourist glasses. It happens every time, and yet, I insist each trip will be different.

Obviously, if one of the things you love to do in a new place is shop, you can ignore this. But I still think it’s always safest to pack what you need. When you’re navigating a new country, with a different language, currency and maybe time difference, you won’t want to be rushing around in a sleep-deprived haze, looking for a dress for dinner or a cardigan for the train.

Pack what you need, and if you happen to find something you love, make room for it.

5. Not bringing anything ‘nice’

I always forget that I am not actually a hardcore backpacker. I may carry my clothes in a backpack, but my hostel days are behind me. I usually stay in accommodation that ranges from okay to nice and splurge on upscale meals here and there.

I also forget that I travel slower now (hello thirties), which means I’m not always toting my backpack from place to place, and my opportunities for breezing around in a sundress are plentiful. I’ll never stack up to the women who bring suitcases that could comfortably fit a large child, but a couple of simple dresses (one short, one long) and/or a maxi skirt can go a long way.

6. Opting for all-terrain over slip-on shoes

Again, this one is personal, but if you asked for my top packing tip, no matter the destination, it has to be: bring slip-on shoes. You will want them. Whether it’s flip flops for a warm destination, or clogs for a cooler one (or both for either). For this trip, I decided “I need shoes I can do everything in!” So I ordered Teva Hurricanes and Trail Runners, envisioning days packed with adventure.

The trainers are great, and have served me well, but the Tevas are one of the things I’m sending home. If you’re anything like me (impatient and easily over-stimulated) you will not want to velcro, lace, zip, what-have-you, every single time you leave your hotel. Think about it – breakfast, quick run to the lobby, going out for a coffee, heading to the spa or the beach, popping into a temple. You will want slip on shoes AND they can be the easiest thing to pack.

*Disclaimer: For quick city breaks, I would consider breaking this rule in favour of bringing just one pair of shoes.

Things I got right this time around

Keeping my standard skincare routine

I know it’s tempting to splurge on the best ‘travel’ products, marketed to keep your skin glowing through the jet lag, I know I have, but your skin goes through so many changes when you travel. Sticking to my daily cleanser and moisturiser, along with my favourite tinted moisturiser (with 40 SPF) has meant fewer breakouts and less pointless bottles in my bag.

I also found the sweet spot when it comes to a bare minimum makeup bag: just mascara, a lip/cheek combo, and a shimmery highlighter I use for special occasions.

Prioritising my fancy hair products

In years past, in an effort to downsize as much as possible, I only packed carry-on toiletries, even for months of travel. When I ran out, I’d pick up whatever shampoo and conditioner I could find. Sometimes, this meant the cheap condiment packets sold in little Asian corner-stores that smell and feel suspiciously of dish soap. My hair is particularly finicky – a combination of dense, thin and wavy most products don’t take kindly to. I’d inevitably return with dry, strangled tresses that my stylist would chop off with a disapproving grimace.

This time, I brought full size bottles of my routine products, and even invested in some travel sized bottles of Air Dry Cream and Instant Recovery Serum that have done wonders in keeping my mane manageable even in the height of Sri Lankan humidity.

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Keep in mind, this is just my list of packing mistakes. I’m sure it won’t resonate with everyone. For instance, if you live and die by your Tevas, travel everywhere with an empty suitcase, or have no struggles packing thanks to your superhuman sense of self, good on you and carry on! (Pun intended.) But if you’re like me, have more mistakes to add, or any funny packing stories of your own, please share in the comments – I’d love to hear them!

I was groggy and itchy under a layer of dried sweat (from our sprint through the train the night before) but I relished the extra time wrapped in my white cotton sheets, gazing out the window.

Many locals were skeptical about us travelling from Mumbai to Goa on the train. “It’s just a short flight”, the hotel manager at Abode Mumbai told us as we hoisted our bags into a taxi, as if maybe we were under the impression that trains were the only way to travel long distances in India.

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There are people who travel rough for the sake of it, chasing an ‘authentic’ experience, but this isn’t us. Time permitting, we would choose a train over a flight in any country. The beauty of aviation is its blissful disconnection from the world, but on a train, you’re fully immersed.

There’s a quiet camaraderie on trains – especially in India – a sort of passive participation in a communal experience. Chai and coffees are poured, tiffins are opened and shared, children run up and down the cars. Even in first class, the hallways are hives of activity and the doors between carriages hang wide open, giving an uninterrupted view of the countryside rushing by.

Southern India was so completely different to the north. Adam kept saying it felt like we fell asleep in one country and woke up in another, but it didn’t feel separate to me – it felt like two sides of a breath. Like I filled up on all the colour, chaos and drama of Rajasthan, and this was the slow, green, quiet exhale.

What’s more, we had two nights at Vaayu Kula ahead of us – an upscale, boutique beach hotel with surf lessons, a yoga shala and a trendy, open-air restaurant.

Everyone had warned us to expect crowds, polluted beaches and nightly raves in North Goa. Those people had clearly not been to Mandrem Beach. This wide sandy stretch between Ashvem and Arambol had a quiet hum from morning till sunset, with a smattering of tourists ebbing in and out like the tide. Children played in the shallow estuary, yogis did headstands in the sand, stray dogs chased crabs, and families lounged in the shade of palm leaf parasols.

I woke early the next morning to join a yoga class, wincing my way through poses I hadn’t attempted in over a year. I imagined the class would be filled with middle-aged women who, like me, were working some stretches into their otherwise sedentary holiday routine. Instead, I was surprised to find a young posse of lithe-limbed girls who all seemed to know each other. At the end of class, they gathered on the sun loungers for breakfast, discussing rising rent, scooter repairs, yoga teacher training and energy healing. So these, I realised, are Goa’s young lifestyle migrants.

Gentrification has been changing Goa’s cultural and natural landscape for years, with spreading development and rising prices making this part of India’s south coast almost unrecognisable. Mass tourism isn’t all to blame – a growing number of western migrants have been escaping their own swollen economies to benefit from these weaker ones, unintentionally driving prices up and locals out.

That said, I believe that humans, like many mammals, are a migratory species. Our ability to seek out a better life is a sign of our intelligence and adaptability. I grew up in the US, a country built and made infinitely better by immigrants. I myself moved to the UK in search of a better quality of life. It’s a great privilege to have freedom of movement in an increasingly fragile world, and I don’t for a second take it for granted.

These girls would probably call themselves ‘expats’, many of whom want all the benefits of a developing economy without sacrificing any of their first-world luxuries. Don’t get me wrong, I admired them – it requires a hell of a lot of bravery to imagine a different life for yourself and then go out and live it. Here I was sipping an oat latte in a neighbouring sun lounger, who was I to judge? Then I heard one of them say, “I’m finally learning how you have to treat Indians to actually get what you want.” And I rolled away from them, goodwill gone.

Aside from these aspiring ‘energy healers’, Vaayu Kula felt far removed from the looming wave of tourism we’d been told to expect. The only signs of development visible from this stretch of beach were the palm roofs of Vaayu Kula tucked discreetly into the tree line. Their row of stylish suites were constructed from salvaged trees uprooted during the 2021 cyclone, their mini-bars are stocked from a local zero-waste refill shop and there isn’t a plastic-wrapped anything in sight – proving their sustainability claims to be more than marketing.

That evening, a DJ set up in the beach bar, which quickly filled with an eccentric mix of young bohemians, preppy hotshots and old hippies, barefoot in the sand, grooving together, glasses in the air. It was, for lack of a better phrase, a great vibe. I devoured two Mango Sticky Rice cocktails, then we snuck off to have dinner as the party petered out. Far from the all-night bangers we’d been warned of, the music wrapped up by nine o’clock, and the spontaneous mob disbanded as quickly as it had gathered.

When we told the hotel manager that we were bound for Palolem Beach next, he frowned. “No, no, it’s okay,” he said, reading my worried expression, “but it’s busy. If you want something quieter, Patnem Beach is just ten minutes away, and one of my favourites in South Goa.”

To call Palolem Beach ‘busy’ is a massive understatement. It was Times Square. One minute, you’re driving along dark roads lined with thick jungle and little Portuguese-style houses, the next, you’re blinded by a row of blaring, blinking lit signs. Restaurants, hotels, sports bars, tacky gift shops – we were dropped at the far end of it all, where our cheap bungalow awaited, walled in by the backs of restaurants and the smell of fish and cat piss.

We’d expected this in the north, but wasn’t South Goa meant to be quiet and peaceful? Blogs called this beach laid back; a hidden gem. How had we gotten it so wrong? Still, it was just a place to sleep, we told ourselves, and a short walk to the beach, how bad could it be?

The beach, it turned out, was an extension of the road we’d just travelled down, lined with restaurants and hotels, music and lights pouring out of each one. As we joined the string of people plodding towards the glowing entrance to the village, a dog squatted in front of us and took a large poo in the sand, which was promptly picked up and carried along by the tide.

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The next day, we checked out, forgoing the twenty pounds we’d paid for the second night. It was the first time we’d ever left a place early, and completely unlike Adam to spend twice on accommodation, but, as he kept insisting, this was ‘not it’. We’ve stayed in some rough places in the past, with hard mats on the floor and bamboo walls, above cafes with shared toilets and curtains for doors, in shacks where you have to hang your bags from the ceiling, and still wake to find little holes chewed through the corners. We don’t mind roughing it, but we draw the line at joining the masses for English Breakfasts with our feet in the pooey surf.

We hopped in a rickshaw, squished under our bags, and headed for Patnem Beach with crossed fingers. Not quite the Cast Away feel, but certainly quieter, Patnem was wider and more secluded, with a smattering of bohemian restaurants and sun loungers peppering the shoreline. We found a little hotel tucked into the palm-studded rocks curving around the bay and quickly booked their last room as we lugged our bags up the path.

We sampled beachfront cafes, burnt to a rosy gold on sun loungers, wandered along the sleepy backstreets eyeing up trinkets, sipped mojitos and actually read the books we’d brought with us.

At the end of our final evening, we gathered our bags in the hotel restaurant and pulled our laptops out to do some work before our late train to Kochi. We’d just got settled when I pushed my chair back, felt a furry tussle across my feet, and saw a flash of a tortoiseshell cat dart away with a hiss. “Sorry!” I called after her.

She’d left a thin scratch on my ankle – slightly pink and swelling. I should mention here that Adam has kept up a relentless fear campaign against rabies for the past eleven years. So while I knew it was fine, the doubts were quick to creep in. Finally, I decided I’d ask the hotel staff, just to put my mind at ease. I hoped they’d say that the cat was theirs, or belonged to a neighbour, and had definitely been vaccinated, or that such a small scratch was nothing to worry about. I’d already read something about washing it with soap and water – that sounded good enough for me. Instead, their eyes widened as they told me the cat was a stray and insisted they call me a tuk tuk to the local hospital. Within fifteen minutes, I was standing in a one room clinic, showing the doctor my near immaculate ankle, but he shook his head. “Cat or dog?” He asked. “Cat!” I said for the third time, “but it’s just a tiny scratch..” “Doesn’t matter” he said, “cat, dog, bite, scratch – you need vaccine.”

Now, for those of you asking, “but hadn’t you gotten a rabies vaccine before you travelled?” I think it’s important to clarify that it doesn’t matter – this does not make you immune to rabies. A rabies vaccination simply buys you time. You still need to have anti-rabies post exposure shots if you’ve had an encounter with an animal that breaks the skin at all. The dosage and placement of the injection depends on the injury and your vaccination history. Fortunately, since mine was (laughably) small, I was put on a course of four rounds of two intra-dermal shots, one in each arm, over the next six weeks.

I sat on the single hospital bed in the middle of the room, a no-nonsense nurse did the injections quickly and painlessly, then doused my ankle in iodine, all with an audience of two guards, five nurses and an elderly woman in a saree, who was hovering over her shoulder asking lots of questions. She grimaced at my ankle and gave me a comforting smile before I left, and that’s when I discovered our tuk tuk driver had also been watching from the doorway, waiting to take us home.

And if you’re thinking it’s all a scheme to trick money out of paranoid tourists, think again – the whole thing was completely free.

When we got back to the hotel, the accused cat was happily munching on a fish stolen from the kitchen, looking very pleased with itself. Meanwhile, I had three more hospital visits to look forward to. “All part of the experience”, as travellers love to say, and it truly was. I was just happy to have it behind me, and if I’m honest, I felt no remorse leaving Goa behind either. As I boarded the train to Kochi and ripped my fresh bedding out of its paper envelope, I felt invigorated. Something told me Kerala would be something special.

And I wasn’t wrong.

As always, thanks so much for reading! Next week, I’ll be publishing a piece about Kerala for paid subscribers, along with a piece about packing mistakes I continue to make even though I should know better by now.

But one of the things that’s held me back recently is more of a moral, philosophical question. Recently, an influencer I follow on Instagram posted about how she would hold off on sharing photos from her recent trip to Sri Lanka as it felt insensitive in the current climate. She was right, and I followed suit, but it made me wonder – when, while the world burns, is an appropriate time to write about travel?

Writing about travel right now feels like having your baby’s gender reveal at someone’s funeral. It feels like pulling out a guitar and strumming songs you wrote yourself to a burning forest fire. Not criminal, or even ‘bad’, but certainly unnecessary, arguably tacky, insensitive and self-indulgent.

In your twenties, travel is admired, encouraged, applauded, but when you tell people you’re going travelling in your thirties, everyone sighs a different tune. The rest of your friends are shoulder-deep in successful careers, they’re growing families, creating life, and you’re voluntarily living out of a backpack for months at a time. “Best to do it now,” you’ll hear again and again, along with things like “It’ll be good to get it out of your system” and “when you come back to real life…”

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The implication is that travel is a frivolous thing that you really should have outgrown by now. Fine for the occasional holiday, but not as a (gulp) lifestyle.

Even if you’re willing to brush these opinions away, as I usually am, long-term travel is undeniably reserved for those privileged enough to work remotely and move freely around the world.

And then there’s the part that tourism plays in exacerbating climate change and cultural erosion around the world, from overcrowding to long haul flight emissions.

That’s all to say, I felt guilty about travelling before, and there was even some discomfort writing about it. “I know you’re all worried about fascism and white supremacy, but do you want to hear about my trip to Goa?” And this was before the US and Israel were at war with Iran, before bombs came raining down all over the Middle East, before flights ground to a halt and travellers were stuck in limbo.

Suddenly, my little travel diaries felt woefully small and silly.

Here’s what brought me back to the page…

Just like any of the best advice I’ve gotten, it came in the form of a casual message from my mom, in between the usual Instagram reels of funny animals we send back and forth.

“And so we cling to silliness,” she wrote “trying desperately to believe we will not be swimming in complete catastrophe.”

This made me think of the other things we cling to: comfort, friendship, love, exploration, art – all the things that have been called frivolous but actually connect us on a deep, human level.

The world has always been complex and wrought with tragedy. That’s not to diminish or normalise what’s going on now, but just to say that our instant access to information is flooding our brains and wreaking havoc with our nervous systems. Recent studies show that human beings process more data every day than what an educated person 500 years ago would have processed in an entire lifetime.

And anyone that has even a grain of empathy or compassion will struggle to make peace with the utter senselessness and cruelty of what other people face. It should make us uncomfortable, and it should prompt us to wonder what we can do to make a difference.

But we can’t stop doing the things that bring us joy, and we can’t stop doing all the things that humans (and not AI) were meant to do. If using my own brain to write little stories that only a handful of people read is my small act of rebellion for now, I’m okay with that.

And yes, travel has its moral conundrums, but I can’t believe that it’s without value, especially as right-wing extremism spreads. I’ve seen up-close the remnants of brutal wars and corrupt regimes, the detrimental effects of climate change and climate-related policies, and the lasting economic scars of colonisation and political upheaval. There is no greater teacher than travel, if you’re willing to pay attention. But it also reveals something much more important.

There is far more kindness in the world than we’ve been led to believe – far more generosity, curiosity and compassion. The more I’ve travelled, the more I’ve realised that, yes, the world is big and we are very small, but there are delicate, living threads that bond us all together – and they have nothing to do with the internet. There’s more that we share than sets us apart.

So I’ll keep travelling and I’ll keep writing about these threads – out of hope, or habit, or just as a way to carry on.

Like offering a single flower to a yawning black hole of fear and uncertainty – and is there anything wrong with that?

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I’ll be back in your inbox’s soon with my Goa travel diaries and my favourite can’t-miss experiences in Kerala. Until then, be safe, keep hope, and stay silly.

I was flummoxed. Was this true? Could that be possible? Even when the person in the bottom bunk was still sleeping? Even in the early hours of the morning? I checked the time – it was 10am. How had I slept so long? And why did it feel I hadn’t slept at all? I scrambled to gather my sheets off the bed and open the curtains and he sat down on the far end, his legs folded into his chest as if to help him disappear.

I immediately felt guilty, and was going to try to make small talk, but not for the first time in India, I was unsure of my footing. Would this be taken as a sign of flirtation? Would this affirm the ideas some Indian men have about Western women?

I moved to Adam’s bed and hid behind my book, and I still regret it. He seemed very sweet, we’ve had only pleasant interactions with people on trains, and a quick google told me that yes, passengers with top berth allotments are permitted to sit in the bottom bunk during daytime hours. I cringe to think how long he must have waited for me to open my curtain before gently trying to wake me. What a haughty, spoiled tourist I was.

Mumbai nearly knocked us over with a hot, heavy smack. After squeezing ourselves into the crowd shuffling up the stairs and fighting off an onslaught of rickshaw drivers vying for our attention, we slid, sweaty and breathless, into a taxi. Slums rolled past, then a long, dusty row of solicitors in open-air makeshift offices, advertising marriage, divorce, business disputes and notaries. Soon we were whizzing down a wide, clear highway with a view of the gleaming city skyline.

We don’t usually do many tours, preferring to wander on our own, but Mumbai was a daunting mass of noise and traffic. With about 36 hours to soak it all in, we booked in for a street food tour the first night and an early morning markets tour the next day.

The street food tour met, ironically, outside of a Burger King across from the metro station. We gathered with two Australian couples, a British couple and a Dutch woman. Two of the couples were staying at The Taj and wearing ironed shirts and white dresses, one of the women was even brave enough to don kitten heel sandals. The rest of us were in wrinkled, slapdash backpacker get-up. The guide arrived, took attendance, then whisked us onto a local train.

We started on the beach at sunset, where a cluster of food trucks stood waiting. Little paper bowls of Pani Puri were passed around, crunchy pockets full of a brothy mixture of potatoes and chickpeas. Next, came plates of Sev Puri – small, crispy puris (similar to tostadas) topped with tomatoes, potatoes and chutneys. We were shown to a beach mat nearby where we tore our way through a huge, crispy dosa followed by plates of Pav Bhaji, a thick tomato and potato sauce with a pad of butter melting in the middle that you mop up with soft, sweet bread.

After this, we hopped in a rickshaw and were dropped into the heaving chaos of the night markets. I watched with concern as the woman in the kitten heels navigated around broken pavement, street dogs, scooters and food carts.

The traffic in Mumbai is thick, fast and brutal. People will tell you to just put your hand up and walk, don’t run, and in other cities this usually works, but here, this only seems to provoke oncoming drivers, like a red rag to a bull. We made it safely to our next stop at a fried chicken stand in the Muslim market, then risked our lives yet again to get to an air conditioned gelato shop that felt very far from street food, but was a deliciously cool end to the evening.

The next morning, it was still pitch black when we pulled up to the fish market with our guide, Amir. Through the darkness, you could just make out the street art covering the warehouses on either side. Women were bustling past with empty baskets balanced on their heads, dressed in embroidered sarees, their slippers flapping through the fishy puddles. “They buy the fish at this market”, Amir told us, “then they go to sell it at other markets around the city.” “Just women?” I asked, and he nodded. “And the fishermen – only men?” He laughed. “Yes”, he replied drily, pointing to one of the fishing boats, where men were heaving up buckets slick with fish guts, “they have to sleep on the boat, and some of the cabins are very small, just one room.”

But after a few minutes in the market, it was clear who was in charge. Shouting above the fishermen, negotiating with haughty huffs and raised fingers, shoving past us with a casual brusqueness that made our guide laugh – these women were fierce. We tiptoed through, dodging puddles of salty fish guts, buckets of prawns, long wooden carts, and huge swordfish being hacked into foot-long chunks on the ground. I marvelled, not for the first time, at how Indian women always looked so elegant and composed amidst such heaving chaos.

Back in the car, there were newspapers laid out to rest our wet, smelly shoes on. Appropriately, it was a ‘newspaper market’ we were off to see next.

Less a ‘market’ than a huddle, we were dropped outside a long row of shops stacked with newspapers. Here, men sit cross legged, sorting them into stacks and then sending them off to be balanced, teetering, on the back of delivery bikes. I was reminded of a brief period where my mom and I delivered newspapers and catalogues as a weekend gig: waking early; the sticky heat of summer mornings; that wet-dog newspaper smell; the dusty residue left on your hands.

Mumbai’s flower market was a vibrant collage of colour and chaos: the vendors crammed into little corridors squeezed between an overpass and a metro station. As people flooded off the trains, the little alleys were swarmed with impatient commuters. We tried to make ourselves small as we shuffled past large buckets of marigolds and chrysanthemums, roses and water lilies, bundles of jasmine and tall bunches of gladioli. Eventually, the flowers were replaced by stacks of fragrant mint, basil, curry leaves and coriander. Then purple carrots, onions, potatoes, beets, knobbly sticks of turmeric and ginger. We emerged again on the opposite side of the underpass, having only walked a couple of meters in the past twenty minutes, but witnessed an entire village unfold.

We finished at a little diner, where the tables were filled with locals and buzzing with the clatter and hum of breakfast. We sat on a bench near the doorway and observed with steaming glasses of masala chai in hand. It was without a doubt the best chai I’d had in India, and I wish I could tell you what the shop was called or where it was, but I have no idea. Admittedly, I’m not sure I’d want to give it away even if I did. Some places deserve promotion, others need protecting.

We spent the rest of the day wandering on our own, ducking into air conditioned art galleries and cafes when the heat got too heavy. Mumbai has a thriving, edgy art scene that I wish we’d had more time to explore, but the few exhibitions we did see left me deeply intrigued.

We’d arrived at the station later that night with plenty of time to spare, but our platform wasn’t showing on the board, and the train times weren’t lining up. Finally, after a tense hour of waiting, we got to the right platform, but as the train rolled in, we realised we were near the wrong end of the train. Running under the weight of our backpacks, totes swinging from our arms, we jostled through the crowd. A whistle blew and we leapt on in a panic, squeezing through car after car. A man hanging out the door between two carriages asked where we were headed, then gestured to carry on. “You’re on the train” he called after us, “you can relax!”

Drenched in sweat, we finally came to our beds, but they were occupied. In the shaky haze of my heat and exhaustion, I was furious. We looked around for the conductor, but he’d moved on down the carriage. Finally, I poked through the curtains, apologising for what I assumed was their mistake. The woman, startled, tapped the arm of the man above her, who rolled around bleary-eyed. “I think these are our seats,” I said. He frowned and shook his head, “No, they are ours”. We stared at our tickets, they stared at theirs, then a voice drifted down from behind a curtain. “Are you in the right carriage?” A young woman with a long silky plait popped her head out, “this is 2A”. Adam looked down at the tickets and closed his eyes in horror. “That’s okay!” The couple laughed, sensing our mistake. Another voice called from above, “They all look the same,” another girl appeared, swinging her legs from a top bunk, “it’s understandable.” We apologised profusely and repeatedly as we carried on, and the whole group waved their hands and told us not to worry, wishing us a good night as we tugged open yet another door.

When we found our compartment, two men were asleep in the bunks opposite ours, and determined not to disturb any other passengers with our nonsense, we tried to feel around in the dark for our sheets. By this point, my clothes were damp-through and my skin covered in a cold slick, which made scrambling around in sheets even more sickly. Suddenly, a light went on, and one of the men smiled sleepily at us, his hand on the switch. He waited until we were settled, then switched it off and rolled over. As I drifted quickly off to sleep, I found myself thinking of the India I’d prepared myself to be shocked by, and the one I’d actually been met with.

Travel is humbling. No matter how experienced you are, you are bound to get things wrong, misunderstand, get lost and need help. Anthony Bourdain said, “Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realising how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” If travel teaches us anything, it’s this. But it also continues to teach me how much we all need each other, and how much hope can bloom from the smallest acts of kindness.

Thanks, as always, for reading my rambles. I’ll be publishing a couple of India itineraries soon – please let me know if there’s anything you’d like to read more about in this space!

This is where the Singh brothers family haveli has stood since the 18th century, tucked into the rockface on the edge of a sleepy village. They’ve recently restored the adjacent Indo-Portuguese guesthouse as a boutique hotel. We arrived to a warm welcome from the brothers, Paramveer and Veer Vinod, waiting with trays of fragrant flower garlands and little glasses of saffron syrup elixirs. From here, it’s a golden, hazy blur with bursts of sharp colour: homemade meals, safaris, village walks and colourful local celebrations.

When people find out that I’ve been reviewing hotels throughout India, their first question is always “What was your favourite?” I tell them it’s impossible to choose just one place, and that’s true. But in terms of a truly authentic, unique and memorable experience, Rawla Bisalpur is a standout.

Disclaimer: I was visiting this hotel for work, but this writing is not a part of that in any way. On my Substack, I don’t write about places in exchange for comped nights or free meals. The hotels, cafes, restaurants or tours I recommend here by name are those I want to share because I genuinely feel they deserve it. (My following is so tiny it wouldn’t do them much good anyway).

At 4pm, the jeep was packed and waiting, its engine humming. We climbed into the back and rolled out of Rawla Bisalpur’s white and yellow archway into the village. Wild pigs and their piglets trotted alongside, shepherds with thick moustaches stopped and stared, children waved from doorways, tiny puppies scampered out of our way. Veer Vinod sat in the passenger seat in a neatly tilted beret, two more guests sat behind us.

Within a few moments, we were passing into the park, scattered with gnarled little trees and rocky hillocks. The sky was a pearly blue tinged with soft pink, and the sandy landscape glowed golden.

I’d never been on a safari before, but I’d seen videos of jeeps lined up, passengers craning to see beyond the sea of clicking cameras. Here, we passed the occasional jeep, but mostly we were veering off between the trees, driving up onto sloped boulders and peering at the outcrops for any sign of movement. Within the first hour, we’d spotted an Indian Eagle Owl, but no sign of the elusive leopards.

We sped off towards another peak, crunching around turns and flying past tall grasses, all of us ducking to avoid stray branches, coming to a stop in front of a steep stone bluff. Our driver surveyed it for a moment, reversed, turned the wheel, and with decisive momentum, up we went – the wheels clinging to the vertical rock face, our hands gripping the bars ahead of us. I looked over and gasped. Spreading out below, a soft blue lake shone in the fading sunlight.

We parked up on a perilous ledge and clambered out shaky-legged, making our way to a large, flat mantle where Veer Vinod was laying out a picnic. We sipped masala chais and watched the sun, heavy and neon orange, sink lower over the silvery water until the driver got a call: the leopards had been spotted. We drained our tea and hurried back to the jeep, gritting our teeth for the vertical ascent. I’d never felt more alive.

The leopards were walking through the trees on the sun-drenched hillside, a mother and three cubs. They were far away, but with binoculars they were clear as day – you could even see the mother’s face as she turned toward the sound of our jeep, relaxed but alert, flicking her white tail.

The next morning after breakfast, we were sitting in the sun-dappled courtyard reading when the sound of drums struck up outside the gate. As they grew louder, we went to investigate.

A group had gathered outside of the neighbouring temple, women in silk sarees, men in white kurtas, and an elderly man was being helped onto a gilded seat. As the procession began to depart, a couple of women spotted us and came over. Their family was celebrating ten years since their great uncle built a new temple on the outskirts of town, and they invited us for lunch later that day. Their English was impeccable, they were visiting from Mumbai, and they were too warm and sisterly to turn down.

So, a couple of hours later, we wandered into the village with one of the men from Rawla Bisalpur as our guide. The roads were tidy, quiet, and strewn with sleeping dogs. The girls had told us to come to the temple at the end of the road, but when we arrived, it was empty. The pretty marble deities strewn with flowers, the stairs well-swept, incense burning. Disappointed, we walked toward the gate to go, but our guide pointed, his brows furrowed as if to say ‘how are you missing this?’ Across the yard, what I’d mistaken for an open garage materialised as an open tent decorated with balloons and brightly coloured streamers. We walked over and were ushered to a table opposite our hosts, our plates quickly piled with food.

We were given spoons, but we followed the rest of the family and scooped up rice and dahl and pickled vegetables with our right hands, sopping up the dregs with flaky roti. In between bites, we chatted with the sisters, who it turned out had visited New York and Miami the year before. The food kept coming, ignoring our polite ‘no thank yous’, until my waistband felt close to popping. We weren’t the only ones – an uncle was holding a dessert up to his sons mouth, another uncle was trying to wave away an insistent grandmother with a ladle of curry. Finally, sensing it wouldn’t stop till we stood up, we said our goodbyes and thanked them profusely, shyly asking for selfies before we left.

Our guide, who had stood off to the side of the tent, watching on with a bemused smile, walked us back. The sounds of children’s voices grew louder as we walked. “The girl’s school”, he gestured to an open courtyard with lines of children sitting cross-legged on the ground. We smiled and moved on, but he held back, gesturing inside. We were being invited in.

The school was celebrating the finished construction of a new classroom, and the teachers welcomed us in as if we ourselves had made it possible. We were handed paper plates of snacks, asked for photos; women held my hand, squeezed my waist, giggling and whispering together like schoolgirls. Then a man called us to a raised podium in front of the students. “It would be good if you said something”, he said in the firm authoritative voice. I looked out at the sea of expectant faces and felt my knees buckle. “Say something?” I whispered. “A-about what?” He was insistent. “Yes, speak to them.” I looked at Adam, who stared back at me with the same panic in his eyes.

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Then, something took over me, I stepped off the platform, ignoring the tut of the head teacher and walked straight up to the students, waving. Their eyes widened, the back of the crowd swelled. After a few hellos, one girl called out, “What is your name?” “My name is Evelyn” I replied as clearly as I could. The girls giggled wildly. “I’m American,” I said, and a couple of them gasped. “What are your names?” I asked, squatting down with them. They wriggled closer en masse and told me one by one, pressing in on each other to be included. I felt the teacher hovering behind me, nervously calling out instructions to stay seated. One of the girls pointed to my camera excitedly and then pointed to herself – I snapped some photos and more girls jumped in. I asked for a photo with them and they crowded eagerly around me as Adam clicked away. Just then, the drums started up, triggering a wave of fervid energy to ripple across the class, they leapt up and began to dance, pressing in excitedly. We took this as our celebratory exit, and waved as we went, wishing we had done something to deserve such a welcome.

On that evening’s safari, we spotted the mother and her cubs again, this time soaking up the sun on a ledge just visible through the trees. We watched, our breath held, squinting through our binoculars, as the cubs cuddled into their mother, and she licked them clean with her large pink tongue. Then she yawned, stretched and sloped off into the cool refuge of a cave, her gangly brood following behind.

We sped off to another sunset viewpoint, this one looking out over the hills. Over the rim of my chai, I spotted two owls tucked into the dips of the rock below. “Do you come out on these drives every evening?” I asked Veer Vinod. He nodded with a smile, gazing out over the dusky landscape, and I felt a pang of envy. What a life. What a place to call your ancestral home.

On the drive back, we stopped to watch as the young leopards, silhouetted against the darkening sky, romped and played while their mother watched on. Down below, a shepherd surrounded by their mottled flock of goats walked slowly back towards the village. “See?” Veer Vinod pointed. “The leopards are just there, and the shepherds walk along so near to them. This is how it has always been, the villagers living in harmony with the leopards.”

We returned to the haveli to sip G&Ts in the candlelit courtyard, but my mind was still chewing over what he’d said. Since we arrived, there’d been a sense of something that hung like an aroma in the air, in the old family portraits decorating the walls, in the food, across the village and the celebrations and the temples. I recognised now what it was.

Pride. A deep, unshakable pride in their homes, their past, their culture and achievements. Every new room built, temple blessed, leopard spotted was cause for celebration. And these brothers, who had so lovingly restored their ancestral home with so much respect for its history, embodied this pride with grace and unwavering kindness.

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There is no amount of writing that could do justice to this experience, but I hope this painted a picture. I’ll be sending out our itinerary for Rajasthan to paid subscribers soon. Until then, thank you for reading and if you haven’t already, please subscribe and share!

We began the drive from Jawai to Udaipur with a stop at Ranakpur Jain Temple. Jain temples have particularly strict rules around clothing: no shoes, no bare shoulders, no leather articles, and women’s hair must be covered. I was lucky enough to be wearing a shepherd’s shawl gifted to me by the owners of our last hotel.

Inside, sunlight fell between ornately carved marble beams and stretched across the clean white floors. A single, gnarled tree growing out of a raised platform cast an ethereal, green glow. Built during the 15th century after a ‘divine vision’, it’s considered to be one of the largest and most important temples in Jain culture, and gazing up at the intricate domed ceilings and pearly deities, I understood why.

As our plans shifted around, we kept tacking on time in Udaipur, eventually ending up with four nights in three different hotels.

Our first night was at Hari Niwas, a heritage guesthouse run by two sisters. It’s a beautiful building, full of colourful murals, painted doors and an art deco breakfast room. The sisters live on the first floor of the property, and you couldn’t find two warmer and more accommodating hosts. We were greeted with masala chai and a striking view of the City Palace on their rooftop, and wished we were staying here all four nights.

It turned out we were visiting Udaipur during Republic Day weekend, and the city was thrumming with festivities and packed with people. This meant we were jostled shoulder to shoulder past Jagdish Temple, along the gnats and across the bridge, landing at a restaurant just in time to grab the last table.

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It also meant that the next day, a Saturday, was the worst possible day to visit The City Palace. But not being aware of this yet, visit it we did, along with what seemed to be most of Udaipur and all of its surrounding suburbs. Udaipur’s City Palace is a massive, labyrinthian building with narrow corridors opening into balconies, alcoves and regal courtyards full of shimmering mosaics. Truthfully, I don’t remember much inside the palace aside from shuffling along with the throng, trying to get a glimpse of the views while staying out of people’s photos.

By now, we’d moved on to our next hotel, Madri Haveli, which had a rooftop restaurant and cosy heritage rooms, but lacked the same warmth and hospitality of the Hari Niwas sisters. Still, it was perfect for what we needed: low rates, a comfortable bed and good wifi.

Adam had it in his head that instead of taking the cablecar, we should walk up to Udaipur’s City Wall for sunset views across the lake. We set off just after lunch, not taking into account the mid-afternoon heat. As we climbed, the dusty air became more oppressive, the sun glaring down with a ferocity we hadn’t yet felt in India. By the time we made it to the top, I was sweating under my light pashmina, but with the many stares and crowds of young men, I kept my arms covered.

Insisting Google maps wouldn’t steer us wrong, Adam led us away from the sunset viewpoint, under a guard rail and along a dirt path. I followed reluctantly, knowing only too well that it was impossible to tear him away from an idea he’d set his mind to. We came to the end of the wall, with only a few other people posing for selfies on a raised turret. Here, the wall turned, making its way down to the lake, like a snake slivering down the mountainside, lined with steep stone steps. It seemed endless, shrinking into a thin grey line at the bottom, and I knew then that we’d be walking all the way down.

The turreted wall rose up on one side of the stairs, a steep drop fell into dense forest on the other, and the lake opened up in front of us like a gaping blue yawn. It was beautiful, and for the first time since arriving in Udaipur, we had it all to ourselves. Then it dawned on me: where was everybody? Why are we the only ones attempting this downward hike?

The answer, frustratingly, came all the way at the end. We came to the final outpost, the lake lapping at its peeling walls, only to find the door out was sealed shut and barred with a thick, rusting chain and a monstrous padlock. Close to tears, I peered over the side of the tower, calculating the drop, trying to find another way down to the street. It was hopeless – the only way out was back up.

I didn’t keep my irritation a secret, peppering Adam with my grievances through heavy panting back up about fifty steps. Fortunately for him, we found a path a quarter of the way up leading off through a park, and followed it to the open arms of a rickshaw which Adam directed to the nearest rooftop bar.

He made up for it with our last night’s accommodation, which was a splurge he’d booked last minute. Tucked down a narrow road lined with bikes and sleeping stray dogs, Kaladwas Lal Haveli is dark and atmospheric, twisting up to a rooftop restaurant with views across the city and tables set with gleaming brass dishes.

By Tuesday, the mood in the city had shifted; the chaos had ebbed away, and the road running up to the City Palace was practically empty. We strolled in without waiting and headed straight for the boats. There are other boat trips in Udaipur, but we’d heard that these was the best and least expensive at around £5 each, and they stop at a little island where you can order a drink at the café and wander around the garden.

While waiting in line, a Canadian woman behind us let out a big huff and leaned forward, pencilled eyebrows raised. “Can we go ahead please?” We realised her tour guide had slipped ahead of us in the queue, but the entire group was behind us. Smiling, we stood aside, letting about six people pass, none of whom thanked us. Usually, this would have really annoyed me. The tour guide had pushed past us, we were just two people, and why not ask politely?

Instead, I relished the journey all the more. We all ended up together anyway, going to the same place, with the same views, which were dreamlike. At one point the huffy woman, clearly feeling a little silly, turned and asked where we were from, then gave a tight smile and ignored us for the rest of the journey. I gazed out through the tassled curtains and thought, what a shame she can’t be as happy as I am right at this moment.

Throughout India, there have been times when I have had to be on guard, when I have had to keep my elbows out in a queue, or be assertive when it comes to haggling or shaking people off. Despite this, India has softened me. Maybe it’s the control I’ve had to give up along the way, or the slower pace, or I’ve been inspired by the older women, fierce characters wrapped in beautiful colours, that show you can be firm, but also tender – direct, but not without compassion and curiosity.

Sincere thanks for reading! I’ll post about Jawai and move on to Mumbai and our journey through Southern India soon. If there’s anything you’d like me to write about more or you’re curious about, please let me know in the comments.

If you’re new here, welcome!

It’s such an unbelievable privilege to travel, and I am constantly wracked with preemptive guilt at not making the most of it. As soon as we arrive in a new place, I can feel the time begin to slip away under my feet, every second is so full of potential, and so easy to waste.

Inevitably, I end up feeling unworthy of this gold-gilded opportunity to see the world.

Anyway, we were battling illnesses from the moment we arrived, trying to fit in remote work, and eventually we were just going through the motions. Even in Jodhpur, which felt more relaxed with less sites to see, we were lagging.

One of the intentions I set for the new year was to travel more mindfully and listen to my body. I wanted to recognise when I needed rest, and let myself take it without guilt. I just didn’t expect to need it so soon. This was two weeks in… we had six months ahead of us.

I’d forgotten that the whole reason we planned this trip was in part to recover from the burnout we already had. I was also healing from a minor yet intrusive medical procedure, and we’d spent the past month emptying and fixing up our house for new renters.

But none of that matters, because you don’t need a good excuse to stop and take a breath. Of course, it can feel all the better when you need it most, the way a pint is more delicious after a long walk. But I’m realising that my sense of worth being tied intrinsically to my productivity, is – in a word – unhealthy.

So we booked ourselves into an Airbnb just outside of the city for two nights, with no plans made, and no intention of leaving.

Sukh Sagar Haveli

We arrived at a great wooden gate covered in ornate carvings and framed by red sandstone. Huge walls wrapped all the way around the property, with nothing but the rustling treetops to hint at what was inside, and just as we were wondering if we were in the wrong place, a small door set into the gate swung open.

At the end of a wide stone path cutting through the grass, the original haveli winked in the dappled sunshine, shaded by trees. Two German Shepherds and a three-legged mutt welcomed us with gentle enthusiasm, and accompanied us to our room, smiling and wagging in the doorway.

Open corridors stretch around on either side of the garden, creating a crescent with outdoor lounges, a freshwater pool, and a parking area with two antique cars on display.

The haveli and its surrounding walled oasis was restored over the past thirty years by a Canadian couple who met in India and have lived in Jodhpur ever since. I found the property on Instagram, in a video posted by the daughter they raised there, now a young singer who seems to hop between Bali and India. It felt serendipitous, ignoring the fact that the match was made by a carefully calculated algorithm, and though it was a splurge – it was just what we needed.

Meals were prepared by their chef, lunches laid out by the pool, dinners in the lounge in front of a crackling fire. The owner, Catherine, checked in occasionally but since she was recovering from a cold herself, kept a distance. It felt like staying with a distant family friend, getting to know their animals, wandering around the gardens, watching their comings and goings over the top of our books with their cats curled up at our feet.

It still felt strange to sit still. I found myself writing more – in denial that I was still trying to earn this break through increased productivity. ‘I am allowed to enjoy this treat as long as I finish this paragraph’, or ‘I can’t fully relax until I send this email.’

But by the end of a full day spent within the stone walls of the garden, I began to feel myself loosening. Thanks to its isolation, Sukh Sagar Haveli felt like a refuge, not just for us – but for the wildlife that up until now we’d only encountered on the sides of busy roads and swinging on telephone wires, anxious, guarded, scrawny creatures. Here, the dogs bounded around happily, colourful birds filled the trees, fat chickens picked their way across the lawn, and baby owlets peered down at us, winking their huge eyes. By the time we left, I felt giddy gathering our bags and chucking them into the back of a taxi – relaxed and reenergised for the next leg of our journey.

As always, thank you for reading! Have a lovely weekend, and stay tuned for my next travel diaries.

Jodhpur felt instantly different. Where Jaipur was frenetic, tightly packed, terracotta and rose-tinted, Jodhpur felt breezier, more bohemian, in shades of sandstone and dusty blue. We were staying in the old city, at a heritage hotel managed by an energetic little man named Vikram.

When I told him I was American he gravely shook his head. “Why Trump?” He asked in anguish, “You are a superpower! The leader of your country impacts the whole world – do Americans understand that?” Throughout our trip, this has been the question from rickshaw drivers, hotel owners, waiters, strangers on the street. “Why? Why him?” And I put my hands up, trying to demonstrate my frustration, my distress, my despair.

It’s been difficult to live in the moment here in India when my home country is in the throes of a brutal authoritarian takeover. It’s on my mind every moment.

I have always felt guilty for moving away from home, becoming an immigrant myself, spending my time travelling far from my family. Now, as the fight tumbles closer to their doorstep, this privilege feels like a betrayal.

But I’ve been trying to convince myself that building a life around curiosity, creativity and exploration is, as well as an immense privilege, an act of rebellion – one my family can be proud of. So (along with contacting my Senators) I’m pursuing that with all my might.

Speaking of privileged western tourists, we were craving a good cup of coffee and pancakes, and found a little place up the road from the hotel. The waiter brought us everything with a nervous smile and complimented my bindi, which I’d been given as we were welcomed to our hotel. I’d felt uncomfortable with what I considered to be a blatant example of cultural appropriation, but it always feels rude to scrub it away. Truthfully, the intimacy of a stanger applying red paste with the tip of her finger to that surprisingly vulnerable spot in between your eyes does feel undeniably spiritual.

After breakfast, we wandered down the road to a recently restored 18th century stepwell, Toorji Ka Jhalra Bavdi. Stepwells served as vital rainwater harvesting systems and communal gathering spots for women from the 8th through the 18th century. We had visited Chand Baori on our way to Jaipur, one of the world’s oldest and largest of its kind. This was smaller, but atmospheric, and conjured the same visions of women way back, dressed in their colourful saris, gathering around the layered stone steps to collect their water and find relief from the summer heat.

Their construction goes beyond functional, they’re mesmerising architectural structures, with decorative flourishes akin to temples or palaces. Sadly, they fell into disrepair around the early 1800s when India’s British rulers ordered them closed.

There’s been a recent resurgence of stepwell restoration – cleaning out the sludgy water, dead fish and heaps of plastic that’s accumulated over decades. If you’re looking for an inspirational, feel good story, look up Caron Rawnsley, a 70-year old retired teacher, who has devoted the past decade to cleaning Jodhpur’s stepwells and educating volunteers and locals about their importance. Before his dogged determination earned him some respect, he was known amongst the locals as ‘pagal saab’ (mad sir).

The next morning, we walked up the winding roads to Mehrangarh Fort, built in burnished red sandstone atop a cliff standing 400 feet above the city skyline. Of all the forts we’ve visited in Rajasthan, I found this one to be the most impressive.

In the archway of the massive gate opening into the fortress, I spotted rows of red handprints. These ‘sati marks’ were left by the widows of the Rajput rulers, who were dressed in wedding finery within a day of their husband’s death, and burned alive on their husband’s funeral pyre. This was once a common Hindu practice throughout Rajasthan but became less common over the years and was made illegal in (wait for it) 1987.

Those hands haunted me for the rest of the day. I can still see them, pressed into the terracotta, as if trying to escape from the beyond. Appropriately, the Jaswant Thada was our next stop – a white marble cenotaph just a short walk away from the fort, and the cremation ground for the royal Rajput family of Marwar.

When we returned to our hotel and sat down for lunch, Vikram hovered around our table, anxious to fill the silence, and completely unprompted, began telling us about his own ‘widowed’ grandmother.

Though widows were no longer expected to sacrifice themselves within a day of their husband’s passing, Vikram explained, they were stripped of virtually everything else. A widow could never marry again, she couldn’t join in dancing or enjoy music at festivals or family gatherings. She was bound to the kitchen, a slave to the family. If she did emerge, she would be avoided, as widows were (and are) considered to be bad omens.

Now, this is changing, Vikram assured us, slowly – very slowly. (Though my research doesn’t look too promising.) But, he told us, practically vibrating with anticipation, his grandmother was the first widow in Rajasthan to ever remarry.

Vikram’s grandfather was a proud soldier sent off to fight in the war against Pakistan. When men died in these wars, their bodies were never seen again – only their bag would return. So when a lone rucksack rolled into the village on a cattle cart, the villagers knew what it meant. They followed the cart to his wife’s door, and when she fell to the ground weeping, the women surrounded her. While she wept, they scrubbed away the sindoor from her hair parting and her makeup, removed her jewelry and colourful sari – all the markings of a married woman.

A few months later, Vikram’s grandmother was in the kitchen preparing dinner in her dark, simple sari, having resigned herself to a widow’s half-life. Suddenly, there was a shouting and loud pounding on the door. (At this point in the story, Vikram was enthusiastically acting out all the parts.) She ran to open it, and there, standing on the threshold, was her husband. Not dead, but taken as a prisoner of war and released after the signing of a treaty.

Seeing as Vikram’s grandmother had been stripped of all her matrimonial embellishments, it was decided that the couple would be remarried. So she donned her wedding attire again, not to be burned alive, thankfully, but to be brought back to life together with the same man.

Tragic, infuriating, poetic, the story stuck in my head as we wandered through Jodhpur’s indigo streets, an echo of an era that still lingered on. As we climbed the steps to a rooftop cafe for a sunset drink, the fort unfolded regally across the horizon, in line with the sun, bloated and burning bright orange above the blue city.

On our last day in the old city, we visited what they call an art gallery but, we were disappointed to discover, is actually a large shop filled with antiques and textiles. As a salesman laid out blankets we had no intention of buying on the floor at our feet, one caught my eye. It was a patchwork of wedding finery, stitched together in ornate designs, a collage of colours and patterns, fine silk and beaded embroidery, laid over plainer cloths for structure, and in amongst the sparkling embellishments, tiny round bits of reflective silver fringed with gold thread. This, I thought, is the India I’ve experienced. Complex, beautiful, chaotic – a rich and unique tapestry of tradition and spirituality, being stitched painstakingly into something new. And everywhere you looked, little mirrors reflecting back parts of yourself – parts you never knew were there.

We also stayed at an airbnb just outside of the city for a couple of nights before heading on to Jawai – I’ll write about that in a separate post.

Thanks as always for following along on my journey – if you have any thoughts or responses, please feel free to share them in the comments.

This is no dainty pastime – the strings are coated in glass, and the aim is to cut other kites down by steering yours in fast dips and spins. After a fierce duel of the fluttering plastic dancers, one hovers for a moment, then drifts to the ground, defeated, while its opponent flits higher to the sounds of shouts, groans and laughter from below.

It’s a joy to watch – the fathers gently teaching their young children how to guide the string; gangly boys falling over one another, laughing and shouting to kids on the neighbouring rooftops; sisters rolling their eyes and teasing.

Our hotel room, a masterpiece of Indian maximalism, had a little balcony looking out over the rooftops, all thrumming with music and dancing when we stepped out. As darkness fell, fireworks lit up the sky, drums played in the distance, and we drifted off to sleep on the celebratory din.

The next day, I woke up with a scratchy throat and heavy head. Adam had been suffering from some sort of flu since we arrived in India, with a bad cough, aches and chills. He was getting better, but I could feel it breathing down my neck. We had breakfast sent up to our room then toted our laptops to a nearby coffee shop, neither acknowledging our need to do nothing.

In the tuk tuk on the way to dinner that evening, our driver asked what we’d seen in Jaipur so far. We looked at each other sheepishly, “nothing” I replied. His head spun around, his eyebrows raised, “nothing?!” We nodded and laughed.

In truth, I’d felt guilty all day. Jaipur, Rajasthan’s ‘pink city’, is full of stunning palaces, temples and forts, with bold and intricate interiors and colourful gates. It’s also known for its beautiful textiles, and the markets are said to be some of the best in India. There was so much to see, and we only had two days left.

So when this tuk tuk driver, who introduced himself as Muhammad Ali, told us he could take us around to all the big sites, we swapped Whatsapp numbers and made plans for a 9am start.

When I woke the next morning, my joints were howling and I was shivering uncontrollably. But not willing to waste another day, I took painkillers, wrapped up in all my layers, and went down to meet Muhammad Ali as promised.

Our first stop was Gaitore Ki Chhatriyan, which wasn’t on my list of sites, but our new guide was insistent. “First impressions are very important,” he shouted to us as we wove through busy traffic, “I want you to have a good first impression of my city.”

Set behind a stone wall on the outskirts of the city, Gaitore Ki Chhatriyan, a royal crematorium, is a collection of pearly white cenotaphs framed by bright fuschia bougainvillea. We wandered around the small, nearly empty site in a hushed quiet; the golden sunshine falling in beams between the carved pillars, glowing through the sleek marble.

On the way to Amber (or Amer) Fort, Muhammad Ali stopped his rickshaw, asked us to wait a minute, and ran to a corner shop. When he came back, he handed us two individually wrapped throat lozenges. I’d been trying to stifle my coughing as much as possible, but clearly it hadn’t fooled him. This small yet enormously thoughtful act burrowed into my heart, endearing me to this man and this city, this whole country, more than he’d ever know.

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We joined the mob at the entrance to Amber Fort, shuffling up the many winding stairs, past a couple of elephants, shaking off the guides and slipping our way inside the massive gates. The fortress sits on the hillside overlooking Jaipur, and is known for its blend of Rajpat and Mughal architecture, combining red sandstone and marble. We got lost in the maze of courtyards, halls and gardens, stopping every so often for selfies with schoolgirls.

If you’re white and fair-haired, you will be asked to take selfies with lots of people in India, even with a bright red and flaky nose. I’ve started calling it the ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here’ shots, but usually, I’m a good sport. I don’t mind posing with young girls, especially when they want to practice their English with me, and I usually say yes if it’s a family. I ignore requests from solo men or groups of men, but with Adam around, that happens less frequently anyway.

On the way back into the city, we stopped to see Jal Mahal, a huge palace that appears to be floating in the middle of Man Sagar Lake. This ‘Water Palace’ was built on the lakebed during a long drought, and its lower floors were submerged when the Arivelli hills were dammed and the lake filled. You can only see it from the distant shore, but it is an otherworldly sight.

When Muhammad Ali dropped us off at the end of our tour, I had full body chills and my skin felt fiery hot. We had just booked into Jaipur Haveli B&B, a family-run guesthouse near the Old City, and I spent the rest of the day in bed, curled up under a heap of blankets.

I emerged for dinner, still tender to the touch and flushed. Tables were set in the courtyard, lit softly with candles, and Thalis with fresh home-cooked curries, chutneys and rotis were filled and refilled. The owner, Vikram, walked between the tables, chatting with guests, topping up beers, and keeping their rescue dog Milo from begging at the tables.

It wasn’t long before we discovered that he had cousins who had lived in my little hometown in New Jersey. We waxed poetic about New York City, where he’d travelled several times a year for the family’s jewelry business, and he introduced us to his wife and daughters, who were getting ready to go out and celebrate the last of one of the girl’s exams.

When I mentioned I wasn’t feeling well, he insisted I take up a special concoction to drink in bed. I watched as they grinded the herbs and spices and let it simmer over the stove. I can’t be certain, but I think it had black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, honey and a couple of ingredients I’d never heard of like tulsi leaves and maybe methi water? I was too delirious to ask many questions, and gulped every bitter mouthful down under the duvet as directed.

The next morning, my fever was gone. I was drenched in sweat, but I could breath through my nose and move my limbs without wincing, so we hopped in a tuk tuk to explore the pink city.

I’ll admit, sightseeing isn’t really the impetus for our travels, but Jaipur’s City Palace is an impressive combination of grand architecture, ornate murals and mosaics nestled in the heart of the bustling city. It also had a fascinating collection of portrait photography from Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II, one of the first kings in India to embrace this artistic medium and a founder of many hospitals, girls schools and arts programmes in the area.

After a quick stop in a cafe to get a good view of Hawa Mahal, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I’d already booked in to have henna with the girl at Jaipur Haveli’s reception. When we arrived back from our excursion, she looked worried. “Are you feeling any better?” She asked, and I assured her I was, although she seemed to know I was lying through my teeth. I hadn’t wanted to cancel at the last minute, but with my red-raw nose and puffy eyes I realised she probably didn’t want to be this close to me.

But she patted the place next to her on the sofa, placed a pillow in her lap and rested my hand on it. The henna was cool on my clammy hands, and I almost fell asleep watching her drag the hypnotic curls and flowers up my arm. When you’re ill, you really just want someone to fuss over you, I thought through my haze, a little softness shown when you’re feeling your most worn down and vulnerable.

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From the moment we arrived in Jaipur, even in the thick of festivities, we’d been met with gentle hospitality. Muhammad Ali had shown us his city with a quiet confidence, going out of his way to get us cough drops without being asked. This beautiful family had welcomed us in, asked us about our lives and told us about theirs. This young woman sat doing my henna so carefully, so tenderly. Of course, we were paying them, but what I found so compelling was less about what they were doing for us and more about who they were, and the marvel of being able to meet them, however briefly.

I let the henna dry on our tuk tuk ride up to Nahargarh Fort where we wandered around the palace before sitting for a drink at a viewpoint cafe. As the sun sank towards the hazy horizon, a group of musicians set up at the table next to us. Soon, everyone was clapping and singing along, requesting song after song, and people at nearby tables had stood up to join them. We watched with big smiles as the contagion of their joy spread, and when the sun set, I forgot to watch.

Thank you for reading this particularly long post and for continuing to join me on my journey through Rajasthan. Coming soon: my travel diaries for Jodhpur and a thrilling stay at a leopard safari guesthouse in Jawai.

Scenes that rolled by the train windows continued to play across my mind. In little shanty villages, men sat in circles playing cards, women wrapped in colourful shawls lounged on charpai beds chatting. As the train picked up speed, the vignettes became snapshots, a mother smiling down at her half-naked child, boys playing cricket with bamboo sticks, cows grazing through piles of rubbish, a goatherder leading his flock through scrubby trenches.

The last thing I want to do is romanticise poverty, but the closer you get to a densely woven tapestry, the more colour you see. India can be many things at once – if you’re looking for just one thread, the rest will be a blur.

It’s one of the many reasons I love train journeys: the freedom to observe both up close and from afar, to catch glimpses of life being lived unselfconsciously. The slower the train, the longer you can hold onto each passing landscape. If you’re lucky, there will be children riding bikes, women chatting over laundry lines, men smoking pipes, families gathering on rooftops.

After dinner at our hotel and a hot shower, I slid into bed and set the alarm for 4am.

I don’t usually hire a guide, preferring to walk around sites at my own pace, but I’d booked a sunrise tour of the Taj Mahal at the last minute. I was nervous about the crowds, the transportation, the scale of it, and felt that a tour guide would be a comforting presence. It would also mean a photo or two of Adam and me together, something we don’t get many of.

In truth, I wasn’t even sure what we’d see. The winter smog was still hanging thick and grey over northern India, and some recent visitors hadn’t been able to see the Taj Mahal at all. We hoped to catch a glimpse, but resigned ourselves to the fact that it might be an underwhelming experience.

Anjum picked us up in a tuk tuk in the dark early hours of the morning, a tall man in a tight suit that rose high on his ankles. He wore a little hat, and greeted us with a polite yet stern intensity that I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.

After collecting the only other traveller who had booked the tour with us, an American named Yelena, we followed Anjum down the long entry road to the ticket office. He disappeared for a minute, came back and distributed little paper bags with plastic water bottles inside, and we set off for the metal detectors.

In the queue, we attempted to make small talk with Yelena, who was from Denver, Colorado and meeting friends in Chennai. This was as much as she was willing to share. She seemed slightly perturbed by our early morning interrogation, and pretended we didn’t exist for the rest of the tour, which I’d say we handled with grace considering our hopeless (at times incapacitating) need to be liked.

As we passed through a dusky courtyard and approached a large red sandstone gate, Anjum spoke animatedly, stopping every few minutes and ordering us all to gather closer, his voice barely above a whisper.

The Taj Mahal was built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, after she died giving birth to their fourteenth child. On her deathbed, she had asked her husband to promise three things, that he would never remarry, that he would take good care of their children, and that he would build a tomb for her that was completely one of a kind.

Rumour has it that Shah Jahan was so grief-stricken after her death that his hair and beard turned completely white in just a few weeks. He never did remarry, and he spent twenty-two years building her mausoleum.

In a time when a woman’s legacy was ephemeral at best, I can’t help but marvel at this wife’s last requests of her husband. Mumtaz Mahal’s tomb is now the symbol of the country, one of the wonders of the world, her memory set in marble so sleek not even water can permeate it.

And there it was – right in front of us – hazy and dark, but all the more atmospheric in the smoky pre-dawn blues.

Anjum took us each by the elbow and pulled us forward and walked us back, showing how it almost seemed to appear larger from further away. He walked us from one side of the pool to the other to show the symmetry and the optical illusions created through the masterful architecture.

It turns out, we didn’t need a guide. It was quiet enough, the entrance was fairly easy to navigate, and we probably would have wandered the grounds a bit more if we weren’t being kept to a rigid itinerary. But I thoroughly enjoyed Anjum’s enthusiasm, and he timed our journey through the gardens and into the mausoleum so that when we stepped back outside, the sun was reflected in a fiery red stroke across the glossy marble floor.

My neck was sore from looking up by the end. I had no idea the white marble was inlaid with delicate flowers and looping vines of carnelian, jasper, garnet, lapis lazuli and hair-fine slivers of mother of pearl.

When I made this observation, Anjum promised to bring us to meet some of the descendants of the artists who placed these stones, and I caught Adam’s eye. We’d been on enough tours to know there’s always at least one shop masked as a learning experience.

The next thing we knew, we were being served chai around a marble table, a curtain had been drawn closed, Anjum was nowhere to be seen, and one of the purported descendants was telling us that everything could be shipped anywhere in the world for free. We nodded and smiled and sipped through his spiel. Looking around, I noticed Yelena was transfixed by the carpet, visibly willing the ground to swallow her up, and Adam was attempting to hide behind his tiny terracotta cup. It was up to me, I realised, to make our excuses, bat away his rebuttals and usher us out into the daylight. As we made our break for the rickshaws, Anjum followed close on our heels, asking us to leave him a 5-star review.

Which of course we did.

As always, thanks for reading and following along this journey of mine. The next chapter will cover Jaipur, one of my favourite cities so far.

It was a rough start, but within a few days, I was completely besotted. The colour, the textures, the noise, the architecture, the people – India is a discordant melange that creates the most intoxicating melody.

I considered glossing over the gritty bits here and moving on to all the happy surprises and pinch-me moments, but travel is too often whittled down to the picture-perfect summary. It’s important for us all (including myself) to remember that there will be a fair amount of error and mishap – the challenge is part of the appeal.

Our flight arrived in the early hours of the morning, and we waited over an hour for my bag, which we later found stranded on the floor next to the conveyor belt. So at 3am, we staggered into arrivals and called the taxi we were told would be waiting, but no answer. Finally we had no choice but to go to the taxi stand where we were directed to a man who peppered us with friendly questions, hoisted our bags into the boot, helped us inside, then told us the price was thirty-five hundred rupees – double the price we’d paid for two nights at our hotel, and five times the price we’d agreed on the taxi which had abandoned us.

Of course, we knew never to get into a taxi without agreeing on a price, and we knew we had to haggle, but we’d had three or four hours sleep between us, the air tasted like burnt metal, and it was just under thirty pounds. So, too comatose to care, we obliged, and were taken to our hotel, a budget arrangement we had convinced ourselves would be more than fine for the purposes of sleeping.

But it turns out sleep wasn’t on the short list of amenities provided here. Around 4am, just as our heads hit the stained pillows, a large tour group spilled into the hallway. Slippers flapping up and down the tiled stairs, knocking, shouting, bells ringing, tinny music playing from a phone echoing down the hall. I drifted in and out of sleep, being jarred awake by slamming doors and wheelie suitcases until around 9am.

So it wasn’t until the afternoon on the first day that we dragged ourselves out of bed and into the chaos on the street, blinking against the light and traffic and beeping. We were charmed into a rickshaw, again before agreeing on a price, and my anxiety peaked as it sped down a busy road against oncoming traffic.

If you’re reading this and thinking, this is exactly why I’m not interested in visiting Delhi, please keep reading, because right around this time, I was thinking the same.

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I was second guessing everything. I was even second guessing India, or at least, starting in India. We weren’t prepared, we couldn’t possibly cope – I was too tired to be on guard, too out of practice to spar with such seasoned hagglers. Plus, we’d chosen to visit India in the winter, when the air pollution is at an all-time hazardous high. Even through our masks, the metallic smell burnt our nostrils and tickled our throats.

So here, hurtling along on this rickshaw, is where I let go of my well-packed plans for Delhi. I’d bookmarked a street food tour through Old Delhi and a full-day self-guided tour of all the sites, and both sound fantastic now that I’m feeling braver and better rested, but at the time I recognised my body’s need for rest, gentle acclimation and a little less time on the smoggy city streets.

So that first evening, we made our way to Lodhi Garden. Spread over 90 acres, the garden is home to a number of medieval monuments from ancient dynasties including Muhammad Shah’s tomb, Shisha Gumbad and the Bara Gumbad. I’m not sure what I expected, maybe a queue at the gates, or crowds, or pestering tour guides and children selling trinkets. Instead, we found a city park like any other. Green, shady, sprawling, with couples traipsing arm-in-arm, parents pushing prams, picnics spread out on the grass, teens playing badminton. There in amongst it all were these atmospheric ruins, the red sandstone dappled with evening sunlight, children running through the ornate archways, shrieking with delight into the tombs. Up above, monkeys rustled in tree branches, parakeets joined pigeons on telephone wires – this was the Delhi I’d dreamt of.

Next, we walked to Khan Market, and ended up with a curry in a sports bar, feeling a little ashamed of ourselves. But as it filled up with locals, expats and tourists, we smiled blearily around, feeling that even if we’d gotten it ‘wrong’, we’d gotten it right enough for our first night.

After another sleepless night, wrapped in all our clothes under thin blankets, we left early to visit the Red Fort in Old Delhi.

The palace combines architectural elements typical of Mughal building, with a fusion of Persian and Hindu traditions, and the design was said to have influenced later buildings and gardens across Rajasthan and further afield. It’s impressive, and was bustling but relatively quiet, allowing us to wander through the gardens in relative peace. But if I’m honest, my groggy head was elsewhere – already checking into Mizpah, the hotel we’d be checking into for our last two nights in Delhi.

Mizpah is in the south of the city in a leafy residential area – a far cry from the backpacker hovel we’d chosen for our first nights. The owner, Caroline, greeted us along with her friendly team, and we got our first Indian welcome, complete with flower garlands, incense and tilaks. With just four rooms, this little B&B is quaint and characterful, but filled with little luxuries, like supple beds, air purifiers, generous breakfasts, and delicious daily-changing dinner menus. When we climbed up to our room after dinner the first night and found a hot water bottle tucked under each side of the duvet, we were kicking ourselves for not splashing out on all four nights. (Especially when it’s actually priced very reasonably.)

The next day, we decided to swerve the chaos of the city centre again, and strolled through Deer Park, eventually coming to the beautiful ruins of Hauz Khas Fort. From there, it was just a short trip in a rickshaw to Qutub Minar. Slowly, we were becoming acquainted with the prices, holding firm with haggling and getting better at saying no and walking off.

One problem we hadn’t solved yet was our train ticket to Agra for the following day. Word to the wise, if you’re travelling to India, book your train tickets now. Some can be bought on the day, but berths in the nicer cars go quickly. We’d waited too long, and hadn’t been able to book the last remaining tickets on the tricky Indian Rail website, so the only other option was going to the station. Given my limited experience with Indian train stations (Calcutta to Darjeeling), I braced myself for chaos.

But the little local station near us was deserted. A small moustached man behind the desk told us we had to go to the main station to reserve tickets. Misunderstanding him, we walked around to the other side of the same station, where we stumbled across the station master, a man named Abhishek. Tall, handsome and elegantly dressed, he listened gravely to our predicament, then pulled out his phone and proceeded to book our tickets for us through his account, waving away our profuse thanks with a smile. His English was impeccable, and it turned out that his brother was living in the UK, a station master at Heathrow if you can believe.

When he asked what class we wanted to travel in, we told him it didn’t matter to us at this point, that Sleeper Class was fine, but he shook his head with a frown. “Even I don’t travel in Sleeper Class”, he said haughtily, “honestly, if AC 2-Tier is fully booked, I change my trip.”

This made sense to us the next day when, three and half hours after it was supposed to arrive, the train huffed into the station, and the Unreserved and Sleeper Classes rolled by, stuffed so full that hands, arms and staring faces hung out of every open window. Abhishek walked proudly out of his office, spotted us on the platform, and ushered us into our carriage.

I reserve my trust for strangers in any country as a deeply ingrained survival instinct. So even after we’d boarded, I waited to be told that our tickets were invalid, but all was fine. In fact, though our reserved seats were in different parts of the carriage, the conductor offered Adam the empty berth below mine.

Kindness after kindness, a current that’s steadily drawn our trip forward. Over the past couple of days, we’ve both developed a bad fluey-cold thing that’s brought on aches, chills, headaches, fatigue and a bad cough. We’ve needed gentle care more than ever, and again and again, that’s what we’ve been met with.

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I’ll follow this up with a short post about our night in Agra and our long drive to Jaipur during Makar Sankranti, a national holiday celebrating the end of winter. I can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Lessons learned in Delhi:

• Spend a little extra for accommodation when you first arrive in a city – it makes all the difference.

• The south of Delhi, and Mizpah in particular, sets you up for a slower, quieter, more intimate experience.

• Book trains well in advance if you can.

• There’s a difference between caution and a lack of compassion – don’t guard yourself against people’s kindness.

• If you’re staying in the Hauz Khas area, have a cocktail and some delicious bites at The Piano Man Jazz Club. It’s pricey, but a lovely, relaxed setting for some live music.

• Though the temperature in winter is lovely for sightseeing, the air pollution is horrendous, and getting worse each year. I’d visit in the spring instead.

• Take breaks when you need them, the best plans are made to be broken.

And thank you for reading and joining me on this adventure – I’m so grateful for you and this space.

Since returning from my in-laws, I’ve been curled under a blanket with a hot water bottle, watching Christmas movies, sipping hot chocolate, and thinking about the new year.

I’m not really one for setting hard-and-fast New Year’s resolutions. I know from past experience that rigid goals only lead to disappointment and shame. I also feel that bleak mid-winter is not the natural time to turn your life around.

But I do love a fresh start, and I relish any opportunity to shake up a French 75, reflect and plan for the year ahead.

In just a couple of weeks my husband and I will be entering the sliding doors at Heathrow, backpacks in tow. It’s the start to what I’m calling our ‘year of travel’, and to many it looks like a long holiday. For us, it’s a chance to reshape our lives around the things we value.

2025 was slow and gentle, full of simplicity and routine, but it ended with hellish mental and physical health issues for both of us. The recovery; the slow rebuilding, has been delicate, and deeply illuminating.

I’ve realised that I’m not actually sure what I want my life to look like. What was once crystal clear is now one big question mark. But I know what I want it to have more of – more adventure, more colour, more growth, but at the core of it all – more presence, more meaning, more balance.

So, going into this ‘year of more’, the question is: How can travel help us live more fully in the moment, find balance between comfort and chaos, and feel more connected to the people and places we visit?

Here are a few of the Bourdain-esque changes I’m making to the way I show up in the new year.

Follow curiosity over fear

Fear of missing out. I didn’t realise the hold it had over me until a recent trip to Florence, where I felt a constant constricting pressure to eat at the best local restaurants, try only the best gelato, get the best view of the city for an Aperol Spritz. Every moment, every experience, had to be the ‘right’ one. The thought of missing out on anything worth doing, seeing or eating drove me mad.

Instagram and TikTok feed this fear. Everywhere you scroll, there’s list after list of where to eat, stay, hike, swim, shop, surf, etc. almost anywhere in the world. It’s become a vital part of my research, and now here I am, a slave to the ‘perfect’ travel itinerary.

This wasn’t always the case. My first time travelling, I backpacked solo through Europe with nothing but the beautifully illustrated Herb Lester city guides in my pocket. Mostly, I wandered blindly, missed the famous landmarks out of sheer ignorance, and stumbled into little museums and art galleries instead. Being led by curiosity and instinct, electrified by novelty and the little bit of fear that comes with it, meant that I was truly present.

Or as Anthony Bourdain put it, “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”

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Bourdain was never one to follow an itinerary. He said, “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find the perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one.”

So this year, while I can’t help but do some research and planning, I’m leaving plenty of room for spur-of-the-moment exploration. I may miss what’s on the lists, but I’ll be present for the moments that mean the most.

Take breaks before burnout

We’ve always travelled like we have something to prove, and we’ve been burned plenty. The first time it happened, we’d been travelling through Indonesia for four weeks, topping it off with a series of ferries and flights back from Raja Ampat. We landed in Hanoi, with hopes of heading north to Sa Pa, but couldn’t bring ourselves to book the bus.

Master of misfortunes, my husband had an infected cut from some coral and a painful sore from stepping on a sea-urchin, and we used this as our excuse to stay put, but the truth was, we were both exhausted. We shut the curtains, pulled up the blankets, ordered takeaway and watched Finding Nemo.

Instead of journeying up to Sa Pa, we spent the whole week pottering around Hanoi, and it was a highlight of the trip.

This time, the plan is to travel slower, find more balance, listen to our bodies, and take what we need when we need it.

Make documentation a part of the experience

The past year has been the first where I’ve travelled for my work, which means I’m constantly thinking about how I’ll ‘capture’ a place. Being new to this, I’ve tried to set boundaries so that it doesn’t affect my experience. I usually try to get my work done first (take notes, videos, photos) so that then I can relax and take it all in. But this usually means the work is rushed and so is my experience.

This year, I’d like to find a natural balance between the two – and be more present in both. There’s so much travel content out there, it’s hard not to feel competitive, especially if you’re seeing it as a part of your business. However, the writers and photographers I admire the most capture a more personal, natural side of a place – their ‘brand’ is their unique point of view.

So instead of trying to get the ‘perfect’ shot (and usually coming up short), I’ll be doing my best to capture life as it’s happening around me.

And there will be some things I can’t capture. Bourdain said, “It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description... In the end, you’re just happy you were there – with your eyes open – and lived to see it.”

Be an idiot abroad

When I first watched Karl Pilkington fumbling his way around the world in the comedy series, An Idiot Abroad, I actually felt a pang of jealousy. Here was this person who could just roll with the punches, ask awkward questions, look and act totally lost, get into silly scrapes, because he was expected to be a fool. It looked like a blast.

I learned the art of walking with a purpose the hard way – in New York City. On the bustling streets of Manhattan, if you stop, change course, waver or break the sidewalk flow for any reason, you’re branded an out-of-towner or worse – a target. In New York, looking like you know where you’re going is more than ego, it’s a survival skill.

Travellers know it well – if you look like a tourist, you’ll be pickpocketed, scammed, ripped off, or worse. So, if you can’t blend in as a local (which I can only really do in northern Europe) you must appear to be the best, most proficient traveller there is. The kind who never wavers outside a souvenir shop, can navigate any menu, haggle with the best of them, and is a whiz with the local currency.

But the travellers I look up to the most aren’t like this. They ask questions, look awkward, get lost, ‘overpay’, and make mistakes. Bourdain said, “I am not afraid to look like an idiot.” And it’s probably what led to his most memorable meals.

So I’m going to devote less energy to looking like an expert and accept that we are all idiots abroad, and there’s a lovely, glorious freedom in that.

Here’s to an abundant year of presence, meaning, balance and a dash of delusion for all. As always, thanks for reading and make sure to subscribe for my travel diaries - coming soon!

It stumped me at first, and I wasn’t sure why. I’ve made some lovely memories in 2025 – spent quality time with family and friends, made an old house a home – but the word ‘alive’ stuck in my teeth. I realised that much of the past year, though thoroughly pleasant and wholesome, has slid by without an abundance of moments that stand out as holding me truly present and alight.

One memory that did spring to mind was in a seaside town called Oualidia. My husband and I were on a trip through Morocco last March, travelling from Marrakech into the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and out to the sea. We had hemmed and hawed about taking the long trip off-course to visit a town nobody seemed to have heard of before. This is usually where the best travel memories are born.

In truth, the whole trip shattered my preconceived notions and expectations of Morocco in so many small yet beautiful ways, and reminded me of the beauty of travelling in the off-season.

So here are some of the glimmering, sensory snapshots I’d return to in a heartbeat.

Marrakech

A storm had just blown through. We walked up to the rooftop of Riyad El Cadi, which was empty thanks to a spring chill, and an oasis of calm in the heart of a bustling maze of souks. The sun was just setting, a sliver of moon hung overhead, and the wind shook the palm trees rising out of the courtyard below, rattling their dried fruit like a wooden rainstick. The hypnotic calls to prayer rose up, echoing across the rooftops, and despite having explored the winding souks all day, I felt I’d only just arrived.

Berber Lodge

The weather hadn’t improved when we pulled up to Berber Lodge, tucked away in a little village outside Marrakech. After a steaming pot of mint tea and a blustery wander through the gardens, we made our way to the bar.

In the communal lounge, rain lashed against the large windows, lamps threw a warm light over the adobe walls and plush berber rugs, and a fire crackled joyously in the centre of the room. Arty guests, young and old, immersed in books and journals, sprawled across sofas and armchairs. We settled into chairs by the fire, our cocktails clinking, and a white cat slinked over and curled into a perfect crescent between us.

There was so much to love about Berber Lodge. It’s about thirty minutes outside of Marrakech, and owned by an eccentric Swiss architect and interior designer. The meals are home-cooked and exceptional, every space is effortlessly stylish with locally sourced everything, and there’s a large pool surrounded by loungers and adjacent to a lush vegetable garden. But it was this first otherwise dreary afternoon that sticks in my mind as one of the very best of the whole trip.

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Oualidia

After a long flat drive through parched farmland and dusty towns, the road suddenly lifted under us, and the horizon filled with shocking blue. Oualidia materialised as a veritable mirage, verdant green and cerulean sea, disappearing and reappearing again as the road dipped and swelled.

After dropping our things at the little cottage we were renting, patches of clear sky lulled us out in search of a late lunch. It was sleepy and quiet; most businesses were closed for Ramadan, and it had that slow, salty lull of a seaside town in the offseason.

We walked past an excitable kickabout, down an empty, winding road, past deserted holiday homes and a lone mule tied by the roadside, until we reached a windblown seafood restaurant steps from the water’s edge. It looked deserted, with a pack of gangly dogs loitering in the car park, but we were desperate. We stepped over a sleeping tabby lounging unperturbed in the entranceway and found a server who, startled as he was, ushered us through to a bright, empty conservatory with a view across the tempestuous sea.

Soon, we had a tray of Oualidia’s infamous oysters and a bottle of Gris – a delightfully crisp and delicate Moroccan wine – chilling in a silver bucket. A fresh burst of rain rushed in with a vengeance, drumming against our plastic covering as we slurped it all down. By the time the sun broke through the clouds again, the bottle was drained, and we watched as a fisherman dragged his little wooden boat onto the shore, sopping wet, wiping the salty water from his face as the dogs circled excitedly around him and his haul.

The sun began to set as we made our way back along the beach to our cottage, following a ‘path’ through the dunes that may or may not have been a path at all. It set fire to the froth and foam on the water, and fuchsia streaks rippled across the lavender sky. A fine mist blew against us and the cottage was in sight, but we mounted the rockface and stood watching until we were soaked through, cradling the sun in our hands until it disappeared behind the trees.

Sidi Kaouki

Further down the coast, just south of Essaouira, we were looking forward to lounging by the pool and roasting in some sunshine with a view of Sidi Kaouki’s relaxed beach. That dream was obviously squelched under a record-breaking stint of rain we’d so fortuitously aligned our trip with.

Instead we had our skin sloughed off in the candlelit Hammam. Then, red-raw and baby-soft, sat gazing out the large windows in Kasbah d’Eau’s atrium with yet more Gris and a perfect view of the storm rolling in. As the sky darkened over the setting sun, a line of horses and stray dogs galloped along the water’s edge, their black silhouettes reflected in the silvery wet sand.

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Hello and welcome!

I’m thrilled to be sharing this first post with you all, and I can’t wait to grow this space – so I’ll jump right in.

I’ve got a long stint of travel on the horizon (more details to come) and my endless to do list has kept me tossing and turning. I’m still scrambling to book trains and change flights, rent the house out and whittle down our belongings to save on storage.

Then of course, there are Christmasy things – gifts to buy, cards to make, parties to attend – and all the friends I want to see before we go. I’d made grand plans for what I’d accomplish in these precious unemployed months, but it feels like I blinked and the time has all but disappeared.

But I’ve also been kept awake by big, philosophical questions, like ‘Why do we travel?’

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It feels like everyone in the world is travelling right now, in vibrant, cinematic style with ecstatic whooping soundtrack strumming in the background. Of course, this is only an illusion; most people aren’t travelling – they’re working, running errands and stressing about bills – but my algorithm paints a different picture.

I wholeheartedly support the surge of free-willed globetrotting. It feels like an entire generation is being raised on the idea that travel will set you free, and of all the campaigns being fed to future generations, this is one I can get behind.

But I worry there are downsides to the glamification of travel, and the idea that life is incomplete without it. It feels true for some, but like anything else, not for everyone. And it’s an unfair condemnation to those who don’t have the time, resources or ability to travel easily.

I think travel can be marvellous: it awakens things in your soul, adds colour to your life, calls upon inner strength and resilience you never knew you had. For a person whose head is full of far-flung dreams, travel can set you free.

But let’s not pretend that those who travel are in any way superior. Foreign countries don’t inherently bless their visitors with wisdom and understanding. I’ve met plenty of backpackers who are just as small-minded and selfish as anyone back home, and plenty of homebodies who are truly enlightened seekers.

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So when I came across ‘The Case Against Travel’ by Agnes Callard in The New Yorker, I actually had high hopes. I expected it to be about how sometimes travel can let you down; it isn’t for everyone; it doesn’t have all the answers – sometimes it has none at all.

Disappointingly, it’s mostly a rebuke against the type of people who go to Paris to look at the Mona Lisa (low hanging fruit, if you ask me).

Callard delves into what it means to travel, quoting Emerson in excluding any journey that ‘necessity or duty demands’. “One sign that you have a reason to be somewhere”, she writes, “is that you have nothing to prove, and therefore no drive to collect souvenirs, photos, or stories to prove it.”

Ah yes, performative travel. These days, there’s not much that escapes the accusation of being ‘performative’, from reading in public to loving your family. (As if we didn’t have enough to be self-conscious about.)

Reading this piece, it struck me that travel had become entangled in what was actually more of an identity crisis. Am I chasing something unattainable? Am I only happy when I’m running from my responsibilities? Am I (gulp) doing it for the ‘gram?

Here’s what I realised, thanks to Agnes Callard and her bizarre take on something that clearly isn’t for her: I don’t have to know why I travel. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than I was born restless, am continually fascinated by the ways people live their lives, and constantly crave new things.

If Emerson calls travel “a fool’s paradise”, I’m happy to be the fool.

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Some of my most memorable experiences have come from being lost in a place where I have no reason to be. Travel should have no definition that excludes any experience that feels at all illuminating or momentous, even if it’s a glimpse of the Mona Lisa.

Let’s be conscious and thoughtful, no matter how far from home we go, and pursue the things we value for no other reason than the joy it brings us. There will usually be a perfectly valid case against doing the thing you love – it’s important to ignore it.

Travel isn’t everything, even to me, but it can be many, many things. So whether you’re a world explorer (whatever that means to you) or just a person with all the curiosity and thirst of a figurative rambler, I’m writing for you. Let’s all be cringey clichés together.

I’ll be posting two free newsletters a month for all free subscribers, and every Sunday starting next week, I’ll be publishing a personal travel story or destination dispatch for paid subscribers. I want to make this space as accessible as possible, but your support makes a huge difference in the life of a freelance writer on the road.

And finally, I’d like to sincerely thank Agnes Callard for a thought provoking piece.