Ah, indescribable India. Culture, crowds, chaos, chai and curry. It's almost impossible to sum up. Stunningly beautiful at times, frustratingly uncomfortable at others. It's all part of the experience of India, one that got COVID-delayed from an original date of November 2020 to the same time two years later.  

For me, it was just a taste: a two-week tour through the temples, spice markets, and crazy crowded streets of India, followed by glimpses of the stupas and towering mountain ranges of Nepal during a two-week tour that started in New Delhi and ended in Kathmandu. It was a life changing and eye opening experience and a fantastic tour with 11 fellow travelers and an excellent guide on my very first GAdventures tour.

 

From the towering testament of devotion that is the Taj Mahal to the circle of life and death rituals alongside the Ganges in Varanasi; from the stately snow-capped peak of Everest to the Buddha's birthplace, there is something undeniably epic about this section of South Asia. But at the same time, there is abject poverty, eye-choking pollution, crumbling infrastructure and a few cases of Delhi Belly (thankfully, not for me). It's two sides of the same coin: the developing world still has more developing to do.  

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It may not be for everyone, but for me, visiting India and Nepal was an incredible experience I will never forget. 

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