Soooo… The nomadic peregrinations which were my life in these last months are officially over! I’ve been back in Europe since Feb. 12^th: Time to make closure with this whole experience and to turn over a new leaf, but allow me a little moment to indulge in nostalgia and look back at what happened to me in India and in the Middle East.

Among others, been there, done that:

-         caught a few tropical diseases (ie, some worms… and a few fleas, oh, and bronchitis!),

-         developed an allergy to the banter of Kashmiri shopkeepers,

-         surprised myself by throwing tantrums at dishonest rickshaw drivers,

-         felt very smug when I first mastered the Indian public transport system,

-         met hundreds of great people from over the world (met a person from Andorra, for Pete’s sake!),

-         took yoga classes and enjoyed Ayurvedic massages (me!),

-         hardened myself to the misery and poverty I witnessed,

-         learned that a little flirting with shopkeepers, bus drivers and restaurant waiters gets a girl a very long way in the Middle East (by which I mean free tea/sweets/directions, of course…),

-         lived childhood fantasies by sleeping in a tree house, searching for the trail of the mighty Bengal tiger, wanting to take a Red Panda home (awww, so cute…) and taking elephant rides,

-         etc, etc.

Tourism-wise, here’s what I personally gathered from the places I visited:

-         India, as a full scale continent, has it all: from the deserts of Rajasthan to the forests of West Bengal, from the beautiful beaches of Orissa and Goa to the mighty Himalayans, from the bubbling metropolis of Bombay and Bangalore to the quaintest villages of Gujarat. I’m glad to say I saw a lot of this variety as I travelled from Kargil (northernmost city of Jammu and Kashmir) to Kanyakumari (at the very tip of the subcontinent, where the Indian Ocean meets the Bay of Bengal, and from the Western State of Gujarat to Sikkim, at the corner of Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. Learned a lot also in terms of history, as India is a layer cake of great civilisations: the Hindu Dravidian tradition of the South and the craziness of temples in Madurai, the Muslim Mughal imprint and the beautiful Taj Mahal, the British Raj and the outlandishness of the Viceroy’s palace in Shimla, the Bon tradition of Buddhism and the colors it gives to the deserts of Ladakh, the Christian tradition in Kerala and Goa, etc. 

All these places are pretty much accessible by any means of transport imaginable: air routes are multiplying by the minute and competition is driving princes down, but for the thrifty traveller I was, buses and trains did it for me. Although the quality of roads varies greatly from one State to the other (but you never saw a vehicle drive more than 90km/h on Indian roads, even highways…) and the train service can run late, I found the transport network quite reliable, and never got lost or ended up in dire straits on the side of the road or on a train platform (although, now I think of it, there were episodes in Kullu, Kanyakumari, Agra…. No, it’s probably best not to go that way!).

Food is excellent and varies vastly from one place to another, according to what supplies are available, or to the majority’s religious beliefs. I’m glad to say I never fell ill and I suspect that the Indians’ love of frying stuff has a lot to do with it… Of course, spices are of the essence in all preparations, and I understand that Indians in Europe find the food understandingly bland.

Met some great people, either local or from the travelling crowd. The latter consists of a vast array of categories: you’ll still find the odd hippie in Leh or Goa; there is of course a large concentration of people on the Enlightment path (either through Hinduism or Buddhism); then you have the thrill freaks, which you’ll find mainly in the Himalayans sorting treks and rafting trips; plenty of groups (French in Kerala and Rajasthan, British in Goa, Italians in Agra) and the general backpacker crowd – which I considered to be a part of – which was went out there for anything there was to see, taste, experiment. I had the chance to meet locals very early in my trip, with the help of my friend Nirali, from Bombay, who introduced me to a young, trendy crowd there, but also gave me the chance to meet up with villagers of Gujarat. While travelling around on my own, my relations with Indians was biased by the fact that I was seen as a rich Westerner and was often overwhelmed by the attention of beggars, shop-keepers or random people on the street wanting to know my “good name” and my nationality…

-         Met the nicest people in the Middle East and want to insist on the fact that Syria and Turkey are very safe places to travel, even for a single girl.

What can I say? The Middle East is simply the cradle of Western civilisation and most of the sites I visited really brought me home: Roman ruins in Palmyra, early Christian sites of Maaloula and Sednaya or even St Sophia in Istanbul and the medieval imprint of the Crusader fort of Krak des Chevaliers. The Islamic sites of Syria are also very ancient and beautiful, and I’ve never seen anything of the scale and historical significance of the Omeyyad mosque in Damascus.

Looooved Syrian cities such as Damascus and Aleppo and their ancient centres but didn’t think much of Istanbul, which I thought too westernised and expensive. Damascus and Aleppo have the oriental charm of Thousand and One Nights Tales stereotypes, and although I kept getting lost in the souks, I never stopped marvelling at the magic and out-of-timeness of it all.

I developed an addiction to oriental cafés, and spent my time drinking tea, smoking narguilah and sampling local dishes (don’t get me started on the food… mmmmh, obesity is lurking…) in the quaint tea shops of Old Damascus.

…. Enough with the babbling, I could go on for ages (try it over the phone, if you have 3 hours talk-time to spare)…

I just want to close this last entry by dwelling on why I made this trip and what it changed for me… Backpacking was a means for me of leaving a comfortable yet unsurprising life to put myself in danger, if I may say so. Of course, I never put myself at risk deliberately, but travelling in a faraway country where everything is a puzzle is a means of testing yourself and your sense of adaptability. There were times when that proved a challenging task for me but I’m glad to say I survived the test and feel all the benefits of it now that I’m back in Europe.

Well, the end of my Indian trip has come, and I must say thank God I have a short trip to Syria to help me keep sane... I can't believe this trip is over; I seem to have planned it forever and here I am in air-conditionned Doha listening to Justin Timberlake on the airport radio instead of the Om Shanti Om soundtrack, and eating Italian food in the Qatar AIrways lounge, instead of having aloo parantha for my breakfast in a Penjabi dhaba...

Anyway, I'm all the more bummed out that my last days in India were perfect, with a week long stay in Goa where all I did was beach-bum, take yoga lessons, drink and eat... so of course I was to busy to visit anything Don't ask me what's to see in Goa or if I have taken any photos because the only proof I have of having been there is a sunburned nose and a dozen mosquito bites...

 Waoh, I'm travelling so much at the moment it's hard to take a breather and look over the things I've done in the past week or so since I left Pondicherry. I've actually begun to realise my trip is soon to be over, and this realisation has sent me in a flurry to get the most out of sight-seeing and all India has to offer.

I felt this even more to be true as I arrived in Kanyakumari the day before yesterday. Kanyakumari is at the Southern tip of India, in the exact place where the Bay of Bengal meets the Indian ocean. I felt a sense of achievement, in that I have been as far as I can go North (Leh and Kashmir), as well as South; although that achievement has a bitter taste... Unlike Forrest Gump, who ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back, because he felt like it, I'm starting to feel that I can't go much further in my Indian adventures, although it also feels as if there's still so much to see... does that make sense at all?