Nowhere in Particular

Every few days, as a traveler you feel the need to stay in one spot for a while to catch your breath. Seven relaxing days in the coastal city of Goa was exactly what we needed after two busy weeks of touring India, and Paradise Village Beach Resort sounded like the perfect place to do this. Starting from Udaipur, we needed to catch an overnight train to Mumbai and then another overnight train to Goa. We had misread our ticket and arrived at the small station a few hours earlier than required. We tried to find a seat out of the way and wait for our flight, with only a few locals trying to take sneaky selfies with us. We have booked the upper-class sleeping coach, but upper class is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. Six people share a space which has the train's main passage running through it. For this trip, we were joined by husband and wife and their two little busy boys. Each passenger is provided with two clean sheets, a blanket, and a pillow and the train gets going.

Before visiting India, we knew that it would be an assault on all your senses, all at once, all the time. With a population of over 1,3 billion (accounting for over 17% of the world’s population), you anticipate that it will be somewhat frantic. So it seems logical to tell you about our Indian travels by breaking it down to our sensory experiences. Colourful saris worn by the women queueing for the temple at Amer Fort, Jaipur, India Touch It is hot in India in April. The temperatures we have experienced have ranged between 35 Degrees Celsius (95 Degrees Fahrenheit) and 41°C (105°F). It is also very dry and dusty with the monsoon only due to start in June. Luckily for tourists, cool bottled water is readily available to glug down, keeping you comfortable hydrated. It has been impossible to keep camera lenses free of a layer of dust, but at least your daily washing strung up across the bathroom - of once very sticky clothes - dries in no time at all. Smell The s

Everyone raves about visiting India, but we were nervous. We had not done too much background investigation on the possible points of interest to see, and we knew it would be a sensory overload right from the onset. We, therefore, started liaising with a tour operator before we even arrived to help guide us through this chaotic country. This decision has had its pros and cons. We have had someone holding our hands all the way – right from landing at Delhi airport – so getting around has been easy, and any language barriers have not affected us with someone available to quickly interpret. Instead of how we handled Vietnam and Cambodia , immersing ourselves right into the thick of it, we initially had short excursions to a particular site and then were returned to the safety of our hotel. At our brief interactions at popular tourist sites, we found the local people to be abrasive, and in an open and brutal way, out to see how they could make a buck from you. In retrospect, how

For some reason, we are big in India. At all the tourist spots in Delhi and Agra, we were constantly stopped and asked to appear in photographs with Indian nationals who were also visiting these sites. At first, we tried to introduce ourselves and make small talk, but eventually there we so many occurrences like this that we just smiled politely. Many arms were put around our shoulders with several compositions tried using a multitude of smartphones. It was also essential to swap photographers so each person could have a chance appear in one of the shots. Schalk posing for a photo with complete strangers at the Taj Mahal, Agra These kids all came up to Lauren at once asking the Aunty to shake their hand and take a photo. Then they posed all gansta like . It was quite a strange experience, and the requests came from all types including groups of young children to couples or whole families, with grannies and grandpas. Although Schalk is rather tall and typically gets a bit

1.    Find hidden gems off the tourist beat If you are in a tourist area and want to find a quieter spot with more reasonable prices, you usually need not wander too far off the main street to find something suitable. In Siem Reap, Cambodia we found a lovely spot called Brothers, situated just behind the Hard Rock Café. Great food and service at excellent prices made this our resident restaurant for our week in Siem Reap. So take a stroll around the corner, and you could find a gem of a place. 2.    Understand what happened here Cambodia has a had a troubling history, and you can begin to understand it when visiting places like Choeung Ek, commonly known as the Killing Fields, or the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh. It is a difficult and emotional visit, but understanding Cambodia’s violent past makes you appreciate the hospitable nature and humbleness shown by most of the Cambodians you will meet. It is hard to comprehend how people can be so kind and caring having com