Thank you, India

I am heading home and what a journey it has been. It feels like months ago that I was sitting in Melbourne airport eagerly awaiting the call to board the plane. India, you have given me one hell of a ride and I know that I have only skimmed the surface of what this country has to offer.

Here are a few things running through my very tired mind:

I love India. It is not an easy place to travel through. You have to be willing to negotiate, argue, squat, get sick, breathe in very polluted air, see things you possibly don't agree with and, if you're a women, get ogled by men, but it is one hell of a place regardless of all these things.

I love how when I say thank you people say 'welcome'.

I love being lost in a sea of people.

I love seeing women in delicate, colorful saris.

I love learning - both the educational variety and learning things abouy culture and life itself from people who have lived it.

I love travelling.

I love the comfort of having a home to go to, with a lovely bed and a shower that has clean water. For this I am extremely grateful.

I love fruit, in all countries.

I love chai, and the ceremony that goes with it.

And lastly, I love exploring, I love adventure, I love writing and I intend to do these things to the day I die.

Thank you India, you have been a garland of vibrant awesomeness.

'Welcome', she says.

From the heaving city of Mumbai to a tranquil beach in Goa, India has it all

Putnam beach in south Goa is great and thanks to the lovely looking women in saris sweeping the beach (yes, that is correct, sweeping the beach), it is very clean. I've been staying at Lotus Yoga Retreat for the last three nights and doing various yoga classes looking out over the beach morning and night. Devine! There are excellent restaurants lining the beach selling a mixture of Indian, Italian, Chinese and Goan dishes. This is to cater for all the tourists that visit this area for the six months that the sun is shining. Two of my favourite spots to eat are Chillies, where Jess and I sat with our feet in the sand and sampled the catch of the day before trying their Goan desert  babyinka (?). We also got to play with their adorable puppy Bella. The big paws and floppy ears are just too cute. Another favourite that allowed me to carry on with my mid morning coffee is called Home. It is owned by a Swiss couple and offers a mixture of beautiful European cuisine. Seems strange when you're in India, but the coffee and black grape juice is to die for.

Jess and I fell in love, first with the puppy and secondly with the young chap that walks the length of the beach all morning. He is a child, but he has the clothes and wisdom of an old man. Dressed in high waisted trousers and a check shirt and sandals he sells newspapers and garlands of flowers. The second day I was here he walked past and said the usual 'flowers?', I said 'no, thank you' and he looked at me with a crestfallen face and said 'Oh, pretty flowers' in the cutest voice in the entire world. It melts your heart. Yesterday I bought some of his pretty flowers. It made his day.

Someone asked me what I liked best about India. I had to think about it for a while, because there are so many different things I could take away with me. However, the unpredictability is what I love. And this surprises me. I thought I would hate unpredictability. But there have been various instances where I have set out not knowing what was in store and after nine hours, several car rides, numerous cups of chai and four or five locations I have found myself once again lying under my mosquito net perplexed, and at the same time filled with wonder, at the unpredictability of it all. Questions race through my mind: How does the honking system work? How is it that traffic flows, yet doesn't flow? Why are there no rubbish bins? What is the secret ingredient in chai? But the biggest question of all is how does all this chaos, wonder and unpredictability leave you wanting more? There is something intoxicating about being surrounded by extremes and in the midst of a country of contrasts. There is a functionality about the whole thing that is perplexing, confusing and at times tiring, but one cannot help being pulled deeper and deeper into its heaving pulse.