India had always been a place I wanted to visit, partly because I’m just so attracted to places that are so wildly different than my home country of Canada. India is one of those places and in fact, very few countries contrast with my homeland so heavily. With a population of fewer than 40 million people and a landmass that’s the second largest in the world, Canada is about as wild and free as one can get. India, on the other hand, has a population of more than one billion people and is 3-4x smaller. This, combined with mass poverty, means extremely high pollution, congestion, and a not-so-clean environment. On the other hand, their deeply long history and culture is so riveting to experience and is so incredibly colourful and entertaining.
Our experience there was similar to what many other experience in India. We loved parts, hated parts, and were challenged in various ways. Most travellers will say you’re guaranteed to get sick on your first visit to India, and while we didn’t get very sick in the country itself, we did bring home a parasite, which took a month to get rid of. We saw some incredibly beautiful historical sites, met some wonderful people, went on many adventures, and ran into a fair number of scams. Let’s start with Delhi, one of India’s most populated cities and a popular travel destination for solo travellers when starting to travel around Asia. [Read more…] about Demons, Angels, and the Adventure of Backpacking Through India – Part 1