Go to India.
This has been a persistent idea at the back of my head since I graduated high school. I was dying to see a world outside of what I knew. To embrace another culture and learn a few life lessons. I wanted to do something that I had always been a little too scared to do alone: grab a backpack, buy a plane ticket to a country, and head off with only a general idea of what I was doing.
At around Christmas time, in my second year of university, I started wondering what to do next. I didn't feel like I was getting much out of my ever-changing degree. I was torn between two completely different fields- psychology and medicine. I was disinterested in school and wanted to do something that felt more meaningful.
It seemed like the perfect moment to take some time off.
The primary goal of my trip is volunteer work. I have ties with an organization called Deep Griha in Pune, India, where my family had volunteered during our trip around the world.
I'm spending a minimum of two months volunteering, and then a month and a half travelling around India. I had initially planned on travelling around Asia a bit- until I did some preliminary trip reading. In a month and a half of backpacking, I would barely scrape the surface of India.
India has the oldest inhabited city in the world. It is home to more mosques than any other country. It contains the most significant religious sites for Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainsim, and Sikhism. Its cities contain a mish mash of different historical cultural influences from across the globe- from the Turks, to the Afghans, to the British. The Bollywood industry is bigger than the film industries of Canada and the United States combined. It has the world's second largest population (1.1 billion people) but has twice the number of people per square kilometer than China. It is home to over 1,600 dialects and, soon, will be home to half the world's poor as well. It is also home to "the Big Four"- four extremely poisonous and rather common snakes, and over 600 species of tarantula. You can find mountains, deserts, rain forests, and stunning coral reefs here.
Overall, a pretty interesting place to visit.
I can't wait to get there.
I'm spending a minimum of two months volunteering, and then a month and a half travelling around India. I had initially planned on travelling around Asia a bit- until I did some preliminary trip reading. In a month and a half of backpacking, I would barely scrape the surface of India.
India has the oldest inhabited city in the world. It is home to more mosques than any other country. It contains the most significant religious sites for Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainsim, and Sikhism. Its cities contain a mish mash of different historical cultural influences from across the globe- from the Turks, to the Afghans, to the British. The Bollywood industry is bigger than the film industries of Canada and the United States combined. It has the world's second largest population (1.1 billion people) but has twice the number of people per square kilometer than China. It is home to over 1,600 dialects and, soon, will be home to half the world's poor as well. It is also home to "the Big Four"- four extremely poisonous and rather common snakes, and over 600 species of tarantula. You can find mountains, deserts, rain forests, and stunning coral reefs here.
Overall, a pretty interesting place to visit.
I can't wait to get there.
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