Our experience over the past two weeks traveling mainly through India’s inner core cities has often left us feeling overwhelmed. The reasons have been varied – gridlocked streets, overflowing train station platforms, crowded street markets, swarms of rickshaws, hustlers, beggars, pick-pocketers, and so on. The common thread has been the sheer quantity of people in this country that make life here, compared to western countries, feel utterly chaotic for those uninitiated. As time has gone by, we’ve become much more accustomed to the chaos, but we’re leaving with a whole new understanding of what it means to live in a country with more than a billion people.

Making us even more sensitive to population related issues has been the purpose of our travel here. We’ve been visiting NGOs that are actively tackling the wide range of social problems this country faces… basic problems like delivering clean water to rural villages, providing basic mental health services, cataract surgeries for the avoidably blind, and artificial limbs for amputees… all problems we’re not forced to even think about in most American or European cities. Because of the huge numbers involved, it’s no wonder most NGOs here struggle to find the resources they need to make significant progress towards the overall problems. Thinking about the possibility of ever fully solving the social problems here is discouraging because the goalpost seems so far away…. it’s more comforting to think in terms of the impact on individual lives. Like putting teaspoons of sand on one side of a see-saw, hopefully one day a tipping point will be reached, but that day still seems far away.

Our time for touristic sightseeing has unfortunately been limited. We did make a quick stop-over in Agra to visit the Taj Mahal where we found foggy weather that’s normal for this time of year. The fog makes for light crowds in January and quick morning entries into the Taj Mahal grounds, but the photos will obviously suffer and the moonlight viewing is pointless (it’s supposed to have some kind of magical sparkle in the moonlight on a clear day). In Delhi we made an attempt to visit the famous Red Fort, but for some mysterious reason unknown to everyone we spoke to, the Fort was closed for the day… we suppose just a part of the general chaos in India’s capital city.

So Eli and I now part ways – he heads back to Los Angeles while I go back to Australia to meet up with bro in Melbourne, who’s just returned there from his New Zealand circuit. We’ve been thinking about hopping on the ferry to Tasmania off mainland Australia’s southern coast, and will be working on turning that into a reality over the next couple days.

Most western travelers tend to avoid southern India for arguably good reasons. It’s difficult to move around, it’s chaotic, it’s messy, and you’re constantly outside of your comfort zone. Doing it on a tight schedule like the one we’re on adds more challenges into the mix, particularly because transit between most cities requires multiple hops by train, bus, or plane, frequently with long layover gaps and big distances between connection points, meaning logistics and planning requires constant thought and effort. But if one of your life goals is to the see the world, then you have no choice but to plow through the challenges, expand the boundaries of your comfort zone, learn how to deal with uncertainty, and most importantly, learn how to go with the flow. The experience of going through this process over and over, learning to deal with different cultures and overcoming challenges in diverse places, seems to fundamentally change people. This is why you find that experienced travelers almost universally tend to be easy going, patient, unusually tolerant and open minded, have an ability to see things from multiple perspectives, and are able to remain calm in almost any stressful situation – all traits generally helpful in life, not just while travelling.

Eli and I have been thinking about all this over the past week as we’ve maintained one of the fastest paced and most logistically challenging travel schedules either of us have ever experienced. Our ambitious schedule is due partially to the NGO visits we’ve had scheduled around southern India, and partially because of the sightseeing we’ve been sneaking in over the weekend. We’ve gone from Goa on the west coast of India to Bangalore in the center, to Madurai in the South, back to Bangalore, and continued 500k north to Hampi, all within the past five days. We’ve done this using almost every imaginable transportation option: a mix of planes, trains, busses, taxis, rickshaws and motorcycles. Hotels have become almost totally unnecessary, their function replaced by sleeper class services on trains and busses for three of the past four nights… there’s simply no other way to cover these distances on this kind of schedule during daytime hours. And though it’s felt chaotic at times, we’ve managed pretty well to stay on schedule, remain calm amid the chaos, and most importantly, enjoy each moment.

As we type this we’re finishing up an incredible two day whirlwind tour around Hampi and its surrounding areas, an ancient city of ruined temples, endless green rice fields, a gorgeous river valley, and the most stunning landscapes we’ve seen so far in India. Despite the difficulty in getting there, we can’t recommend this stop highly enough – an enormous prize for expanding the boundaries of your comfort zone.

Our hectic journey now continues, as we get ready to board an overnight bus to Mumbai back on the west coast, where we’ll connect by plane to Jaipur in northern India’s Rajasthan region tomorrow morning. Our NGO meetings continue there on Monday, and our lcoation there will also conveniently bring us within shooting distance of the iconic Taj Mahal in the neighboring city of Agra…. there’s a sunset photo op there we refuse to miss, and we’re hoping the weather cooperates.

Whether South Goa is a filthy dump or an epic beach destination depends entirely on your perspective. There are no nice resorts, fancy shops, white sand, or turquoise water here. Instead South Goa has shack-like huts, dirt, a long string of cheap bars and restaurants, roaming animals, and general chaos. So it’s no surprise that Goa doesn’t attract the higher end “comfort seekers” like it does the more easy going and far less boring “experience seekers”. The crowd here is a mixed bag of hippies, partiers, backpackers, adventurers, and dropouts from pretty much every corner of the Earth – the most diverse and interesting group of people imaginable that defines what Goa is all about.

Our good friend, Swifty, who sailed with us on Tamarisk from Miami to Jamaica last year, lives here and convinced us this was a place we should visit for the New Year break. Anyone who knows Swifty knows he always finds the most exotic ways to have fun, so our chances of having a good time were pretty good going in… the scooter rides, exploring down random dirt roads, finding the blue lagoon, hitting the best New Years parties…. all of it was baked into the cake before we even arrived. And for all this we owe a big thanks to Swifty.

But as so often is the case when it comes to travel, luck also played a huge role in making our Goa experience into something truly unforgettable. So we leave Goa with new friends, a few stories that shouldn’t be retold, and a strange sense that returning to Goa would be pointless because there’s no possibility another visit could ever beat our past week there. If things go to plan, we’ll be sailing through here next year on our way to the Red Sea, so we might need to put that theory to the test.

It’s time now for Eli and I to pack our bags and move into India’s interior where social problems exist and where NGOs are more active. Travel in this country is challenging because the distances are big and the numbers of people can be overwhelming – jammed roads, delayed flights, and full trains are the norm. Bangalore is first on our list and our travel schedule is intense, so our goal of catching up on sleep missed in Goa might need to wait another few weeks.