It is always hard to summarize a trip and find the words to express how you felt about a place. India was an amazing and unique experience that neither if us will soon forget! We met incredible people, saw things you can never put into words and left India knowing that we will likely someday return.
We were reading through an older lonely planet and it featured a summary that was more eloquently worded that we ever could write so here it is... We think it sums it up pretty well.
India, it is often said, is not a country but a continent. From north to south and east to west the people are different, the languages are different, the customs are different, the country is different. There are few countries on earth with the enormous variety that India has to offer and it's a place which somehow gets into your blood. Love it or hate it, you can never ignore India. It's not an easy country to handle and more that a few visitors are are only too happy to finally be getting onto that aircraft and flying away. Yet a year later they will be hankering to get back.
It all comes back to that amazing variety - it is as crowded as it is vast, as luxurious as it is squalid, the plains are as flat and featureless as the Himalayas are high and spectacular, the food is as terrible ad it can be magnificent (we actually found the food to always be incredible!) , the transport as exhilarating as it can be boring and uncomfortable. Nothing is ever quite as you expect it to be.
India is by far the easiest country in the world to travel around. It can be hard going, the poverty will get you down , the bureaucracy would try the patience of even a Hindi saint and even the most experienced travellers find themselves at the end of their tempers at some point in India.
Yet it is all worth it as it truly is one if the most special places on earth.
