India
India is where I learned, fully, to ignore what everyone else has said or warned about a place. India is a land of contradictions that I couldn’t begin to pretend to explain, except to say that it is now my favorite country on the planet. I went for three weeks in 2016 and loved it so much I went back for another three weeks a year later (from homebase in Bangkok). The color… the languages… the faiths… the architecture… the people who just want to know more about you and why you’re visiting their homeland. It is wracked with poverty and filth and its streets are choked with smog and animals, but you quickly learn to appreciate life in India as it is, and not as you think it should be. India stole my heart and I can’t wait to return again.
