Moi at Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India, at sunrise 2006
Moi at Kanyakumari, the southern tip of India, at sunrise 2006
Capturing the magic and mystery of travel in India
My first trip to India was a six-month odyssey in 2005-06 that took me from volunteering in Dharamsala in the north to watching the sunrise from Kanyakumari at the southern tip of the subcontinent. It was a life-changing trip, and I have been writing about India and the transformative power of travel ever since. Since then, I’ve been back to India three times (2007, 2009 and 2010), and shortly I will be leaving for my fifth trip. I will of course be blogging as I travel. My itinerary is below, but first a few words about my philosophy and mission.
Travel writer’s manifesto
There are many benefits to writing or blogging about one subject or place. For one thing, you gain a lot of knowledge and you are perceived as having expertise. For another, you develop contacts and build relationships. In my case, I write about India, South Asia, yoga, spirituality and transformative travel. From a strategic point of view, this is my niche. But I don’t write about these things for strategic reasons; I write about them because of genuine interest and pure passion.
Traveling in India really did change my life in many positive ways, and I have grown to truly, madly, deeply appreciate India, Indians and Indian culture, including yoga. For me, traveling to India in particular, and Asia in general, is not like going other places. I feel a profound sense of connection to that part of the world, and I tend to have charmed adventures.
For more than a year altogether I have traveled in India, mostly by myself, and I have been protected — like Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. I am extremely grateful. I don’t take it for granted and I don’t really understand it. I believe life is mystery, and that’s how it should be.
And like Kim, I move between cultures with a somewhat fluid sense of identity: I live some of the time as an Indian, with my Indian family in Delhi, and some of it on the road, where I am perceived as a foreigner. But India doesn’t feel all that foreign to me. I feel happier, more alive, and more connected to my imagination when I am in India than anywhere else.
So I write about India and I try and capture the magic and mystery I feel and perceive — that child-like sense of wonder that’s so easy to lose as we grow older — and the feeling I always get in India: that life is not always how it seems, that there is a mythical element underlying life, and we are lucky when we get an occasional glimpse.
So, keeping these principles in mind, I am planning my next trip — which includes visiting a Maharaja, stalking tigers, seeing the Taj Mahal at sunrise, and achieving a long-held dream: hiking in the Himalyan kingdom of Bhutan.
Lake Pichola, Udaipur, India
Lake Pichola, Udaipur, India
Mariellen Ward is a freelance travel writer whose personal style is informed by a background in journalism, a dedication to yoga and a passion for sharing the beauty of India’s culture and wisdom with the world. She has traveled for about a year altogether in India and publishes an India travel blog, Breathedreamgo.com. Mariellen also writes for magazines and newspapers.
