Let's Look at It Differently - My travel tales from around the world and my best ideas about life

100 Days of My Nomadic Life – Highs and Lows of Living While Traveling

in life life choices travel travel inspiration on December 13, 2018 December 13, 2018 with 2 Comments

I haven’t gone out of my partner’s home, where I sit and write here in Bangalore, for three days, apart from a small walk that I did to the grocery store because I wanted to eat something better than lifeless noodles with invisible vegetables. Ironically, today I am writing about my 100 days of nomadic life.

I thought that being nomadic means staying on the road 24×7, and maybe, you feel that way, too. I will get to that, but first, let us go back in time a little bit to understand how my digital nomad journey started.

I chose this life for I wanted to be location independent. I wanted to be able to travel whenever I yearned to see a new place or live in a jungle where I could only hear the crickets whistle and the leaves rustle instead of the incessant blasting traffic of Bangalore or any other metropolitan. But having a rented apartment was sort of becoming a hindrance to free movement and adding up costs without adding any value, apart from providing me with a quiet writing space with a balcony.

I thought that I better spend the money which I paid for the apartment where people shut doors on each other as if they were enemies on gorgeous Airbnb’s or friendly homestays or rustic hotels in the hidden corners of the world. At least I would explore, meet interesting people and have some meaningful conversations, and live life at my own pace.

So I gave up my room in the Bangalore flat and packed my bags to wander freely while working online. The whole idea was to move slowly; I have never found any joy in visiting a place for a weekend or two days and then leaving it, while I didn’t even know what lay in my backyard though I saw all the famous attractions of that destination. And while exploring the world one place at a time, I could afford the lifestyle of a digital nomad because of my writing portfolio.

But I have come to realize that not having a permanent location is not about traveling all the time. It is about moving with a choice.

This nomadic life has put up all sorts of choices in front of me and let me be honest with how I feel about them.

Teach English in Chile – All You Need To Know About English Open Doors Volunteer Program

in South America travel on December 8, 2018 December 11, 2018 with 3 Comments

What does this Teach English in Chile guide contain?

When Spanish Hit Me – My Heartfelt Tale of Learning Spanish in South America

in culture emotional intelligence South America story travel travel inspiration on December 3, 2018 December 11, 2018 with 1 Comment

I went to Chile in July 2016 to teach English in a state school. All my friends, family, relatives, acquaintances, and social connections asked what made me go to Chile; I said I didn’t think much. They asked me if I could speak Spanish; I replied that I would learn Spanish in South America.

My family concluded that going to Chile was an immature escape as at the end I would be alone and financially unstable. I was sucked down into the whirlpool of emotional hurdles that my family stirred in my career and personal life while being assertive that they cared.

I was fired. I had just ended a two-year live-in relationship which I believed would turn into the long-lasting love of my life. The Titanic sank. I was going to be twenty-nine soon. Friends were getting married. Babies were being born. I did not know anyone in Chile. I did not speak Spanish.

Before I left, an uneasy feeling of forgetting something lingered. Like the one that makes you shuffle through your pockets every time you walk out of your home. I understood later that I was scared: of being alone, of unknowns, and of not knowing Spanish.

I did not know then that in a couple of months I would be able to speak the language fluently.

How to Score Chile Visa on an Indian Passport – From India and South America

in South America travel visas on December 1, 2018 December 11, 2018 with 2 Comments

Chile gives free ninety-day entry to most of the countries. But, of course, India doesn’t get free access, and we have to apply for a Chile visa. I was once stuck on the Chile-Bolivia border because I didn’t have any tourist visa for Chile as I had thought that India was also in the list of those fortunate countries. How wrong I was!

Having paid more than what I should have for this mistake, I decided I would be more sincere while doing visa research and would also help other travelers by updating them with my knowledge on the world visas.

So here you go.

My Essential Travel Guide to Chile – The World’s Most Gorgeous Country

in South America travel on November 29, 2018 December 11, 2018 with 14 Comments

What does this travel guide to Chile contain?

The Culture of Chile – 13 Chilean Conventions You Should Know Before You Visit Chile

in South America travel on November 21, 2018 December 11, 2018 with 3 Comments

While we strolled through the artistic arcades of the magnificent Angkor Wat temple, my Chilean friend Valentina, whom I had run into on a train from Bangkok to Siem Reap a month before my trip to Chile, asked me if I knew how Chileans greeted each other. I shook my head expressing my ignorance of the question and the culture of Chile.

I didn’t know anything about South America or Chile in that hot month of June, even though I was flying to Chile in July, if my visa went through, which I hadn’t applied for by then. Without noticing my obliviousness, Valentina went on telling me about Chilean greetings and other customs I should have known before going to her country.

While traveling in Chile, her insights helped me throughout my six-month-long solo adventure through the passionate land. Returning the kindness, I am aggregating all those unique conventions that left an impression on me so that you are prepared to visit this beautiful land of some even more beautiful people.

My Experiential Travel Guide to Hyderabad, The City of Nawabs

in India travel on November 10, 2018 December 1, 2018 with 1 Comment

When I visited Hyderabad twice this summer for a visa, I thought that I would not write about this city. Not because it didn’t have enough archaic domes, stone-carved mosques, vast green lawns around centuries-old tombs, skeptical animals running in the rare thickets, crows and pigeons clouding the grey sky, flaky flavorful pastries crowding old bakeries, robust fort walls that sprawled through the city, ginger tea being sold at every nook and corner, and historic buildings standing bright and beautiful as proud queens amongst the hustle and bustle of an old bazaar.

But because the city was orthodox as per my ever-widening and independent taste. Men ogled women freely, while their wives roamed around the city fully-clad. Hoards of men crowded the corner shops and the streets while the women were not to be seen. I even saw an old Muslim man point out to me and tell his son that the style of clothes I was wearing (a pink top and three-fourth jeans) weren’t decent. Though delicacies sent out a spicy fragrance in every corner of this Nawabi town, we had a hard time finding delicious vegetarian food.

A Gorgeous Sunset on an Indonesian Island – With Golden Postcards of Memories

in Southeast Asia travel on October 8, 2018 November 24, 2018

Irrespective of from where and with whom you watch a sunset, each sunset is of its own kind and is perfect in its own way.

I witnessed the golden beauty submerging in the Indian ocean from the island of Nusa Penida, near Bali, and in the zen state that followed, I wrote this piece of writing which I am publishing here (with some editing).

A Day of Playing Around on the Deserted Nyang Nyang Beach of Bali– With Blue Postcards of Memories

in Southeast Asia travel on October 5, 2018 October 5, 2018 with 2 Comments

When we descended the stairs of a cliff to reach this turquoise beach visible in the distance, my nut-brown eyes first quickly scanned through the different colors that had spread themselves onto the landscape, and then they insisted on exploring each hue for prolonged periods of time and stopped listening to me.

White cottony clouds floated in a light-blue sky, which gave way to a deep-blue sea, whose green waves rolled towards us, and then they washed over the brown moss to run into the fluorescent-green corals and mix with the ink-blue pools in which black and golden stripped tiny fishes darted to and fro from one rock to another.

My Bali Travel Guide – Some of the Best Things To Do in Bali and Beyond.

in Southeast Asia travel on September 23, 2018 October 5, 2018 with 6 Comments

Bali has been a relief from the chaos of the overcrowded and the ever-rushing world. Though I had heard really touristy things about Bali, I love the place.

I have spent most of my twenty days in Ubud, old Bali with a modern twist, a village called Laplapan, which is close to Ubud, and also biking my way to far away floating temples, hidden beaches, and rice fields whose pictures were able to enchant me enough.

Before I came here, I thought Bali would be a tourist jungle packed with hotels, restaurants, tour shops, yoga centers, and bike rental shops, along with some greenery. But Ubud and Bali are places that have all these things and also have artistic temples that the Balinese people visit every day, lush paddy fields in the heart of the city, cute ducks wobbling around in open pastures, deserted turquoise beaches, hidden jungles, a cool river cutting through the middle of Ubud, splashing waterfalls, a colorful underwater world, and all with the backdrop of a gaping volcano.