indian female travelers

Golden Highlights of 2018 – A Year of Writing, Love, and Nomadness

The whistles of a black kite which is hovering above me in the light blue sky are the only sounds that break my attention now and then. In front of me, a green parrot just flew by; I see more of them in the morning, when one after another they go, searching for grains and guavas and water and, maybe, more parrots. The coffee cuckoo, similar to the one that used to visit me in my previous apartment, also flew from one tree to another in the park in front of my writing studio.

I have stationed myself in one corner of this studio on a chatayi or as we say a mat nowadays, and from here I write my heart out. In this nomadic life, you can find me on and off in Bangalore, for I always come here to be with my partner, and thus I pen down many pieces from his vicinity with a temporary feeling of home.

Having spent more than four months now as a nomad, I have realized that you don’t have to own or rent an apartment to be at home. Neither are you always on the go even if you are living a nomadic life.

At the end of the day when I think about getting back home, I imagine a quiet place, where the bathroom taps do not drip and where I cannot hear the screeching tires or intruding honks, but I can only tune into the crickets singing songs to each other. Where I can lay on a bed or in a sleeping bag in a tent, preferably tucked away in the midst of trees, with a warm cup of tea and a book to read. From where I can make a phone call to my parents and family for they worry if I disappear for even a day. I imagine a home that is a window into the world, or it has a window from where I can see the world, which I like to have at a distance. And that is all.

Such are my preferences these days. I started penning down this article to tell you about how my priorities shaped up the year 2018, and so on I go.

Unlike the US schools, we do not have a Spanish course or learn any foreign language at schools in India, especially in the small town where I studied. I grew up studying Hindi, English, and Sanskrit. I took a French language course during college, but a few classes and a French certificate was the farthest my foreign language aptitude took me to.

When I landed in Chile to teach English, I couldn’t even speak a few simple Spanish words coherently. I started living with a Chilean host mother who took upon herself to teach me the common Spanish phrases and words so we could communicate. Thus began my struggle of learning to speak Spanish in Chile.

I didn’t know then that the Spanish language would become one of my favorites, and also my third language.

Without trying to be melodramatic, I promise that if you start speaking even the most basic Spanish travel phrases when you are backpacking in South America, you would fall in love with this language; for Spanish is a passionate dialect. Spanish words and phrases cover almost every emotion; some of the feelings that can be described eloquently in Spanish are strangled by the lack of words in other languages I speak.

Update 2024: Malaysia reopened its international borders on 1 April 2022. Get Malaysian government’s complete rules for travelers planning to visit Malaysia on the official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tourism website. I’ve also listed down the guidelines and compliances in this article on Kinabatangan river. My guide to Malaysia e-visa for Indians is recommended, too.

When I traveled to Southeast Asia this year, I knew that I would visit Indonesia, but I didn’t know where I would go from there. I zoomed out of the Asia map and turned the globe around to understand which countries were green and gave a visa on arrival or an e-visa.

The closest country to Indonesia was Malaysia, and its green footprint on the map captured my attention. Also, I am always excited to visit the less-popular places, and Malaysia is one of them. If you are planning to visit Malaysia now, you are lucky as you will see it before the country is flooded with tourists. I went to Malaysia in October, and sometimes I was the only one in a room in the entire hotel or the only one camping amongst hundred empty tents.

When I first traveled to Malaysia in 2012 for two days, my friends and I drove in and out of the Malaysia-Singapore border five times due to some immigration problems. Back then I had applied for a Malaysia visa via an agent; in those days I was not so rigid about I-will-plan-all-my-travel-myself.

This year when I googled about Malaysia visa, I found out that Malaysia now gives an eVisa to Indians which is valid for three months, and you can travel within Malaysia for thirty days on that eVisa.

Happy as a girl who had just discovered ice cream, I applied for the eVisa for Malaysia within a few hours. The next day my visa was approved.

I haven’t gone out of my friend’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 100 days of my 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 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 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 home stays 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.

english open doors camp in santiago with my students volunteering in chile

Covid-Related Travel Update, Jan 2024: Chile is open to international tourists. Visit the Chilean government’s official website for travel-related information and regulations. Don’t forget to read the government’s rules to be followed in public spaces here. My guide to Chile visa would be helpful for Indian citizens.

What does this Teach English in Chile guide contain?

ubiquotous graffitis in valparaiso in chile.jpeg

Covid-Related Travel Update, Jan 2024: Chile is open to international tourists. Visit the Chile government’s official website for travel-related information and regulations. Don’t forget to read the government’s rules to be followed in public spaces here.

I went to Chile in July 2016 to teach English in a state school. I’m not a trained teacher, but I was volunteering as part of the English Open Doors Program, an initiative of the Chilean government.

All my friends, family, relatives, and acquaintances asked me what made me go to Chile. I told them I didn’t think much. They asked me if I could speak Spanish; I replied I would learn Spanish in Chile.

My family concluded my idea to travel to South America was an immature escape as the journey would leave me all alone and financially unstable. I was sucked into a whirlpool of emotional hurdles stirred by my loved ones who asserted they cared.

I was fired. I had just ended a two-year relationship I believed was my long-lasting love. 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 lingered in my stomach. Like the one that makes you shuffle through your pockets when you walk out of your home. Later I understood I was scared: of being alone, of unknowns, and of not knowing Spanish.

I did not know that in a couple of months I would learn the foreign language and speak it fluently.

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.

A Really Helpful Read (as readers have told me): My experiential and well-researched guide to world visas for Indians

[Update 2019] : Since April 1 2019, Chile allows all Indians holding a valid US visa into Chile. So if you have a valid US visa, you don’t have to apply for a tourist visa.

Please read the official message of the Consulate of Chile:

What does this Chile Travel Guide contain?

chilean+people+culture+santiago+south+america

A month before my solo trip to Chile, I ran into Valentina. We were riding the same train from Bangkok to Siem Reap. As we got off the train, Valentina told me she was from Chile.

What a coincidence! I was just heading to Chile. Cozying into the same hostel in Siem Reap, we soon became travel friends. Call me Val, she said.

While strolling together in the magnificent Angkor Wat temple, Val asked me if I knew how Chileans greeted each other. I shook my head. I knew nothing about the Chilean culture. We were in June, and my flight ticket to Santiago was booked for the end of July. The classic me hadn’t yet applied for a Chile visa. But I wasn’t worried. I was going as a volunteer of the English Open Doors program [EODP] to teach English in Chile; I knew the program would help me arrange a visa quickly.

Val took it upon her to educate me about the traditions in Chile (and also gave me a lot of travel tips for Chile). And Val’s guidance made my six-month solo adventure through Chile a little easier. To return the kindness, I am aggregating all the unique things about the culture of Chile travelers should know.

Hope you enjoy the read.

Hyderabad Travel Memoir and Places to visit in Hyderabad in 3 Days

In 2018, I had to travel to Hyderabad twice to get my US visa. Back then I decided against writing a Hyderabad blog.

I didn’t want to write down places to visit in Hyderabad in 3 days because Hyderabad city seemed orthodox to my free spirit. Men ogled women freely while their wives roamed around the city fully clad. Hoards of men crowded the corner shops and streets while the women were nowhere to be seen. I even saw an old Muslim man pointing to me and later telling his son my clothes (a pink short-sleeved top and three-fourth jeans) weren’t decent. Though every corner of this Nawabi town was fragrant with delicacies, we had a hard time finding vegetarian food in Hyderabad.

Then I decided against my intuition of not writing about Hyderabad places.

molten golden sunset nusa penida island bali

Covid Update Jan 2024: Indonesia is now open for all travelers.

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).

The Glorious Sunset on Nusa Penida Island, Indonesia

priyanka gupta solo traveler on nyangnyang beach bali

Covid Update Jan 2024: Indonesia is now open for all travelers.

Nyangnyang Beach Bali – One of the Best Beaches on the Island

We descended the stairs on the hill shadowing the Nyang Nyang beach. And all we could see was the turquoise Nyang Nyang rolling ahead of us into infinity.