In the last 24 hours of my India trip I ate food from a street vendor, got caught in a sudden monsoon outburst and made some life-changing decisions. All in all I enjoyed life to the fullest and have absolutely no regrets.
I’ve returned to Norway a week ago and have since then battled with jetlag, general discomfort and hearing loss and excruciating pain in my right ear. Needless to say, I haven’t been myself ever since I returned. But then again, what does that even mean, “being yourself”? In the last two weeks I spent in India I’ve seen and done some amazing things. One of these things was taking a ride on a houseboat on the Vembanad lake in Kerala.
Not this houseboat though, although I would have loved to explore this deteriorating gem… We took a slightly more updated version of a houseboat, one with functioning doors and windows and no tarp hanging around the backside, if you are into these kind of things… We spent the whole day cruising along the lake, seeing rice paddies, fisherfolk and whatever else you’d expect to see at a lake in India. I even got to stir the boat. Thankfully the captain never left my side, turns out I’m definitely not cut out for this job, couldn’t keep a straight line even if my life depended on it…
After a week of enjoying everything that you could possibly think of when thinking of a lake in India (i.e. fishing, yoga at sunrise, camp fire and swims in e.coli infested waters) it was time to move on to different waters.
This pool coincidentally was also my death pool, i.e. my health downfall. My doctor is pretty confident that swimming in this pool caused my hearing loss. I’m on antibiotics as I’m writing this, so if some things don’t make sense, blame western medicine… I spent about three days in Kochi, mainly sun-bathing, eating amazing food and recharging my batteries before heading for my last stop before returning back to Oslo: Mumbai.
I am not sure, how you usually celebrate the end of a successful trip. Some people like to go out for drinks, others like to stay up all night and dance, others get tattoos. No, seriously! I mean, what better place than Mumbai the night before flying back to Norway to get a tattoo? I couldn’t think of a single thing that sounds somewhat wrong in that sentence. But either way, this is Archana, India’s number 1 tattoo artist who had the honor to tattoo me for the first and probably only time:
And this is my little India gem, after all, what better reminder of a great time in India than a tattoo?
But for now, following doctor’s orders I’ll retrieve back to my bed, resting my ear, recuperating from 7 intense weeks of Indian food, Indian sweat and Indian driving and remember all the fun adventures of #summer2k16. I am definitely looking forward to some Norwegian fall, Norwegian nature and Norwegian quietness.
A bird loves a fish 
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