Despite its countless wonders and beautiful cities, India has been, without question, the most challenging country I have traveled through. Where do I begin? The attempts for my belongings, near-death traffic incidents, room break-ins, tourist scams and rip-offs… not to mention the inescapable poverty, heart-breaking hunger, and class discrimination that afflicts so many in this part of the world.

And I’ve learned that these are the reasons why we travel. Travel is not just for entertainment or pleasure, nor is it a search for a home, for meaning, nor for any of those those epiphanic moments that we so often hope to find. We travel for the pain, the literal and visceral strain we only experience in foreign locations and uncomfortable situations. Because it is this anxiety that offers us the most sublime: the opportunity to persevere and transcend.

I’ll leave the heaviness at that.

Farewell India. It’s onto the Middle East.