The past month has flown and we have done a lot of travelling in India, touching four different states in South-, Middle and North India. In this short time we were able to see the differences between some of the different states of India very well. While Bangalore is India’s IT capital, super developed with craft beer breweries and hipster coffee bars abound, Bihar is clearly one of the poorest states, a dry state with no alcohol, with people moulding cow shit into fuel patties barehanded. After our wonderful wedding week in Pune we found our (rail)way to Mumbai, where we spent a few days exploring the city before flying to Mangalore and immediately continuing a bit north to Udupi and then onwards to Gokarna. Gokarna was one of the beach towns in South India we ... read more

Incredible India, we have arrived. After more or less 22 months of travelling we finally arrived in the one country we were almost sure about to visit, even without any planning. We have been in India a few times before and we have such fond memories making it hard to return without high expectations. As we fly in from hot Bahrain, where we have spent only one full day and night, arriving in the evening in cold smoggy Delhi is a little bit of a test. But as soon as we step out of the taxi at Connaught Place, check in to a familiar hotel, recognise the surrounding restaurants and have a late dinner of spicy Indian delicacies and even an Indian Gin & Tonic, we immediately feel at home and at ease. We ride with ... read more

In this blogpost we'll just share some personal reflections, our next blogpost will tell more about where we went, what we saw and did. "Iran .... we feel sad leaving you and your beautiful people behind, we hope all our so called 'leaders' will not screw up too much ..." It is with mixed feelings and thoughts that we have left Iran, after travelling through the country for 60 days. It has been quite an experience, a very real travelling experience I would say. Iran has left an enormous impression on us with all its nature, culture, history, food, beautiful buildings and of course people. We have found that we still learn new things, cultures and languages. We enjoy meeting new people and talking about the commonalities and differences in our lives. We love seeing new ... read more

This blog post has not just written itself and we found it hard to briefly describe our past month of travelling in Iran without using all the clichés, without sounding like a tourism promotion brochure and without sounding like we are all naive and don't see the more difficult side of the country and it is complex and difficult to understand politics. We simply love Iran and the Iranians. Travelling in Iran is an extremely positive experience. Iran has varied nature, a long interesting history, a beautiful distinct culture, architectural beauties and the most hospitable welcoming people of the world. The infrastructure and public transport is very good and comfortable, which makes travelling very easy and (currently with a very weak currency) very cheap. We have travelled from Tehran via the mountains of Qazvin and Alamut ... read more

After 18 months of travelling we headed home to spend exactly one month in the Netherlands. What a month! We were looking forward to and needed some serious TLC from our loved ones, as most of them we had not seen for 1,5 years. Being in the Netherlands as part of our travels was quite an intense experience. On a daily basis we have met for dinner, drinks, a coffee or tea or lunch with different friends and family. Some of it planned, because we wanted to make sure that we could spend sufficient quality time with them, but we also left time open for spontaneous meet ups. We felt loved by our friends and we felt at home with our families. We laughed, drank wine (a lot!), we ate great food (a lot!), partied. We ... read more