Over the past few days we have had the pleasure to meet some lovely folks from all over the world, and have enjoyed breaking the metaphorical bread with them. Or perhaps in this case, breaking the chapati, parota, roti, naan…you get the idea.

We have had dinner with people from Austria, Germany, France, Mexico, England and Scotland. We then had brunch with the same Austrian and German, and ended up having coffee with the German girl.

For dinner we were joined by an Indian, American, South African and a guy from France.

Some of them are aspiring yogis taking their teacher training courses, some of them on career breaks, or a long holiday. Some of them are working on the road and some of them, us included, are on the search for adventure with no specific end date. Most of them are solo travellers and after a conversation this morning it struck me that, as a married couple, we are actually quite unusual (I mean, I knew that already but I mean in the sense of there aren’t many husband and wife teams travelling that we have met!). I really admire solo travellers, especially female solo travellers, as I don’t think I would have the balls to do it!

Being a woman in this part of the world can come with its challenges, and sometimes is handy to have a male as a travelling partner. But just generally, having someone else always there (male or female) is a help. As a second pair of eyes to look for your bus at the bus station, or to remember that you left your towels up on the roof terrace or just to have someone to share your samosa with. It comes with its own kinda challenges and there is a little less freedom to do exactly what you want to do, but luckily for us we mostly want do the same thing. If not, we compromise. Simple.

Although I’ve been rather homesick over the last few days, one of the things I love about traveling is meeting people from all walks of life and all different countries.

Sharing stories. Sharing food. Sharing ideas and travel plans. And most of all sharing the memories. And maybe most of all winning a game of Uno back at the hostel this evening.