One night in India.

The more you travel, the easier it gets... supposedly. I thought I was a great traveler: brave, worldly, open-minded. Then I went to India, and everything changed. I've never felt so illiterate or so helpless or so lost in my life, but I've also never felt so free.

I'd dreamed about India for a long time. A massive fan of Indian fiction by the likes of Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie, the India of my imagination was painfully beautiful, a contradiction of colour and suffering, a cricket-loving, gods-worshipping country that smelled like mangoes and curry. However, stepping off the plane in Delhi, already exhausted from a month of intense travel in Vietnam and Cambodia, I realised things weren't so simple.

We were headed for Rishikesh, to spend a week at an ashram, getting in touch with our more spiritual sides. First, though, we had to find the right train station. Our airport taxi dropped us at the New Delhi station, and after 45 minutes or so, it was apparent that we were in the wrong place. Cautious of being ripped off and unsure that we'd ever find our way, my friend and I located a driver who seemed legitimate enough, and jumped into his vehicle.

The night air was thick and browny-grey with smog. There were cars, so many cars, everywhere, and my tiny auto rickshaw felt entirely unsafe. I balled my hands into fists so tight that I cut the flesh of my palms with my fingernails. We slammed into a pothole as we dodged my first street-cow. As my head slammed into the edge of the rickshaw, I remember frowning at my friend, who'd been to India once before, with the most accusing look. Where the hell have you brought me?, I thought. This was not the India that I was expecting.

Once at the Old Delhi train station, we located our train with just a minute to spare before it took off into the night. Families slept despite the noise in big groups on the floor of the station, huddled beneath blankets, occasionally peering with wondering eyes at these white kids with backpacks. We were exhausted, and filthy, and hungry, and neither of us had any idea how this overnight train thing worked. Would we know when it was our stop, and wake up in time? As it turned out, that didn't matter. The train rocked and lurched with such ferocity that sleep was impossible and made a mockery of middle-of-the-night bathroom visits. Finally, our train crawled to a stop, and with tired eyes and cautious wits, we climbed out of the carriage and into the world.

An hour later I was sitting on the banks of the Ganges with my feet in the water. This was the India I was looking for. It was bustling and noisy and terrifying and it smelled funny, but it was India, and it was beautiful, and there was nowhere else in the world that I'd rather have been.