One Month with a Wife in India

Travel Day 918 – Fort Cochin, Kochi, Kerala, INDIA

After spending One Month with a Guru in India, now I had spent One Month with a Wife in India and while I was trying to re-assess my own situation, I ended up rather reflecting on the time we had spent together…

Sharing Laughs with Wife and Kids in India

It was funny, but during all my travels, for over two years, I had always been alone. Of course, sometimes I joined fellow travelers for a couple of days, even weeks, but it had always been very casual and I was always well aware of the fact that I could have walked away and done my own thing whenever I felt like it. The many promises by friends from home who wanted to come and visit me while I was travelling had never ever materialized and so this was actually the first time that someone came to visit me…

In this case it was not just someone visiting me, but actually my girlfriend and she was a girlfriend who I had only actually seen a handful of times during the past two years since we met in South America. While trying to have a relationship as a traveler was difficult enough, especially if email was the only medium of communication, being together all of a sudden for a full month and in an environment that was foreign, seemed to be quite a new challenge…

The challenge for me personally was not so much the environment as it was already my third time in India, but rather the fact that I felt responsible for the girl who came to travel as my wife for one month through India. Local customs obviously demanded that we appeared as a married couple while we were in India, which was not a problem, but the problem for me was rather to deal with another person on a daily basis…

Sharing Meals with a Wife in Kochi, India

But I felt during this time that we could spend together, I actually learned a lot about myself. For example, I became quite aware of the fact that I was not really used to compromising on things. Travelling all alone for an extended period of time and being able to make my own decisions every single time was not only a great quality that allowed me to do whatever I wanted and when I felt like it, but in a wifely travel situation, it was actually quite difficult sometime to always consider the other person’s ideas or feelings…

In the end it seemed the one month was not only a challenge, but also a great chance to get to know each other really well and that chance we definitely used as best as we could. For that travelling together in India was the perfect environment, because one is constantly confronted with challenging or uncomfortable situations which allowed to test out each others comfort zones and tolerance, especially in stressful situations…

So while travelling with a wife though India for one month was a really great experience and worked out surprisingly well, a few things were still worth noting. I had to realize that the way of travelling in general was slightly different and so was the overall experience. When I was on my own, I felt I experienced certain situations more strongly, because there was no buffer. Now while travelling with a partner, certain uncomfortable situations seemed rather funny because one could share a laugh and move on…

Sharing Sunsets with the Wife in India

Also while travelling alone, I normally met more people and made new friends. While travelling with a partner, it seemed we were rather contempt with each other and less open to step towards strangers. But on the other hand it was all of a sudden possible to share thoughts and situations that normally were just experienced alone. Especially being able to share laughs together, meals, long train rides or sunsets was a quality that I already missed on my first day alone…

So travelling for an extended period of time with a wife was definitely a great experience and I would recommend it to everyone, but most importantly I would do it again… : )