Covid stopped SO many things – including our family’s ability to travel to India to see our family. Restrictions have finally loosened a little (imagine if we were forced to quarantine inside India and not able to return back to work/school – eek!), and we were able to travel to New Delhi and Nagaland. I’m excited to share some of my India travel photography for fun :).
When you hear the term “colors of India” – it truly is a magical experience to see the streets and people of India. There is such beauty and joy in the eyes of children in the villages. My husband grew up in a very remote place that you probably gleaned over in the first paragraph and wondered if I made it up. Nagaland is in the northeast part of India (when you’re looking at a map, it’s the little part that’s barely connected by a piece of land).
Nagaland has a unique history – historically, they were headhunters and thus visitors were rare (right?!). Their ethnicity and culture is SO different from the rest of India, it’s like visiting a different country. You might be wondering if I was worried about my head on the trip – thankfully, missionaries came to Nagaland years ago and brought the Gospel. Nagaland now has a high percentage of Christians, and you will hear the expression that they went from being headhunters to soul-hunters.
My son, Noah, is eight year’s old and this trip was at such a formative time in his life. I was excited for him to visit an orphanage (we let him choose items from the store to purchase for them and candy, of course). He handed out food to the kids, saw poverty firsthand and witnessed much in our few weeks there. Noah loved to read signs he found funny on the back of cars or sides of buildings as we were traveling. His favorites were: “don’t spit on the wall” and “drive carefully, unless you have an urgent meeting with God.” Mommy was loving India travel photography so much, she captured ALL these special moments.
With all the fun, there were definitely challenges. Noah is a super picky eater – I expected that we would have difficulties but I had no idea… he struggled with even rice as he said it looked different than back home. After one week of him refusing a lot of food and going to sleep feeling hungry most nights, we found a road side shop (think tiny little shack) that had bags of Lays potato chips hanging up. I gave Noah the equivalent of $2, and he bought out the entire shop’s inventory. He WAS elated!
Ezra, our three year old, had his own form of fun. He LOVED playing with an endless number of sticks and LOTS and lots of dirt. He mistook the chicken poop as something he could play in a few times as well – village life is so fun for little ones. He loved the animals and kids running around. His favorite part of the trip by far was getting to sleep with mommy every night (while I found this to be the most challenging as he snores and kicks!).
It truly was a wonderful experience – 8 planes, numerous cars and over 60 hours of traveling… but look at these pictures of India travel photography. Wow. How beautiful are the colors of India and even more so the people. <3
Loved these pics? Check out more of my blog :).