India 2025-26 – Afterthoughts

28. January 2026

 

 

This is the first photo of me on the trip – and it feels incredibly long ago. The two and a half months in India were so full of impressions, emotions, experiences, encounters, joys, frustrations, and moments of confusion that it felt like six months compressed into one. I traveled through eight states – far more than I usually recommend to my guests – and even though India is almost familiar to me by now, it was still (too) much to keep opening myself up to new regions again and again.

 

I’ll divide my afterthoughts into a few different themes:

 

India

One positive aspect of traveling through these eight states was once again realizing just how incredibly large and diverse India is. On the one hand, that’s a truism that gets repeated all the time; on the other, it’s still fascinating to experience it so directly. I encountered (almost) all religions, the widest variety of landscapes, and very different people with different attitudes and outlooks. And even though everything is different, I never once had the feeling of being in another country. It always feels like “India.” Maybe that’s because so many shops, products, trains, cars, and so on are so similar? I did have the impression that Nagaland sees itself as “far away” from India. But when I was driving through Kohima with a driver, I mentioned that it actually looks pretty much like everywhere else in India. He didn’t like that very much. Over the course of my recent trips, I’ve started filming smiling, cheerful Indians and turning the footage into a video clip. I showed an interim version to Sreejith in Kerala, and he said, “It’s beautiful that you can see the great diversity here – that’s what India is like.” I really liked that he said that.

 

What I didn’t like in India was the ever-increasing and increasingly visible amount of litter lying around. I suspect that our per-capita waste production back home is still higher, and for a long time I left it at that — even though it bothered me, of course. After all, it’s also their business how they deal with their waste. Lately, though, I’ve noticed that it weighs on me more and more. Maybe also because over the years it has never become less, only more and more and more…

 

And while I’m already complaining: I don’t like the direction tourism development is taking. At least not the sharply increased entrance fees for foreigners since 2026, nor the strange and often restrictive conditions around permits. There are different types of permits, but for the sake of simplicity I’ll group them all under the umbrella term “permit” — because what we really care about is not what it’s called, but whether it allows us to get where we want to go. Or maybe I should put it differently: as a traveler, I increasingly feel as though I’m under some kind of general suspicion. I just don’t know what I’m being suspected of — or whether it’s simply about control. But the difficulties with having a SIM card from only one telecom provider, the constant paperwork (including the C-Form) at accommodations, fingerprinting on entry, having to name an agency, and in some cases mandatory guides — all of that does not create a pleasant travel atmosphere.

 

 

ChatGPT

I used ChatGPT more and more — partly just to try things out, partly as an advisor (what to see where, etc.), and partly as a conversation partner. And it was actually the last role that worked best. Especially when it came to things I didn’t understand or wanted to know more about (for example, why the trains are so dirty), I got explanations — about issues of responsibility, time, and investment in the railway system — that I either understood right away, or could ask follow-up questions about, or add my own observations to. In the end, I had the feeling that I understood things a little better. In fact, sometimes even more than when I ask locals — perhaps also because with ChatGPT, there are no personal sensitivities involved.

 

It’s also excellent for tour leading: in the evening, you can ask questions about things you’ve encountered and then explain them better the next day. I only realized that somewhat late — and sometimes you need background information, for example about rituals you’ve already witnessed, in order to ask better questions later on. One example is the meaning of the dancers during Losar in Basgo in Ladakh — I only learned that afterward; at the time, I didn’t know exactly what was taking place.

 

Some of the information in this blog comes from ChatGPT. What unsettles me in a new way is this: I’ve always had a worldview — a kind of belief system — that was based on logic and on things you can “grasp” or verify. Now AI sometimes presents me with something that looks like logic, but is actually wrong. And that shakes my worldview. At times I asked follow-up questions, and ChatGPT had to correct itself — and in the end I arrived at a result that felt logical and consistent with my own observations and experiences. That’s what I then “broadcast” here. But can I be sure it’s actually correct? Then again, when it comes to many phenomena, there are old and new insights — and the old ones were wrong, yet at the time still “correct,” because they represented the latest knowledge available back then. I still need to think more about this whole topic and experiment further. But it’s definitely interesting

 

Where ChatGPT often wasn’t so good was with practical instructions — those were sometimes wrong (for example, information about where a bus departs from — although in that case a hotel receptionist had also given me incorrect information). But as this example already shows, it’s not always easy to get accurate information, whether from the internet or from people on the ground.

 

 

Blog

Due to the time pressure, the long travel days, and my urge to share things fairly quickly, some parts of the blog didn’t come out as detailed or as carefully worded as I would have liked. I also completely forgot some things while writing. Here’s an additional story I wanted to add:

In Kohima, Nagaland, I was at a hotel with the tour group. When I went to the reception for something, an Indian guest spoke to me. Where I was from, etc. “Ah, Germany — guten Tag!” Then he asked if he could show me something. But I had to promise him one thing: I wasn’t allowed to start scolding. Curious, I promised — and I actually managed to hold back, because I was speechless. He lifted his scarf, and on the lower part near his collarbone was a large swastika. Yes, the one from Hitler. He said he revered him. I don’t know to what extent that was in the past. In any case, it still leaves me completely speechless.

 

Another additional story:

While waiting for the tour group at Delhi airport (together with someone from the agency), we were sitting outside at a café and happened to watch a luggage-handling scene — involving an unattended suitcase. It’s the red one in the picture. Airport staff noticed it had no owner and called the police. The police then took some measures and disappeared with the suitcase. Apparently, it had actually been forgotten. Still, it was fascinating to watch the whole process unfold.

 

 

 

Best days

My happiest days were actually the ones when I went out with locals and discovered new things. The walk with Asi in Kigwema, the day with Sreejith in Pomudi, the following day in Trivandrum with our driver Asif, the bike ride with Raju and Bhakti, the motorcycle tour with Krishna in Mandu — unfortunately, there weren’t as many of these days as I would have liked. But perhaps precisely because there were so few, they felt all the more precious. Conclusion: arrange more experiences like this!

 

 

Photos/Filming

In 2023, in Kyrgyzstan, I came to the realization that I was no longer passionate about photography. Now, it’s like this: I don’t feel the urge to take photos as often, and I “see” less. But when I do notice something or manage to take a photo that I really like, it still brings me a lot of joy! That said, seeing some of the massive lenses other travelers carried sometimes made me feel smaller in comparison. I just don’t enjoy obvious picture-taking as much anymore. So more and more, I’ve been using my phone — even though I somehow still find the camera shots more satisfying. Let’s see how this develops.

 

On the other hand, I’ve been filming a lot more. By now, I’ve actually produced hundreds of video clips. But what to do with them? At first, I just wanted to experiment without any real concept. But of course, I don’t want them to just stay in the cloud. Compilations with music always work fairly well, but somehow that feels a bit too limited for me. I already have an idea for a longer film. Let’s see if — and how — I can make it happen!

 

 

Und sonst?

I didn’t laugh enough. I missed a sense of lightness. But did I gain insights and experiences? Absolutely — and I’m really happy about those! My “India puzzle” has grown enormously, with many new pieces fitting together. I still enjoy searching for and discovering more pieces — but for now, I really just feel drawn to Ladakh. I’m planning to spend the whole summer of 2026 there (with a break due to visa rules, which only allow me 90 days in India at a time). In the meantime, I’m still processing everything I experienced and produced. India remains — and will continue to be — a fascinating country.